1. Ryan for those who don't know, tell us a little bit about you. Give us a little background.

Born and raised in a small suburb of Chicago called Hinsdale. I had a rather conservative Christian upbringing which involved eating soap when I swore and getting spanked with a belt when I came home after the street lights were turned on. I participated in soccer, baseball, basketball and gymnastics until the middle of high school. I threw food out of bus windows at passing cars and felt guilty when I fought with my brothers and sister. I rode motorcycles since i was six and never quite got into golf as much as my father would have liked. I have never claimed a political standpoint, contrary to Feinberg's lucky 7 assumption and never ran for class governmental position.

2. How was it growing up chi-town? When and how did you get into skating?

Growing up in the midwest is unbearably hot and humid and mosquito infested in the summer and so you spend all of your time at the pool trying to splash the lifeguards with can-openers off the diving boards and riding bmx bikes on little dirt tracks that the city removes because they felt them more dangerous than the football fields where kids were getting concussions on a consistent basis. In the winter it is dry and freezing but you get to wear a snowsuit at recess and build snow forts and throw snowballs and cry when you have to stay in to finish your lunch that your dad brings late because you forgot yours.

I grew up skateboarding since my "heat zone" board when I was just a wee lad and for some reason overlooked the rollerblade frenzy past the days of my Alan Peterson Santa Monica Airlines deck with the "everslick" coating that allowed for faster parking-stone boardslides. About 7th grade I got a pair of Rollerblade's "Coolblades" and proceeded to huck myself down any sets of stairs I could find. The summer after my freshman year in high school I went on a church retreat and saw kids frontsiding this 12 stair double rail with Rollerblade wrenches for grindplates on the old purple and pink TRS'. I decided then that I needed to either quit skating or get really good and learn how to grind. Neither ever fully happened, but ten years later, i'm still trying.

3. When did you decide you wanted to move to Cali? How does it compare to Chicago?

I had never been to California when I decided I was going to attend college here. I lived in the East Bay outside San Francisco for four years before moving to the city for another two and a half. I always felt like San Francisco was my home once I moved there and would still be up there if I wasn't given the opportunity to come to San Diego to work for Daily Bread full time.

California is quite different from Chicago in the respect that it isn't common to make racial slurs and smoke in bars out here. Also, in California there is a burrito stand on every other corner whereas Chicago uses hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches as their staple foods. Each has its ups and downs but I don't see myself returning to such an unstable climate anytime soon. What I miss most about Chicago is the opportunity to hang out with my family who have taught me, due to our own insanity, to be patient with the rest of the crazies this world has to offer.

4. For awhile there you were quite the ripper. (notthatyoustilldont) In early VG's and Daily Bread. Tell us about your skating style, what where your goals back then as a Rollerblader.

I was always pretty mediocre as far as talent and style were concerned. Being in the right place at the right time allowed for some random coverage over the last 7 years. At first, I had dillusional dreams like every average joe from an average scene that wasn't all that exposed to sponsorship. After a while, I accepted my fate and continued to blade, throwing down when the time was ripe for a little ego boosting photos and such.

5. What was the skating scene like back then? Has it gotten better or worse?

The same tired argument has been said of the Hoax 2 days that blading was trendy and all the corporate jerks joined up to cash in and now its dead but that's a good thing because we can start all over with only the "core" companies working hard to make a stable industry for the future. Well, I have been hearing that for about six years now and things are looking worse than ever. People want us to not talk about the state of affairs because they believe if we close our eyes and not mention the situation at hand, we will make it go away with nice words and wishful thinking. I don't believe its negative to take a realistic view of what's going on in order to focus on how we can make this thing work. I don't want kids buying into our industry with any false hopes of getting sponsored quick and ending up like Tony Hawk showing off their houses on MTV cribs. I heard some kid who was at the park the other day say, "I'm done with this, you either have to be a little kid or pro to rollerblade." It's this type of mentality that stops people from skating once they realize they aren't going to make a living doing it. For some reason, it seems absurd to them that you might want to skate just because you like it. Those are the exact people we need to keep around and keep buying product. Kids get to a point where they feel cheated if they don't get hooked up with product once they have been around long enough and so they quit because of this whole rush to get sponsored and famous nonsense.

People need to look at rollerblading for what it is and decide whether they want to work with each other to move this sport forward, or make a bunch of money and retire with a yacht and a vacation house. If the latter is in your sights, go back to school and study finance, marry a sugar momma and hope her daddy gives you enough money to invest in some real estate or stocks. If you give a shit about putting 100% of your energy into kicking ass in life and producing some quality deals surrounding something you actually enjoy doing, well, i guess that's what we all have to decide. So, has it gotten better or worse? Well, it is all a matter of perspective and since I can only speak for myself, I would say better. The scene has changed from something I didn't even see as an option for involvement outside of simply skating for fun, to a viable career that has given me the potential to become as successful and happy as doing any sort of other more traditional work.

6. Do you still find the time to roll for fun? What's your set up?

I try and skate the park a few times a week. It's annoying to me to keep getting kicked out of spots and so I have more fun at a park where there is a lot more than just one thing to skate at a time. Sometimes I see something on street that just makes sense with my once trick vocabulary. I am scared to soul grind a handicap rail but if there is a sweet looking rail that I can backside once in a while, I will give it a whirl. You can check me out in the new 4x4 video's (Leading the Blind) friend's section. I wasn't too stoked on my sketchy landing but definately too scared to try it again.

I can't seem to find a skate that I like more than Solomons. If they stop making skates I am really gonna be bummed because I am gonna have to ransack Play It Again Sports for used pairs in a size 9. So if anyone has any old Solomons they don't use in that size, please feel free to mail them to daily bread. I mean, I guess I could put a different pair of skates on, but do I really want to slip out when I pull a crossover turn due to the ping pong paddle soul plates they use these days?

7. What got you into shooting photos? Was there a moment when it just "clicked" that you were gonna become a photographer?

Skating got me into shooting photos. As long as i have been skating, i have been shooting photos. For some reason, I never really tried to learn how to shoot a proper skate photo until I was already done with college. I was pretty sure I wanted to go into business and that was my main focus until I realized how bored I was with it all. I spent all my time in college skating and gradually I figured it was silly to keep forcing myself in a direction I apparently didn't want to go in. It didn't ever occur to me that I should do something as "impractical" as become a skate photographer, but now I can't believe I was so naive to not see what I should have been doing all along. I wouldn't change my decision for anything and now I believe I have the opportunity to become a much better person than had I stayed on the path I was on. i am not saying good people don't exist in business pursuits, I just wouldn't have been any good at it. It's strange because I worried so much about what I wanted to do with my life and I guess you could say that there was a moment when it did just "click." I see people freaking out all the time about trying to figure out what they should do as a career and its easy once you've found it to say, "Relax, it will come," but that truly is the only advice you can give.

8. Shooting skate photos is certainly not just point and shoot, How much really goes into shooting quality photos?

I still have a lot to learn about shooting skate photos. It would be a lot easier if you didn't have to worry about deadlines, getting kicked out, and working with the skater to find something they are comfortable with. These limitations are what makes it exciting and challenging though. There is a long history of photos to learn from as far as the technical aspect is concerned but I think dealing with all the other aspects is what presents the biggest problem. If there was unlimited time to go to a spot and really study what the best way to shoot the photo would be, the results would improve drastically. The problem is that what the skaters are doing is so difficult, that you can't really take the time necessary to go over all the potential solutions to each photo. Product photographers can spend an entire day to get one photo of a shoe for cryin' out loud and it's not even moving. The shoe doesn't get hungry or bored or tired or impatient or hassled by security guards, it just sits there looking good. But who wants to hang out with a shoe all day? I am really grateful for all the skaters who have worked with me to produce photos. Not only are they busting their ass, but they are usually pretty good about dealing with what probably seems like too much set up time. Nothing happens without them and so I truly appreciate those willing to understand what we are trying to do and actively participate in the effort required to get a good photo.

9. How did you make the transition from shooting "Back yard" photos to being a staff photographer for Daily bread and going on tours?

The transition took quite some time. I suppose by being persistant and continuing to study the photos i was shooting and the ones that the pros had published, I was able to determine the difference between what made a good skate photo and what didn't. It helps a lot to ask as many questions as you can to the people who have already had the experience making the mistakes you make while you are learning. I remember how irritated Busta used to get at me because it seemed to him that I was asking so many questions. I think he felt cheated because he didn't want to give away all the information he had worked so hard to learn. From my perspective now, I would love to tell each and every beginning photographer everything I know because it's only going to produce more quality photographers in the industry that we can rely on and allow them to make better images faster. I don't want kids just picking up a camera to waste all the time and money I did to figure out a few simple rules I can tell them right off the bat. Just basic technical stuff really. The whole "art" of the process is totally up to the photographer. I don't feel very advanced in the creative end of rollerblade photograhy. I feel it is more important to efficiently document the skating going on in a manner that allows the viewer to not even notice it's a photo, but look at it and say, "that is an amazing soul grind," not, "that is an amazing photo of a soul grind." This is probably all blasphemy to a more pretentious view of what we are doing but...whatever

10. What has been your most memorable tour? Remember the Vancouver situation with Brett?

Hah, yeah, the Vancouver situation was one of those tours I went on before I even had photos published and I just figured I could go on a tour and get a story run in Daily Bread. I am so glad I had that perspective because I had so many rad experiences that I would never would have had if I wasn't all excited about documenting our roadtrips. They all were really poor photographically and never really had a chance to get in the magazine but I learned so much and met so many people, it was amazing. I think the "Hotter than Hell" tour story was the first one I was commissioned to shoot for a magazine. That was pretty memorable. 28 days in a van with Oli Short, Pat Lennen, BJ Burnheart, Justin Eisinger and Angie Walton. Shit, I could talk for days about touring. No tour is boring when you have a camera. Before working for Daily Bread though I managed to see Canada, South Africa, Portugal, Ireland, England, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and pretty damn near every state in the U.S. trying to get skate photos.

11. Do you have a favorite photo that you have shot?

The one I seem to get the most response for is the portrait of Collin Carr in the Am Issue of Daily Bread with Ski on the cover. It was such a production because I had to build the whole boxing ring in Sayer's garage with whatever he had lying around, spend about two hours testing the lighting to get it just the way I wanted it (with the help of Mike Graffigna) and then try and direct a house full of drunks to act as extras in a scene where the subject was boxing a floor lamp. It sucks it had to be run so small that you can't see all the details of the photo, but people seemed to still pay attention to it somehow.

12. Words of advice to up and coming photographer?

Shoot as many photos as possible, never hesitate for any reason to do the extra whatever it takes to get the photo how you want it. Always remember to go back and really study your photos and try and figure out why the good ones work and the rest simply don't. Ask as many people as you can for feedback but find a nice balance between your initial gut reaction and what other people have to say about the photos. Research tons of other photographer and try and figure out why you like certain photos and don't like others. Ask as many questions as you can from people who have already been through the same learning processes you have. I am down to devote as much time as I have available to people who want to start shooting so hit me up at photo@dbmag.com.