Full Bleed 10th Anniversary – An Interview With Alex Corporan

Intro & Interview by Tom Ianelli
Headline & Strapline Photos by Greg Navarro
All Other Photos by Full Bleed Archive [Credited Underneath]

Ten years ago, to try and make his love for New York skateboarding translatable, Alex Corporan (with the help of Ivory Serra and Andre Razo) published Full Bleed: New York City Skate Photography, a hefty book of photos with no text, chronology or page numbers.

When you open Full Bleed, each photo has such strong associations and connections that a story starts to develop as you turn the pages. This story is aggressive and brutal one moment, then tender and communal the next. There are instances of grief, elation, spontaneity and triumph, but whether you pore over every image, or passingly look at a page or two, the book most effectively serves as a reminder that New York City is constantly redefining itself, and that the only way to make the most of it is to walk out your door and live in it, preferably with a skateboard in hand.

This month, Alex is publishing a 10th anniversary edition of Full Bleed with 96 extra pages and an introduction by Tony Hawk. I sat down with him to chat about his extensive skate history and get his take on the 10th anniversary reissue.

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That’s A Crazy One

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Imagery from New York skateboarding’s most romanticized decade is finite. The city spent half of the nineties without an industry, so all the existing artifacts have been reblogged, reposted and #TBT-ed a million times — Zoo, Kids, Ari Marcopoulos’ Metropolitan ads, a couple early 411 or Transworld montages, and then it runs scarce.

What does remain is people’s private collections (e.g. you may remember the homemade SkateNYC videos that made their way online back in 2011.) High and Mel Stones are two girls who grew up alongside many of the names you’d immediately associate with that era of skateboarding in New York, touting a camera from their respective school photography programs along with them. After posting outtakes on their Instagram over the past year, they are releasing a book of personal photographs from those years to celebrate the lifelong friendships they created in that time. We asked Mel to caption some of those images. The book can be purchased on ThatsACrazyOne.com, and all proceeds will be donated to the photo department at Lincoln High School in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

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The 2016 Quartersnacks Year in Review: 25-16

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Late start to the annual “Year in Review” series, but we weren’t about to let up on one of our favorite annual traditions in this occasionally great but more often awful year. We are going to condense the first installment into ten entries for the sake of time. One a week from here on out though :)

Past Editions: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010

25. Pratt Degrees Get Put To Use

The 2016 reality of bust-free spots in the nation’s largest city is grim (e.g. they knobbed a bump in the ground this year, and people are literally interrupting their lives to argue about the placement of a trash can on the street.) And so, New York’s underemployed population of industrial design grads began to ransack the plastic horizontal beams off construction barriers city-wide, and stacking them to create some sort of pathetic poverty row parking block.

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You Should Bounce

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Salute to any brave souls skating today. Supposed to hit almost 100.

Josh Stewart uploaded Quim Cardona’s Static IV part to YouTube this weekend.

“By the time the 1980s rolled around, neurotic Americans had a myriad of threats from which to choose, including annihilation via thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union, drugs, and lil’ old Satan—vis-à-vis metal. Interestingly, all three of these all-consuming fears produced timeless art, i.e. Red Dawn, Rocky IV, Straight Outta Compton, and the 101 Natas “Devil Worship” board. Frozen in Carbonite examines the relationship between satanic iconography and skateboarding.

“[Ricky Oyola] had no pop. He had some tricks but he was a jock, man. He was good but he wasn’t Fred Gall.” Chromeball interviewed Brooklyn native, Ryan Hickey.

Big week for opinions re: Oyola. Bobshirt interviewed Danny Garcia. And nobody sit here and talk like Chad Fernandez hasn’t altered the course of skateboard history.

The Shady One™ has a website up for his new brand: Iggy.nyc.

The new Sour promo gets our best Euro vid of 2016 [thus far] nod. Friday’s QS Top Ten had bits of it, but that full Gustav Tonneson part is awesome.

A video interview with Philly Santosuosso that breaks down the realities of running a skateshop. [Sidebar: Ok, we got a “Married to the Game” instrumental, but could we please get one of the Esco Terrestrial intro without all the talking over it?]

Midtown, 2010-2014 via Hit You Off Management to Bernard Herrman’s last film score.

Taji / Vice skated a bunch of Trump buildings with Leo, Billy, etc. — but somehow missed the one on 47th and 1st Avenue that Matt Daniels 5050ed the sign at in his Outdated part (fwiw, it probably has the best skate spot out of any Trump building, but those benches on 60th and Broadway were fire when we were like, 13.)

Chill summer iPhone video via Jesse Alba with some Paul Tucci sightings :)

The Seasons boys are premiering a new video on the 23rd.

Wallies on moving Citibikes and people starting to skate the Dumbo bump to hill / 2006 Spot of the Summer again Evan Dittig’s HYD part.

YO, what the hell is the deal with that Fat Kid Skatepark? It seems like it has looked like this for the past half year plus. This would be an ideal time of year for elsewhere to take some of the crowd that makes its way to L.E.S. by noon, or like, nice to have another skatepark with some shade. Who’s got the insider info? They may as well have let the manny pad, rail and benches run for the summer…

Quote of the Week: “People ask what the 25¢ on my shirt means and I tell them that’s what my checking account says.” — Dylgr

The shrimp is coming…

A 1995 Portral Into 2016

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No matter how advanced things seem, fundamental artifacts remain timeless. When stuff gets too technical, too big and too hard to keep track of — simple, refined skating stands out amid the stair-counting. It’s part of the recipe behind today’s moment for small companies and slimmed-down trick lists.

Ride On is a 1995 Deluxe promo that doesn’t get the same nostalgic love as say, Non Fiction or Fucktards do. It resurfaced during a ATCQ #musicsupervision wormhole that turned into a Joey Bast wormhole once his Silver part ended.

The promo struck a chord for more reasons than the #pants. While it probably won’t incite the “come out today and still hold up”-hyperbole that was discussed last week, it does seem oddly current and in tune with what’s going on throughout skateboarding’s more refined palette today, particularly in New York. From Huf’s one-or-two push lines that include nothing more than 180s, trashcans, streetgaps and maybe a kickflip, to a time when a really good 360 flip off a bump was “enough” to end a section off with — it all came back with a vengeance as we began to drift away from the age of after-black hammers and taking five years to film a video.

Added bonuses are Quim beginning his reign as the greatest two-5050s-in-one-line practitioner ever, front of Union Square lines that wouldn’t look out of place if they were HD in a 2016 Johnny Wilson video, Ethan Fowler skating Pier 7 unlike anyone famous for skating Pier 7 would skate Pier 7, and Ryan Hickey doing a four-trick Astor line that’s about half as long as the 44-second YouTube compilation of all his footage.

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