by Tim Fielder
For the past 5
months I have had the opportunity to live, skate, and take skate
photos in a foreign country. This has been more like a dream cause
I'm now getting paid to take photos. It gets pretty busy when you
have school, want to skate, take photos, and getting used to living
in Japan. I was lucky to meet some very helpful people along the
way.
The overall skate
scene in Japan is very interesting from an American's point of view.
I know skaters from the kid down the street to Japan's top pros.
The one thing that they all have in common is skateboarding. Even
though it's only 35 degrees outside, you will see them skating 6
hours straight. Even with their clicks, they all seem to come together
when they skate.
With Tokyo being
so crowded it makes it difficult to find wide open skate spots like
in the US or Canada. You may find the perfect rail or stairs, but
the approach will be only 10 feet long. Finding spots here has been
fun, and since I'm shooting for a magazine here, knowing a wide
variety of spots is very important.
Here are some of the photos I took
since I've been here. There will be more along the way and there
are more in Wheel Magazine and Ollie Magazine.
Now, I'd like to thank the people
who have helped me out since I've been here and who opened doors
for me I thought would be closed: Yukihisa and Hisashi Nakamura,
Bainin Skate Supply, Yousuke Maruyama, Ozawa san, Kuwabara san,
0113, Akiba skaters, IKB skaters, the Okanos,
and finally my mom and dad who flowed me some cash when the
yen ran dry. Thanks everyone. Keep it real
and keep skating, no matter where you live!
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