Ryan Smith in Biarritz

I was on tour with the DC skateboarding team promoting the DC skate video. We had to do 16 stops in 30 days around the world. We were bouncing from place to place and the team was partying like rock stars. One of our stops was in Biarritz, France which is a pretty cool town on the beach near the border of Spain. It's amazing and reminds me a lot of the beaches in San Diego- okay maybe La Jolla. Ryan Smith was turning pro at the time, and had tons of energy. Like most skaters his age, and confronted with way too much money and no responsibilities, things can get a bit dicey. Often by mid day, he'd be deep in to his 4th or 5th drink and his shirt would almost always come off, in public, at a restaurant, it didn't matter. His jeans were always sagging, and needless to say, it always looked like he was just in a train wreck.

I usually had my cameras to document the trip and I decided to grab my Hasselblad and a roll of film and a slaved strobe. When I got home I decided to cross-process it to make it a bit more "unnatural." He was drinking Heineken and it was perfect for the hot summer day. Heineken in Europe tastes better than what we get here. The green bottles let UV light in faster and the beer we get tends to be a bit skunkier with the extra time that it takes to get to us- well at least that's the rumor. Maybe it just tastes better when you are sweating balls. Anyways, I had a few too, and we had to hustle since we were preparing to go to that night's premiere with over a 2000 screaming kids waiting to see the movie. That was always followed up with some extravagant dinner, then late night party with VIP status. We'd start all over again the next day. Ah, to be young again. Buzz, buzz.