Bondi Vans Bowl-A-Rama Turns 10 Pt 2; Sydney

More images from this weekend's Sydney Vans Bowl-A-Rama - with today's set focusing more on the colourful array of people that flocked to this iconic event, including the guys at the incredible Pretty Shady team - if you've not been following their work then check it out!

Pack your passport and get ready for a journey back to the Northern Hemisphere, as we'll be heading back to Europe tomorrow with more content from the streets of London!

2013 Round Up; February

Feb saw more cosmopolitan content with IDYSM travelling between London, Sydney and Melbourne.
Starting with Sydney, the 2013 Vans Bowl-a-Rama saw the iconic Bondi skate bowl attract a global crowd, and I was honoured to shoot skate legend Steve Caballero.
Melbourne and London offered up some amazing eclectic street findings (as always), and in Feb I was also privileged to showcase the video content I Directed for Vanishing Elephant's fantastic Autumn '13 campaign.

Chima Ferguson x Vans Video BTS

Thanks for the great feedback on the Vans x Chima Ferguson vid from a few weeks ago (see here).

Here are some shots from behind the scenes of the vid's shoot.  Big thanks to Anthony De Sylva for sharing his skating skills.

Ryder; Sydney

Ryder Lawson is a skater from Oz who has superstar written all over him.  He may only be 16 but
he's already part of the Australian Red Bull skate team, has a shoe deal with Globe, clothing deal with Hurley, and is part of some skate groups with serious cred like Flip in the US.   Needless to say, he's not on his way to becoming a great skater, he is already one!
Ryder was helping with some skate filming I was doing in Sydney, and kindly took the time to pose for these shots.
He's wearing some Globe Skate Shoe's in the form of the Mark Appleyard designed 'Mahalo', a Pro skate shoe that was designed by skater Mark Appleyard to look great, and also skate well.  Apparently the shoe is also designed to represent the 'Aloha' spirit and a cool island vibe.  I'm not so sure about that, as all I could see was Ryder shredding up the city, something he will continue to do around the world as his star continues to shine.

Chima Ferguson; Sydney

This week has offered a real mixed bag of sneaker stories, and in Chima we can end with a story of someone whose shoes have played an integral part in transforming his life.
Originally from the Burbs in Sydney, Chima Ferguson's skating talent has seen him become an International star, and is now part of the heralded Vans Pro Skate team, not bad for a kid from Oz!
He was recently back home to showcase his signature shoe and I was lucky enough to meet him, and shoot him (and his shoes) in the above exclusive shots, and this will act as something of a teaser as I'll also be posting an exclusive video I made about Chima too in the coming weeks.  Stay tuned!

Nathan; Sydney

Say hi to Nate, a mate of mine who it's taken way too long to feature on IDYSM.  He's a very talented Editor that I have the pleasure of working with regularly on when I'm Producing different TV shows, and when we decided to rock up to the office in some pretty special kicks there was no doubt that it was finally time to give him his IDYSM debut.

Nate's a big sports fan and his shoes reflect this interest with most of his kicks being skate related, but in these DC P.K. Gatsby shoes his love of BMX'ing is also clear to see.

Only 1500 pairs of these shoes were dropped worldwide to celebrate the 2007 limited edition project named '30 Years of Radness' which honoured the original P.K. Ripper bike and saw DC produce this select and highly sought after shoe which features the SE wings embroidered on each shoe side, a P.K Ripper heel tab, an insole with a classic BMX racing image and a colourway that mirrors the custom P.K. bike colourway. 

A great effort from Nate, I just wish he spent this much effort on his jokes which are quite possibly worse than mine (which is saying something!).

Ant; Sydney

Say hi to my mate Ant.  He's a great guy and helps me out on a few shoots here and there, so it's about time we featured him on the site.
He's a big skater and also a very talented skate film maker so it's pretty safe to say he lives and breathes skating 24/7 and as you can see it's even infiltrated his style choices.
From what I have seen of Ant his shoes are always skate shoes, and his current shoe of choice is the DC Nyjah S, the signature shoe of Nyjah Huston, an American skater who won the 2012 Street League Skateboarding Championships.
I don't know much about skating but while the shoe looks pretty good to me, more importantly for Ant is the fact that the shoe is comfortable and strong so it can cope with anything and everything he puts them through...and what I get him to put them through as well I guess as the last shoot we did saw him running up and down Bondi beach with a camera mounted on his head...sorry mate!

Bowl-a-Rama 2013 Reportage Pt 4

Daniel; Sydney

Daniel is a skater with pure and simple tastes, he's been rocking DC shoes for as long as he can remember as in the brand he has found a no-nonsense brand that caters for his needs - comfort, and skating ability.

This is the interesting thing with skaters, a lot of the time the look of a shoe comes secondary to comfort and practicality and in the Black 'DC Tonik mid, Daniel has the shoe that does everything he needs it to do.

Bowl-a-Rama 2013 Reportage Pt 3