Rowley Week Day 4: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 fourth day of Geoff Rowley Week we dug through Anthony Acosta's archives for some of his favorite shots of Geoff and the stories behind them.

ACOSTA’S ANGLES OF GEOFF ROWLEY

What can I remember about this wonderful day in Long Beach, California? We were out skating with Louie Lopez and I remember I showed up a little late and they were both trying super tech manual tricks. I thought that was great that Louie and Geoff can skate the same small ledge manual thing and both get a gnarly trick. It’s always awesome to see that he has that in him, this crazy tech-side. I think he was trying kickflip noseslide bigspin manual. He was doing it and we were with a filmer and I was like, “Dude! You can film that!” And Geoff was like, “No, we’re just messing around.” He’s completely capable of doing whatever he wants on a skateboard and people are just unaware of how deep his bag of tricks is. He can do the big tranny stuff, the manny tricks and the huge hubbas and rails because he has the confidence. He is the full package. The other day we were at this sketchy bank tranny spot and he was doing so many variations of the darkslide and landing them. He must have landed six of them. He can really do anything.


That was a photo that I used in my book, Beats Digging Ditches. That was on the Flip Feast Tour and we were in the RV somewhere up North, heading to the demo, and these dudes had Black Sabbath just blazing on the speakers. It was him and David [Gonzales] getting amped to go to the demo and we were in traffic going 10mph and raging. I remember Geoff was sticking his head out, throwing the horns as we’re raging, going nowhere quick.
It’s great being on those Flip trips with Geoff because he’s the boss but he’s not above the dudes. He’s right there with his shirt off, raging with the dudes in the back, he’s right there skating the spots whether it’s a manual pad or something huge. I think the team has a huge respect for him that you normally can’t have with a boss-person because he’s right there with them in the mix. I think it motivates his team even more because it’s Geoff, the gnarliest dude, and he’s still in the parking lot skating with everyone. I feel like the vibe is always right on those trips. I was tripping the first time I went on a Flip tour because those dudes are actually all friends, which is cool, and whether we’re at a spot or a hotel parking lot they are skating all the time. Even if we go eat Geoff has his board in the parking lot and that sets the tone for everyone. Everyone always has their board and we’re always skating flat or a curb or whatever. It’s a total skate rat vibe.


This ledge is in Huntington Beach, right at the beach and really gnarly. And it’s a really gnarly bust. There’s a smaller hubba on the left side of it that people skated and I heard of people getting arrested there because HB cops don’t really put up with much. Luckily for us we had Vans backing us and we got to permit that spot. We had a full production there: a lifeguard in case anyone got hurt, a bunch of cameras, catering. I didn’t know it was going to be like that. I was in Brazil and this was planned for the next morning after I returned. I just thought we were going on a Greg [Hunt] mission and we were just going to try and film a trick for the commercial. I get there and there’s production vans and tons of cameras and rigs and Geoff looking stressed out because there was a lot of people. It was like 6 in the morning; there was no one around but surfers. We get the whole thing prepped and then it was show time. It was so much pressure because it wasn’t just Greg and me with cameras, there was some money being spent. And hitting that kink at full speed is a serious commitment. I remember him saying, “I’m going for it,” and that first one he stuck through the kink he slipped off and folded at the bottom bad. He got worked. I don’t know if the footage was in the commercial or not but it was so gnarly. He was done. The lifeguard and everyone came up to him and I was like, “Dude, I think we’re done.” There’s just no way you can get up and keep doing it after that. Me and Greg were looking at each other nervous because he just got smoked. Geoff took a breather and then walked up there super-quietly and didn’t tell anyone and then slid through the next one. That’s the scariest thing, the first one after you slam really bad but he went through the kink and then the next one he made the whole way and landed it. It was so gnarly.
It’s like a Danny Way moment. It’s like they need that pressure to push them that much more.


This was another last minute ad deadline which is what I feel like we’re always chasing, me and Geoff, whenever we shoot. It’s not like a little Ricta ad; it’s like we need a full marketing campaign photo by tonight. It’s always that way and I think it’s like I said, it’s that added pressure to get them fired up.
We drove out to Arizona with Arto. He had an idea for this crazy bank to rock wall thing and we got there and the whole ditch was full of mud because it just rained so that foiled our plans. We ended up checking out a bunch of other ditches. It was a Sunday and we had to get back by Monday so we decided to just drive home. We’re taking the freeway back and we pull over and spot this ditch. Geoff’s like, “Let’s go skate that thing!” If you look there’s so much crust around it. There’s just one path that we scooped out to skate. Geoff had this idea to do a jam stall on the van just to get something. This was full freestyle. It’s pretty gnarly to stall on the rounded nose of that thing.
Then we got back in the car and drove eight hours home.
He loves the ditches. He loves hunting. He loves that whole western look. His kid’s middle name is West. I think he likes his photos to have that full Americana vibe with the desert, the lonely path, the John Wayne-look. It’s rad because that dude knows every ditch you could possibly think of. I know of a lot of spots but that dude has a phone full of spots that no one has. Geoff has definitely lurked some places that he shouldn’t have been to look for spots.


That’s another ditch that he found on Google maps. We were still shooting for that interview and he called me one day and he was like, “I’ve been looking for four hours straight on Google maps at ditch formations in the mountains.” I was like, “Dude, you’re crazy.” But he figured out where this thing was and we drove out there and sure enough it was a sick skatespot that he found from a satellite. That just goes to show you his creativity to find things.
He was definitely the first dude who got something at this spot and now you see it all day long. But this thing is no joke. It’s a double downhill. You have to land the trick and then you have to hit that kink and go down another bank. I was psyched on that spot. And how he found it.




We were shooting for his interview for The Skateboard Mag and with Geoff it’s always on a whim like, “Hey, you want to go to Vegas in the morning?” and it’s Wednesday night at 8pm and when he says, “The morning,” he means like four in the morning, not like 9:30. It was probably a weekday and he called me that he heard about this spot in Tehachapi, which is near Bakersfield, a good four-hour drive from LA. It’s a flume, where cut logs from the mountain go through and get shot down the mountain. It’s always full. You can even see on the first picture the water lines. I think it’s once every ten years it gets drained to do maintenance on it and The Haggar Brothers parents live out there and they overheard that it was empty and kids were skating it. Sure enough on a Monday Geoff calls me and says, “This thing is going to get filled up on Wednesday, let’s go in the morning.” He picks me up four in the morning, it’s still dark, we drive straight out there. We get out our gloves and our brooms because this thing is pretty rugged and we end up sessioning it for four hours. We had the neighbors come and they were all stoked to see us skating it because it’s such a rare occasion that it’s empty. Geoff got a bunch of tricks. That smith stall is a disaster to smith on the way in, he was doing lines, he got that kickflip on the inside; it was a productive day.
I remember pulling up to this thing and my mind was going all over the place. You see endless lines of where your eyes are getting pulled to, just so many ways to shoot this spot. It’s like if you’re a kid at Christmas and you go into Toys R Us and you’re overwhelmed. Once I came home I realized every shot I shot just looked amazing just because of where we were and I think that’s what he kind of looks for. He knows how things should look, he knows what makes a good photo; he shoots good photos himself if you look at his Instagram. He knows aesthetically what’s pleasing to the eye. He’s always had a good knack for that. A lot of the spots we drive to whether it’s a Vegas spot or a crazy ditch, he knows we’re going to get a sick photo.


That spot is directly in the back entrance of the Anaheim Angel’s stadium. It’s a BMX spot. BMXers built it. It’s pretty rad because sometimes when you’re skating that spot before a game you’ll the baseball players because that’s where they drive through. And they have the worst cars, like yellow Hummers with chrome everywhere; you can totally tell it’s those dudes. They’re like a car salesman’s dream like, “Yeah, take this one!” I saw Vladimir Guerrero when we were skating and he looked at us crazy because we were in the middle of the street.
Geoff and I had to shoot some product shots of his shoe, the SPV. He always hates shooting portraits for product shots so he was like, “Let’s go get a skate shot somewhere.” We ended up shooting this and Vans used it for a bunch of posters and marketing stuff. To me Geoff is iconically Vans. I feel like he single-handedly brought vulc back. Remember that first ad when he 50-50’d Staples Center in 1998 with Authentics on. Just showing everyone that he can grind the biggest thing in those things while everyone was wearing snowboard boots with air pumps. He made it all about board feel. He brought the whole small shoe back. That’s when people started wearing vulc and now every shoe looks like those shoes.


Vans does this Virginia Beach demo every year and there you have it…look at those dudes. If those dudes are guarding anything that just means there’s a level of awesome going on in Virginia Beach. I get such a kick out of this photo.


Look, we got the Vans RV waiting for us right there. This was on that same Flip trip as I mentioned earlier and we were going to the skate camp in Tehachapi. This is the same day that AVE came with us and got that wallride 5-0. It was pretty random having AVE on a Flip trip but Greg was coming and we were going to skate street so AVE was down to go and Geoff was psyched on that. It’s rad that such legends are also so close.
Some guy at the gas station told us about this thing and we found it on Google maps. It was pretty funny to be driving a big ass RV around looking for a ditch. We get there and it’s rad; it’s super-long with this ledge in the middle. It’s just so crusty that skaters don’t really skate it. I remember it was a virgin ledge so to get this smith grind we had to do a lot of work to it just to get it to go. This is actually a still from a smith grind frontside 270 back in. But I’m more of a still guy myself. That’s what video cameras are for. Let those guys do their job, I’ll do mine.


This was the same day that we were at Angels Stadium. What’s funny about that is he made that custom shirt. On the back, in black sharpie, he wrote: Van Doren Is The Best. He was like, “I want that! Send that in so they can use it for the new shoe!” They couldn’t run it with the F-word but I think he fought for it until they took the U and the C out and used some symbols instead.
Geoff loves Van Doren. He knows he’s in it for the right reasons. Real recognizes real and Geoff backs Vans so hard because of people like Steve Van Doren who actually take care of their people and care about what they’re doing more than trying to make money and grow bigger for no reason. You can tell Geoff really respects that and he has Van Doren’s back.


I love that Lance Mountain is on Flip. Geoff knows what’s up and backs Mountain and let’s Mountain do what he does, which is rip. Lance has pro boards out all the time while you got all these other companies giving dudes Legend Models once a year. Lance is fully on the team. He was on the trip with us, he’s skating with us, he’s another team dude, he’s not some “Legend Status” dude a company has out to pasture. I think that’s what’s awesome about Flip: they got the little dudes but they got Arto, Geoff, Rune, Lance and they’re all supported.


China. We went on this two-week Vans Trip to China and we had to do a bunch of shoe stuff for the Stage 4. Geoff really wanted to come out and get some skating with us so he flew out for the last three days. It was right when he was getting better from double ankle surgery and were all expecting him to be super-jet lagged but he came in so hot and got like six tricks in the three days he was there. He was the dude skating every spot and we needed that at that point in the trip. We ended up getting a lot of photos and footage of him. This is just one example; he lipslid through the whole thing and he did it a few times too. He got everyone so psyched the way he was going for it. The whole vibe was turned upside down the last few days and I feel it was because he brought the stoke. It’s Geoff Rowley; you can’t beat watching that dude do what he does.


This photo of Geoff looks like it was shot in ’94, huh? Those dudes are the best of friends. They’re amazing. They’re doers, guys that make it happen. A lot of those early Flip videos were Geoff filming Arto do all the craziest stuff like Hollywood High switch front board or Arto would film Geoff. They wouldn’t go out with a filmer; they would just film each other and get the gnarliest stuff.
This was another trip that we went on without a filmer, it was just them two. We went to Palm Springs to skate in the heat. You can tell when people have known each other a long time, they mess with each other but it’s totally respectful. This day was over 100 degrees and Geoff was having heat stroke. I thought he was going to die. He didn’t eat or drink anything the whole day. We’re driving back and Arto just kept wanting to get a burrito. Geoff is in the back having chest pains, can’t breathe, probably should have gone to the hospital but Arto is like, “He does this all the time, he’ll be fine. Let’s just go get a burrito.”
We end up going to Chipotle and leaving Geoff in the car. Looking at him through the restaurant window I thought he was dead but sure enough Geoff was fine 10 minutes later.


We drove to drive a full pipe in Gila Bend, Arizona which is 400 miles from LA. I was at the fullpipe before and it was empty but it’s at a dam and the reservoir is closed to the public so you can’t call or find out if the dam is full or not. Same story, these guys pick me up at 4 in the morning. That’s one of the Haggar Brothers, Geoff and Ewan on the ends. We drove nine hours and we get there and the fullpipe is full of water. Not half full. Not a little water. FULL. No way we were skating it. This was the walk back to the car. We drove another nine hours straight home.



Obviously a homemade NRA hat. If you follow his Instagram you can always see his .357 and his gun collection. He likes guns and he likes hunting.
I remember we were trying to shoot a portrait and he had this idea to have a gun pointed at the viewer. We were right in a ditch in Costa Mesa and he has this thing in his backpack and he’s like, “Ok, let’s do it.” He starts pointing it at me, I shot like two or three shots and then he was like, “This is stupid. Someone is going to see me pointing a gun at you and call the cops and we’re going to go to jail.” We ended up canning the idea.
I’ve never shot guns or hunted with him. He’s professional. He wouldn’t want a dude like me with him. I’d be trying to catch snails and stuff while he’s trying to hunt for wild bears.


He always gets me to go to some spot out of the LA area, thank God. Thank God for that! I’ve been driving around LA for the passed week, checking spots out and maybe skated once. And then it takes me two hours to get home from Burbank. I’d much rather be out on the open road. This is off the 10 Freeway by those huge dinosaurs. He saw this bridge and was like, “Look at that! You can skate that like a flatbar!” We pulled over, swept the thing off and him and Arto skated the thing. It ended up being a cool photo but again, thank God this isn’t in East LA or Irvine because it just would not look as cool.




I want to say this was one of the first Vans ads I shot of him. One thing I love about Geoff is he looks so different every time I see him. One day he’ll have long hair and a moustache, Fu Manchu-style and looks like an older dude and then he’ll show up and he looks 15 years old, man. This was one of those days. He looks like a little kid skating and this wasn’t that long ago.
I was stressed the first time shooting with him. I hear stories of him because he knows how things should be and he knows how he wants them to be so he tells people how to shoot things or how to film things and I’m always waiting for him to tell me how he wants things to look but he hasn’t told me yet. I think that makes me even more nervous because I’m like, “Great. He’s fully trusting me. I better not blow it.” I wish he would just tell me how he wanted it so it would be his fault if I blow it, not mine.
You look what he does and it’s terrifying because it’s usually death-defying stuff that you could get hurt on easily, like that bridge. But once he has something set in his mind he knows what he has to do and does it.


Those are not gangbangers in the background. That one dude is in his boxers on the left, that’s Andrew Shusterman the Flip team manager in the jersey and he’s the farthest thing from a gangster. The other two are Ewan and Louie but I guess it does look like gangsters. This is in the nicest part of Huntington Beach. It’s funny how pictures can portray the opposite.


Blue hair, dude! This goes back to what I was saying about him always looking different. He picked me up at my house at 8am to go to Baldy and he had blue hair. That dude rules. He knew we were going to take a picture and it would probably look cool. Look at that backside flip on Baldy; nailed it. A lot of people thought he was wearing a hat. Hopefully this starts a trend. You go out to the skatepark and everyone has blue hair.
Geoff is getting back from surgery and he’s been doing a lot of rehab so he can nail this Vans video part. I think he was one of the main reasons that Vans has never done a video because he always had the Flip video commitments. Now he sees all the ingredients are there for a Vans video and is fully on board and he wants to do a rad video part. I know he’s committed. You can tell when you’re talking to him. You can tell he’s stoked. He’s calling Greg all the time to film. I can’t wait to see what he does because with him if there’s a will then he’s going to do it. If he wants to do it, it’s going to get done. I’m excited to see what his part looks like because he’s one of the greats and he’s just getting better with time. He’s not going to be skating Staple Center because he already proved that he could do it. But stuff like that Baldy backside flip…he’s just one of those skaters with creativity that knows what looks cool and he’s going to nail it. It’s always rad to see what’s up his sleeve next.

Be sure to follow Geoff and his rad photos on Instagram @Geoffrowley