Omar Hassan Week Day 5: Acosta's Angles

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 last day of Omar Hassan Week we dug through Anthony Acosta's archives for some of his favorite shots of Omar and he tells the stories behind them.

ACOSTA’S ANGLES OF OMAR HASSAN

This is at Raging Waters in San Dimas, California. What isn’t awesome about this photo? This came about because of this shop I worked at, Utility Boardshop, had a connection to the people at Raging Waters. They shut down the park to give it a good cleaning and fix everything that needed to be fixed. They set it up with Jeff King and Built To Shred to have full access to the park for two days to skate and build anything they wanted. Since I already I had an in with Utility I got a call like, “Hey, no one is shooting this, it should be pretty sick, come down.” I was a little weary at first because it could be super-corny so I called a couple dudes and we showed up Saturday morning and by that time everybody heard about it. All the Girl and Chocolate dudes, Rune Glifberg and Dennis Busenitz was there, I don’t know who Omar showed up with but everybody was there and it was pretty sick because there was no one else shooting photos. Just me. It was insane. Everyone was skating everything and everyone was yelling, “Hey, Acosta! Come shoot me do this!” I remember Omar was like, “I got this sick thing I found,” because he would just go skate around on his own and look at things. This thing is some weird whirlpool, dragon slayer thing with perfect trannies. He’d just go in circles and gain more and more speed and then bonk off that pipe right there and do the biggest backside airs.
Like I how I hid the flash next to that human being? The story behind that is that’s Massimo holding it and Rune behind him but the whole thing was a plastic ride so it wasn’t that stable. On a couple of tries Omar was landing on flat and I remember the try or two before this one Massimo wasn’t holding my flash and he landed so hard that it knocked over one of my flashes and popped one of the bulbs. He didn’t even hit it, just by stomping it that hard. That’s when I was like, “Hey, Mas, I’ll buy you a Red Bull if you hold my flash.” Usually I would probably photoshop that out but I liked the story behind it so I left him in there.
It was such a psycho mission, for two days straight I shot photos of everyone! I have to do another blog of that because there are so many photos that didn’t get used.




I’ve known Omar for so long and just growing up near Orange County and seeing him everywhere that I can’t remember when I went from skating with him to taking his picture. I remember seeing him in the early years at a demo at an In Flight store in Seal Beach and they had a vert ramp and my parents took us there and Omar being there and being like, “What? That’s Omar Hassan!” It was early. He was probably on Blockhead still. Maybe late 70s? Ha! No, it was early 90s. I was a little kid. But it’s so rad to have seen him then and be able to shoot and travel with him now. Like this is from a trip to Australia. This is a Bondi Beach tailgrab. This is a rare photo seeing Bondi empty in the background. That’s what happens when you go to Australia and have jetlag. You’re up at six in the morning walking around. Usually there’s a couple Americans warming up because they can’t sleep either. I remember showing up there on the first day we got there and Omar was skating and I was like, “Hey, let’s shoot something with the background empty, it looks cool.” This is my only empty Bondi photo from all the years. The rest of them there’s a thousand people laying out, topless chicks, kids, 40 dudes on the decks with cameras and tank tops.
He rips that bowl and that contest. He’s such a champ. He gets there and just skates. He has every trick wired, goes fast, grinds far, goes high; he’s such an expert of his craft. And as good as he is on his own he skates even better when the bros are around. I guess it’s that era he grew up in being around sessions instead of solo filming missions. Once the energy gets going he feeds off it. When someone starts pumping it up, he starts pumping it up and next thing you know these guys are doing padless 540s.





That’s the Combi bowl contest as you can see from the live teletron in the background with the live web feed. That’s him and Perelson getting ready for the mayhem that's about to start. Those two dudes just run the show. It’s a Vans event so they’re just at a home chilling. Two bros that definitely push each other to the next level; Alex is the future, Omar is the veteran. But Omar doesn’t look much older than Alex right there. Omar is such a veteran but still skates so hard and is always in shape and always healthy, so young looking. Maybe those crazy lipslide roll ins are the secret; the longer you slide the longer you keep your skin looking wrinkle-free. Look at that dude! He’s 37 and looks like he’s 23. And what’s rad about him is that he feeds off the young guys. You don’t see him getting competitive when those dudes are going buck, he just gets in there and does what he does. And man, he just kills that thing. He does the best corner tricks. He’ll hit corner to corner to corner; he’s got that thing dialed.
Honestly, shooting the Pro Tec Pool Party is one of the hardest things to photograph just because of the variables involved. Usually there’s 75 other photographers all with their fisheyes and their flashes in your face, all trying to get the one shot. I feel like it’s when you go fishing and there’s 100 people on the boat trying to catch one fish so of course your lines are going to get tangled. But the contest is so rad that for me my camera is my ticket to the front row. I try not to stress.



He looks so stoked to be on the plane, thumbs up, after three hour security delay. He always gets hassled so bad at the airport. I haven’t had to deal with him on it because he always goes way ahead of everybody because he already knows it’s going to an issue. But he takes it in stride. That’s what’s rad about Oamr, he doesn’t take anything too serious; he just skates.



This bowl was in Puerto Rico and it was one of my first trips with Omar. I think this was called La Perla Bowl and it was in the sketchiest favellas, fully drug infested. No tourist can go down there but since skating is all connected we got the golden ticket to go there because one of the guys we were with was one of the OG Puerto Rican skaters that built the bowl. It was such a homemade bowl and so rad. It was literally on the beach. It was so rad to see the faces of the people that are genuinely stoked to see dudes like Omar who has a good attitudes and bros down with the guys and drinks beers and enjoy it. He’s just one of the dudes and you can tell the locals are just so appreciative of that. Some professional “athletes” are just lame and go to some spots that some dudes worked on and put a lot of time and effort into and they’re like, “This thing is wack, I’m gonna sit in the car.” And it’s so obvious to the locals. Omar is the total opposite. Even if it’s not the best bowl he’s gonna try and skate it and enjoy himself. Omar knows: be respectful, be appreciative, you skate for a living, it’s not that bad.



Channel Street, San Pedro, bluntslide over the doorway. I remember I was psyched over this photo because I rented some super expensive flashes for that weekend to do this portrait shoot and I had the flashes with me when we shot this. The flashes were so powerful that I had the flashes super far away but still got the raddest light. They were like $16,000 flashes each. I went back to my $300 flashes the next day and it just wasn’t the same. Reality check.
Omar loves places like this, like Washington Street and Burnside. He adapts to the situations. He gets there and figures out the lines, the quirks, the kinks, the sweet spots quickly, like first run or two. He’s just scoping it and then next thing he’s ripping. He did this bluntslide like 5 or 6 times and that thing is not easy to skate. I don’t think anyone else has ever bluntslid that thing. I remember I was like, “Hey, you want to wax this thing up?” He’s like, “No, I got it.”




This trick is called a Crooked Cop and it’s the only Crooked Cop I’ve ever shot. I was like, “What is that? A frontside melon tweaker or something?” He’s like, “Nah, dude! It’s a crooked cop.” It’s a sick name. They had sick names back in the day like Madonnas and Sean Penns and Crooked Cops. Now it’s like SS/BS/TS flip shove revert.
This was in Puerto Rico too, same trip. We snuck into this skatepark that was just being built; you can see all the materials. We had to hop the fence to get in but no one hassled us. I think people were stoked to see we were actually utilizing the place. The 5-0 stall was at the same place.



This was in Puerto Rico too and Nick Trapasso was on the trip and we were driving by the spot and Omar was like, “Look at that drop in!” So both of them went up there and started trying it. Omar did his first but Trapasso’s was used in his part and I don’t think Omar’s footage went anywhere. But I used Omar’s photo instead for the article because I thought it looked cooler with the dudes on the left in suits and walkie talkies coming to talk to us.



Footplant at the House of Vans in Brooklyn, NY at the opening party. Mos Def played, sick bowl, sick spot; that’s how Vans does it and that’s Omar thanking Vans by doing the gnarliest footplant off the deep end into the bowl. He slammed so hard and donked his dome on the try before he made it. He landed more flat bottom and looped out and smack! I thought he was done. It was a full party atmosphere and everyone was like, “Oh no!” Sure enough, two minutes later landed the next try. He had something to prove and did his thing. It was pretty sick.
This was the first session at that bowl, first time anyone had ever skated and it’s not an easy bowl to skate but like I said he just adapts and does his thing like it was no big deal.



That’s the Arabian Knights graphic for his first Blockhead board from 1990. That was at Pedro’s Bowl in Florianopolis, Brazil. It’s rad how thick the roots of skateboarding are in Brazil. There are so many passionate dudes about it down there and that’s just one dude showing Omar how he had his graphic on his arm. And that’s not a graphic that anyone would really know if you didn’t skate. That’s a true skater right there.



Omar was like, “Send this photo to Swift, he’s always giving crap for wearing a Thrasher hat.” It’s funny because he’s wearing my hat and his head is so small, my hat covered his whole head. The snapback was on the smallest snap. I guess I have a big head but he does have a little peanut head.



Pedro lives literally on a rainforest mountain and they literally own the whole mountain. It’s insane. The house is psycho, they’re right by the beach, they have the hugest bowl, a full vert ramp with a bamboo canopy around it, wild animals, monkeys in the trees, there was a beetle they took out of the bowl that was the size of a football; so rugged. It was the first year they held a contest so they built all these platforms and seating areas. It was getting dark and there’s no lights on that mountain, nothing. They had generators with some Home Depot tri-pod lights and the gas ran out and it was pitch black. We were stuck there. We walked all the way down the mountain with all our gear to the hotel we were staying. It’s so unforgiving.
The bowl Pedro built for himself is the hardest bowl I’ve ever seen anyone skate with kinks and everything, 15-feet tall. You see all these veterans taking it easy because you can get broke on that thing. We saw a couple dudes break their legs on that thing and then you see Pedro with no pads, flying 600mph. He skates the Combi like it’s a mini ramp because of that.
I thought this shot of Grosso and Omar at Pedro’s was funny…it’s a lot of money invested in those bellies. But look how hard Omar is trying to push his out and still it’s nothing; he’s arching his back to do that. Grosso is straight pot-bellied. OC’s finest; Big Belly Crew.



Why is that girl reaching for his crotch and why is he sticking both his fingers up like he just won? He got, like, third or fourth. They were calling the podium winners and he ran up there first to be funny and started doing that and she was like, “Hey, you got to get down,” but he was like, “Nope, I won!” She looks like she’s about to hand jay and look at the way he’s grilling her! That’s Omar being Omar in front of 2000 people.