AVE WEEK DAY 4: ACOSTA'S ANGLES

Anthony Van Engelen is rolling on like a freight train on the Vans site. If you missed his old ads or interviews or the exclusive interview we did just head over to AVE's page to get up to speed.
The relationship between a skater and his photographer and filmer is a unique one and it can make or break a career. Many times the best tricks have been discounted because of shitty angles, with no fault to the skater. At Vans we’re lucky to have two of the best in the business in filmer Greg Hunt and photographer Anthony Acosta helping us show you all the great skating our guys are doing for this upcoming Vans video. For the 4th day of Anthony Van Engelen Week we dug through Anthony Acosta's archives for some of his favorite shots of AVE and we had him tell the stories behind them.

ACOSTA’S ANGLES OF ANTHONY VAN ENGELEN

Straight up, this is Van Engelen going to work. Parking outside of the ditch and getting ready to get down. That is AVE in a nutshell; always down to do work. That’s why I like this picture, it just says, “Let’s do this.” So many times we’ll be skating with so many skaters and Greg has 50 things, I have 50 things in my hand and the skaters have nothing in their hands and they skate right by. As you can see, AVE isn’t like that. He’s like, “Give me more than anyone else can hold and I’ll hold it all.” Hard worker right there. And I feel like every time we go out lately it’s some kind of cool mission where we got to clean out a ditch or cut a fence or whatever. I think he’s just trying to skate different things, things that people haven’t skated that require some work.







The photo with the gun was in China and it was raining outside and I was inside getting a coffee. I came out and I have no idea what that Westerner kid was doing there but he had a scooter and AVE had his scooter with his toy gun. I didn’t have enough time to take a perfect photo, I just grabbed a camera and started shooting but when I came home and saw the contact sheet of that I was just laughing. I just think it’s great that AVE has this stone cold persona and these photos just show his light-heartedness.
The hardest thing about picking the photos for AVE’s Week was that I have literally thousands of photos of him from shooting catalogs and being on trips with him and all of them are with the stone cold AVE look. But I think it’s just his look, from all he’s been through with addictions and how he grew up, he has the look like he’s done time. If you can get past that he’s so rad: he’s a hard worker and he’s got a great sense of humor. He’s so funny and quick but he’s not real flamboyant about it. Not everyone gets to know he’s like that which is rad because when he does point a gun at you on a scooter you’re like, “What the hell?”
So I was trying to gather some photos that show him with his guard down like him and Omar [Salazar] on that swing in Mexico or him doing backside tailslide with a fingerboard; you just wouldn’t expect him to do that.
I even have a photo of him smiling at the camera. That’s like a winning lottery ticket right there! You’ll catch a moment him smiling but smiling for the camera…over the thousands of photos I have of him this is the only one I have.




This was in China at this University with tons of skatespots. It was rad because you don’t really see AVE skating steep bank/channel-type things too often and that thing was steep. Gilbert was trying to ollie it at first and he couldn’t get his legs to adapt to it. We’re sitting there and we’re trying to figure where to go next and AVE starts blasting over it. He ended up frontside ollieing that thing a few times. He’s a well rounded skater and you might not see that too much because the things he really wants to film or portray are gnarly ledges and hubbas. But it’s also cool that he knows what he wants. We’ll be on trips and he’ll be looking for the one or two spots that really get him psyched. He’s not going to skate everything on a trip, he’s going to skate what he likes. He knows to pick his battles smartly and when he sees something that sparks him he’ll straight go to it. Like this photo of him in Munich on one of our last trips, we were trying to find a bunch of stuff to skate and we’re checking out this weird rail thing and AVE came back and was like, “I found this spot!” We went over to this 12-stair over this fence that was super narrow with the worst cobblestone landing and he wanted to ollie it. It was so big and he just starts hucking himself down it and he put it down quick. He knows what he wants and he handles it. Whereas young kids coming up should skate everything he’s put in his time and now he’s like a refined gentleman skater.




This ditch has a lot of history. I’ve probably been there with AVE 40 times. Thank god it’s a mile away from my house, so I don’t mind going there. I don’t know if he loves this ditch but, man, he loves going there on the hottest days in the bright daylight; pretty much the worst time to be in a ditch with no shade. He’ll try tricks for a couple hours to try and figure it and it’s rad because he kills it. This is just a warm up shot of a backsmith but he ended up doing alley-oop fakie backsmith down it and then he did switch front 5-0. That tranny had just been put on there for that Vans x Spitfire Keeping The Underground Lit Contest and he ended up switch front 5-0ing it back into switch which is still one of the hardest tricks to happen there and that was the first trick to go down on it with the new concrete.
Another tidbit about that spot is it’s right next to Gold n Stuff, the minuture golf place that was in the original Karate Kid. I grew up right there and they used to call it Gold n Stab because mad fools got stabbed in the bottom right there. My neighbor that lived behind us, one of the older brothers was found dead down there with multiple stab wounds. I wouldn’t recommend being down there after the sun goes down. The last time I was riding my bike on that bike path up that hill on the right going to the park and I saw this gangster dude beating up his girlfriend. It was pretty gnarly. I called the cops and the helicopter came and I bounced. That place is no joke.



We just shot that two weeks ago in Sacramento. We left 70 degree weather in LA and got to Sacramento on the hottest day of the year; it was 106. We’re skating this spot and cooking and before we leave AVE starts dorking around with John and a bunch of dudes on this curb. He was doing all these weird tricks that you know old school dudes have but you never see like this backside nosepick tailgrab so I shot a couple. I showed him and he’s like, “Dude, if this was 1989 it would be the cover.” He rarely pulls out the dork tricks but this night I seen him do a couple things like indy nosepicks and a bunch of stuff. It’s a rare glimpse of a strictly business skater having some fun.



This is one of the first Vans ads I shot of him. This night they were filming for Mindfield and I remember we got this trick of AVE which was super gnarly. It’s a fence that a car hit and it fell down and he remembered it from back in the day in Orange County. And Heath Kirchart was with us and he got a super gnarly trick. We were out until four in the morning that night. I remember telling Greg [Hunt], “We just got a banger of AVE and Heath in one night! That doesn’t happen often.” It was just one of those nights. Everyone was sparked. Sometimes with night missions around LA it could be a drag like, “Where do we go? What do we do?” But this night everyone was focused, we had a plan and that plan was executed. Both the tricks were ads and in the video.




This was another Vans apparel ad I shot and this day was epic. Speaking of epic crews look at that group: Koston, Jeremy Wray, Guy Mariano and AVE. This was a spot I found when I was in traffic and decided to take a side road to get around it. Somehow it ends up being those four dudes and me, no filmer. And everybody was skating. I got a photo of Koston that was in The Skateboard Mag, I remember Jeremy Wray did frontboard on it, Guy was trying wallie railslide and AVE was doing crooked grinds and feebles. I was just tripping because these are some the heaviest dudes to be with and they’re just skating with no filmer and I’m lucky enough to be here with a camera. I’m not one to take group photos usually but I was like, “Look at this crew!” I was stoked. Another epic day.



This was a heavy day. This was in Berlin and this thing was gnarly, just rough and rocky and crappy. I think someone maybe noseslid it and then AVE went and switch back 5-0’d it. This was the first or second day we were there and then that night Van Wastell passed away. That was the only photo we shot on that trip because we all flew home the next day after what happened with Van. We ended up getting a cover out of this photo, which was bittersweet.




This is from a little pool mission we went on; that’s Guy’s head there on the bottom right. Every now and then AVE will go through these pool phases where all he wants to do is skate pools. I rememeber we went on this San Bernadino mission where we know some Concrete Disciples guys and they ended up showing us 8 or 9 pools in one day. It was AVE, Josh Borden, Guy Mariano and a bunch of dudes. This is a frontside grind over the light and the deathbox, which is pretty sick. He was getting lien to tailslides and on that other pool that was in the Vans commercial he got that rad backside 5-0 nosegrab. Look at how vert that wall is; that’s a legit trick. Once he gets in the flow of things he rips pools, he has this rad slash style. He doesn’t skate it like a tranny wall he skates it like a bowl should be ridden which was surprising to me the first time I saw him skate a pool. You can tell when people skate pools if they know what they’re doing by the way they carve and he would figure out every pool right away.



I had a brand new point and shoot camera and I snapped the broken board photo at the top and that we use for the background of the skate page the same day as the wallie cover over that fence. That’s the end result of a hard days work.
I had to go get my camera fixed in LA the day we shot the cover and my whole morning was shot. It was like 4 in the afternoon and I was about to call Cody Green, the Vans filmer, to see what he’s getting into and then my phone rings and it’s Cody. He’s all, “I’m with AVE and Dill at this spot and AVE wants to shoot something.” I was right down the street and I was ready. Ten minutes go by and I meet up with them at this wallie spot and AVE’s trying it as I get there because he’s feeling it. I set up and he launches that fence like no big deal in three tries after I set up. We ended up getting a cover out of and a sequence that was an Alien Workshop ad. Double dip, son!



We shot a Vans ad at this school and they ended up using the sequence and I always really liked how the still came out and this never ran.



The footage for this smith grind up and down was just in that Transworld Cinematographer Alien section. Greg is to the right filming and I was way far away so I wouldn’t be in the shot. That’s the story of my life, trying to get out the filmers way. It’s rad with Greg because he knows the deal and we’ll figure it out but there’s some people who just keep creeping in with that fisheye. They won’t care if they have three angles of the one trick already. I’m not going to say any names, Cody.



I don’t know if he’ll be stoked that I’m telling you this but he told me once that this is one of his favorite photos ever shot of him and that meant a lot to me. I made a few prints for him and he gave them to his mom and his aunt and stuff. I don’t know why he likes it so much. I don’t ask questions. If you’re stoked on the photo that means I did my job. That dude has been photographed a lot of times and for him to say it’s one of his favorite photos shot of him that’s like a trophy for a photographer. I should ask him to say again so I could record it and use it as my voicemail message, “Can you make sure to say my full name, Anthony Acosta?”



That’s the future and where the future strives to be. Ever since Donovon started coming around him and AVE vibed really well together and he took Donovon under his wing. He got him on Alien and whatnot. AVE doesn’t take that many people under his wing and I thought it was super rad. This is pretty early on in their friendship.



Boardslide to fakie through the kink with a crazy nipple thing at the bottom that we were about to cut off but then AVE couldn’t wait and started skating in anyways. It’s in Vegas and this is the same rail that JT Aultz broke his neck on. That rail is not nice to people but AVE got away with it clean that night.



Both these guys almost hit rock bottom on the same path of addiction and it’s just so rad to see them both bounce back to where they should be. They both are healthy and they take care of themselves and keep pushing themselves. A lot of people don’t get to come out of what they came out of in one piece. They really click well together and it’s really rad to see that friendship. They both know where they’ve been and they’re both stoked to be where they’re at today.