You don’t need to have the most expensive equipment to get interesting photos. It’s also possible to get intriguing output with a $60 camera from eBay. The Spanish filmer Roger Gonzalez made some first steps into the world of skate photography with the Nishika 3D 8000 and captured some uncommon retro-futuristic skatepics with 3D effect on film.
He spent four days with Joseph Biais, Gabriel Engelke, Roman Gonzalez, & Felipe Bartolomé in Madrid and this are the results.
Yes. I bought it when I was in London the first time. It’s a funny story, we went to pick it up from the mail and there was a huge box with a buggy, so we called the seller and asked him what he had sent us. He was like: “Yo, open the box”, so we opened it and there were three Nishikas inside. Two of them have died and one is lost now…
Nosebonk
"It was hard to do this for the first time with a shitty film plastic camera, as you can’t even check the pic straight away"
Powerslide
Filming
FS Board
Ollie
I first discovered this camera (and kind of photography) when I lived in London. My friend Rafski had one of those and shot people from the skate world at events. I fell in love with that look and a year or two later I bought the camera. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I actually started using it though. I’ve always liked photos of girls, but there is way too many people that only do that. But no one was really doing it that way at the time in Madrid, so I thought it was a cool spot to fill in.
Madrid
Pop shove it
SW Crooked
It was thanks to Felipe really. He is my bro, so he showed Joseph the pics just for fun on a trip to Russia. A few weeks later I got an email from Joseph asking me if I think it could work with skateboarding. I wasn’t too sure at first, it was a bit overwhelming, but very soon I realised it was really a matter of trying.
Wallride
Wallride
Well, it wasn’t the easiest project I’ve worked on really… Even if it looks simple! [laughs] For a start, I really film much more than I take photos, so I had never taken skatepics before. It was hard to do this for the first time with a shitty film plastic camera, as you can’t even check the pic straight away. We figured out that the best way of seeing if the trick was captured in the right moment, was filming with the iphone and recording the exact moment when the flash would light up the skater. Also, the camera has a fixed shutter speed on 1/60. That is a pain in the ass for skateboarding since it usually doesn’t move slow. We shot many roles, and in the middle of the process parts of the camera would start breaking apart.
Luckily we managed to shoot everything we wanted though!
The process might be a bit of a pain in the ass, since you have to work with four pics, but it’s very mechanical. I shoot a roll, and develop it in a shop. Then I scan the negatives at home and lay down the four frames of each gif together on photoshop. Each negative contains two frames of the four we will use for each gif. Then I touch the levels of the pics a litle bit and we export the gif. Later I’ll add a song in premiere if it's for Instagram.
