Photo: Transworld Cover – November 2000
Dave Swift

Skater: Heath Kirchart
Trick: Backside Tailslide
Spot: Oceanside 13
Oceanside, California
United States

Footage: Transworld, “Sight Unseen” (2001)

Additional Notes:
skately – Oceanside High School
Footage of this trick is in the Bonus Footage of “Sight Unseen”, rather than Heath Kirchart’s actual part.
Trick and Cover is described by Dave Swift in The Berrics, “In The Loupe – Dave Swift On Heath Kirchart” (2016).
Blog post by Dave Swift describing the Trick and Cover;
“When I got the chance to shoot the cover of a Photo Annual I was so hyped and knew that Heath Kirchart was the right guy to shoot. We talked and he came up with the idea of using a giant American flag as the background for the spot he’d be skating. I didn’t have one so Heath went out and bought one on his own and started thinking of a spot and trick. The first spot we tried was in LA so I filled my car with some humans ([Shad Lambert] and [Tania Moyron] were two of them) and drive up to meet Heath. Arrived at spot around 1:00 AM and it was super windy which affected skating and flag holding. After a few back Smiths Heath decided he was over it and wanted to come up with a better trick and spot. A couple days later we met him across the street from Oceanside High at 1:00 AM where he informed us the gate was locked but he would go cut the chain with his Sawsall. We could hear him trying to cut the links from across the street and after several minutes he gave up and came up with a different way to get through the fence–drive his ex-police car into the gate. Yeah, exactly what he did and a few minutes later we met him inside, got generator and lights going, hoisted flag and Heath started going for a backside tailslide. This was pretty much the first time I used a Hasselblad and I wasn’t super happy how the photos came out (some motion blur) but this was the image Heath liked best. My 35mm shots from a different angle were my favorites but the angle wasn’t what Heath had in mind.”