WORDS & PHOTOS | EDWIN TEGTMEYER @KNIPS.ED
LAYOUT | VISUAL DIRECTOR JONATHAN LABEZ @JMLABEZ
Having just moved to Berlin, I’ve slowly been connecting with the local blade scene and discovering spots around this dense city. When my good friend Moza mentioned Abriss Berlin’s 9th street competition, I knew couldn’t miss out on the event and made sure to mark it in my calendar.
The weather was perfect the day of competition. I packed my skates and my analog camera with a few different rolls of film for the day.
The competition spanned four iconic street spots. Each location had its own challenges, both for the skaters and while I was behind the camera. From smooth, sunlit curbs to rough stair sets and rails, every spot perfectly showcased Berlin’s rawness and grit.
Some of the European pros in attendance included Eugen Enin, Jo Zenk, Levi van Rijn, Dominic Bruce, Michael Müller, Martin Danning, Bastian Thüring, along with South American pros Felipe Rojas Donaire and Matias Veras.
When shooting on a digital camera, the fast motions of inline skating typically requires taking hundreds of photos and spending hours sorting and editing my favorites. When it comes to analogue photography, I chose to limit myself to a 35mm lens on a Nikon F3.
Shooting entirely on film is risky. There’s no visual feedback to adjust the appropriate camera settings, unlike shooting with digital.
Early in the day, I loaded a roll of Kodak Gold 200 and tried to find the right spots to shoot from. About ten minutes into the second spot at Poco parking, I finished off the first roll and I immediately loaded a roll of Kodak Portra 400. I wanted to capture the warm sunlight hitting the spot, something this film stock is great at!
I kept thinking the light couldn’t get any better than this—until we arrived at the third spot. The sun was shining through a tree next to the stairs. It perfectly lit the skaters from behind, adding a natural highlight. By this point in the day, I only had a few frames left of Portra 400. My last option was a black and white roll of Agfa Photo’s APX 100. It’s a film that needs a lot of light and longer exposure times.
Knowing I’d be working in low light and would end up with blurry shots using asa 100 film, I decided to use the blur to my advantage. I experimented with longer exposure times to show the skaters’ speed. I started with a 1/30 second exposure working up to 1/2 second. Once the film was developed, I could see 1/2s was the right amount of motion blur to track grinds on the short handrail.
The best part of shooting on film is the anticipation. I don’t know what I’ve captured until the film is developed. When I saw the scans, I couldn’t have been happier with how they turned out. The unpredictable process of film captures the energy and mood at events in a way digital photography just can’t match in my opinion.
— Eddie
