That is what the observer-participant dilemma is. We get to a swimming hole and I’m sitting there like, “Do I want to document this or do I want to have fun and swim?” Sometimes you can’t do both. I can’t just leave my camera out in the dirt somewhere while I’m swimming. It’s an either-or situation sometimes. So that’s what I mean, there were times I just ended up participating and not photographing stuff.
Video has been the currency for skateboarding for so long, teams would build up clips to make a video and that was the main goal. And now, everything is just shared on Instagram immediately. It has ruined the whole framework of how skate videos were made, how a lot of companies made money. But that’s really hard to do now because there’s just so much you can see online. People do save up video parts, but then they drop on the Thrasher site for free and people watch, and it feels like it has about a two-week shelf life. I think that’s why people look back to some of those older videos with nostalgia.