A box marked “February 1985 Transworld Skateboarding Magazine” came into my possession a few months ago. This box was full of analog art-layout boards made before we had computers, when magazines were painstakingly cut and pasted together month after month.
Back in the analog film days and before the computer age, many photos went astray after the time the image was shot, the spread laid out, and the separation made and sent to the printer.
What piqued my interest as I looked into the box was that there were a couple of my color photos in that issue that I never got back.
I started to thumb through the layouts page by page and noticed a bit of color taped to the back of one of the art boards. I lifted a piece of paper to reveal a 2”x2” slide that I had not seen since late 1984. The color slide showed Tony Hawk at the 1984 NSA Summer Finals held at the Del Mar Skate Ranch. At that contest, Tony Hawk took first place in the halfpipe event, with backside airs to tail-smack on the fence post on the hip, as well as huge frontside airs.
This color slide had never come back into my hands, and it had always felt like a personal loss to me. Tony had asked me a couple of years ago if I had it, and I’d had to tell him no. This day I was surprised to see the long lost photo—it was totally unexpected—I was elated!
Enjoy the original slide, art board, and magazine layout. The new print version of the photo is now available in my shop.
