CUT FROM THE PAGES OF THE CONFERENCE MAG: PART ONE – Dustin Werbeski

Fishbrain down and around.

I have recently moved from the prairie city of Regina, to the coastal city of Vancouver. I’m loving life in this real city, but still miss the odd thing from back home. One thing I’ll miss this winter is our old indoor skate park. Regina’s indoor can be a blessing during the winter, and its no lie to say that its needed to cope with the constant snow covered ground and -30 temperatures. Yet after a couple months, it always seems to get repetitive and boring. With this past winter sticking to tradition, the snow came, we were all forced indoors, and the boredom soon followed after. I needed something new to re-spark that creative energy and keep me from catching the winter crazy eye. In the end I’m sure nothing could have been more adequate than the prototype carbons I found in my mailbox?

Switch Top Mistrial.

The carbons were unlike anything I’d ever put on my feet. They were unbelievably light, super responsive, and quite comfortable for barely containing a liner. The potential that the carbons allowed towards expanding my skating, was comparable to that of my first days on aggressive skates. It was a whole new skate with a whole new world of possibilities. This is exactly what I needed, for everything I had been offered to skate year after year was constructed by and for skateboarders. Resulting in a tiny park full of small, short and square obstacles. With these ramps and skates I was set to rethink my blading. I found my self day after day really enjoying my new style of skating. This new style was focused more on quick taps, corks, creativity and more or less a fancy footwork style similar to that of skateboarding. I spent the rest of the winter playing around like this, in anticipation for the snow to peace.

Farv 540-cork.

It came spring and I couldn’t wait any longer to rock my new loved skates on the streets. At around the same time I was informed about the production of the second Conference Magazine, so I set aside two days to go shoot some photos for it. Getting these photos wasn’t at all a hassle for I am a photographer with all the needed equipment. I just needed to get my ex-girlfriend and another blader bud to come out with me to physically take the photographs. I would take them out to the spots I had in mind, setup all my equipment, then quickly get the shot and move on to the next. The reason it was rushed was because it was still early in the year, which made them some really cold sessions, which also made me feel bad for the ones having to just sit there in the cold until I was pleased with the photos. Everything was shot on my Canon 5D with either my 15mm or 24-105mm, and a 3 Vivitar lighting setup.

Backside Torque.

After those two days, I reviewed the images and was happy enough to settle with such. All I had to do was sit on them until it came time to critique and print. Little did I know that my premature motivation and later fallout with the Carbons would lead to none of them being printed. A few months down the road I had to give up the fun of the Carbons due to a returning ankle problem, but this just allowed me to go back to skating Xsjados. Which also meant that I would have to go out again shooting in my new skates. The story behind my last Conference Mag session in Regina will be part two of this story, so stay tuned.

-Dustin Werbeski