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The Legacy of Warren Bolster, Master of Skateboard Photography
Published by Concrete Wave Editions – Limited Edition Hardcover
Just the other day I was on the phone with my childhood friend Tom catching up about our lives and the conversation eventually segued into the amount of time that I have spent skateboarding in my life. You see, he and I were neighborhood kids that grew up skating together on our street. Since those years, he had long left the skateboarding “fad”, moved out of state, hit the chemistry labs in college, pursued his dreams and moved on to raise a family. Noticeably, today he is thirty pounds overweight and looks more than ten years older than I do. His aged appearance truly gives support to my belief that “Skateboarding is the fountain of youth.” Once you let go of an active lifestyle you become more rigid and greyer by the day.
Anyhow, I told him about the book that I had recently received courtesy of Michael Brook from Concrete Wave Editions titled, “The Legacy of Warren Bolster, Master of Skateboard Photography.” Tom instantly recounted the summer day that we both saw the shot of Greg Weaver carving a pool (below the light) on the cover of Skateboarder magazine in the summer of 1975. That single photograph blew our minds and captivated our interest in seeking out pools and getting vertical from that day forward. Tom’s memory is still quick and he continued to describe many of the influential and groundbreaking images that appeared within the pages of Skateboarder magazine in those four short years. Fittingly enough, a majority of those mentioned by him were published in this book highlighting Warren Bolster’s collection of work, his vision and his legacy. There is something strong to be said about a photograph that stops you dead on the page and mesmerizes you. And that was the feeling that both Tom and I experienced upon flipping through the magazine’s pages each month as pre-teens.
From the groundbreaking moment that urethane wheels gave skateboarding an initial rebirth in the mid 70s, Warren Bolster was at the forefront of a movement that shaped a generation of crazed youth. As new talent and terrain quickly emerged, he helped to usher in the new stoke of skating as the editor of Skateboarder. Much of the magazine’s published photography from those first three years included his creative and visual accounts of the rapid rise of modern skateboarding as we knew it. From Greg Weaver to Laura Thornhill to Steve Cathy to Doug Saladino to Tony Alva to Wally Inouye and beyond, Warren was there in the thick of the action and bringing it to skaters around the globe.
Importantly, Bolster was among the first to implement the use of the fisheye lens in his work…it’s still considered a standard piece of equipment in the skate media today. In fact, aside from shooting in available daylight, Warren often experimented with many other pieces of photo equipment as well. Chronoscopes (multiple high speed strobes) and lens filtration were just some of the trial and error images that graced the pages in the magazine back then. Throughout this book’s 160 pages of historic and compelling images, there are many descriptive captions and anecdotes that collectively reveal the cumulative moments of skateboarding’s emergence and the monthly magazine that pushed it forward—all through Warren’s recollection.
Through and through this book is a must have for any true skateboarder young or old…as it seems to strike your nerves for all the right reasons. For without a past you have no history and certainly no future. It can be ordered directly through tailtap.com or select skateshops and retailers. It is certainly well worth the investment.
by BK

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