// Blabac Photo - The Art of Skateboarding Photography //
Midway through my second post at DC Shoes, Mike Blabac approached me about collaborating on a book project. He had been at DC as our in-house Skateboarding photographer for about a decade, maybe a little more at the time. Mike and I had been friends for years and worked on many work assignments together throughout my time at DC. When the opportunity to assist in Mike’s vision of what a Skateboard Photo Picture Book was to be, I jumped in with him and Tom Jones and got to work.
We all worked diligently after work hours on the project as we agreed with management that it wouldn’t affect our current projects and deliverables. We went through many rounds of revisions and color proofing in the 3-4 month period it took it to complete the book creative and pre-production.
Once the Book was ready for print the DC executives elected to support the promotion and launch of the book with a limited edition collaboration/commemorative shoe and a nationwide gallery tour where prints, the book and the shoes were sold.
It was published in 2009 and is still available today. Amazon link below.
https://www.amazon.com/Blabac-Photo-Art-Skateboarding-Photography/dp/1576875156
Working with Mike and Tom on this passion project was deeply rewarding on many levels. It offered a fresh look at skateboarding culture through an insider’s lens, presented as a premium-quality, oversized hardcover coffee table book. Wow. At the time, only a handful of books like this existed. The hours spent side by side with Mike and Tom—two brilliant creative minds—were filled with idea-mashing, lightbox image edits, layout explorations, pagination debates, cover concepts, and whether or not to include the raw, scanned image borders. The entire production process was a joy, and the moment we held that first off-the-press copy in our hands was unforgettable. To this day, I still pick up the book, admire it, and am instantly transported back to those nights and days.
It remains one of those rare projects that not only celebrates a culture, but also marks a moment in time—one I feel grateful to have been part of.