Photo: Skateboarder Cover – March 2002
Mike O’Meally

Skater: Eric Koston
Trick: Backside Lipslide
Spot:
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
United States

Footage: Girl, “Yeah Right!” (2003)

Additional Notes:
Mike O’Meally on shooting the photo, from chromeball interview #123:
“Weren’t you also shooting him at the White Hubba in Philadelphia for Menikmati when he murdered it that night?

Yeah, he ended up getting the cover of Skateboarder that night with a backlip down it. If I remember right, he started with the backlip and also came away with a back 5-0 and frontside 180 nosegrind. All over the course of maybe an hour. McCrank was there and frontside 5-0’d it, too. Heavy sesh, man. That thing is huge.

I remember Fat Bill taking us there to check it out and Koston just went to work. It was one of those instances where I actually started to get nervous as I set everything up. Because this was some real next-level shit. What if my flashes don’t work? Am I shooting this from the right angle? There’s just so many factors and you always want to do your best. Nobody wants to blow it.

But Koston was on a hot one, man. Hammering out tricks. I’m pretty sure the backlip was maybe 2nd try. Because the proof sheet only had two frames and the first one, my framing was really bad. So I adjusted real quick and next thing I know, he’s rolling away. The frontside 180 nosegrind took a little longer for him, though. He got beat up a few times on that one.

I remember thinking over the course of all that, I’d better adjust my angles between tricks so everything doesn’t look identical to each other. Because everything was so heavy, I wanted them all to get used. The fisheye would’ve been wrong for the 180 nosegrind anyway… so yeah, it worked out pretty well.”

trickReport.com – covers: Skateboarder, March 2002