Rob Pluhowski.

Pluhowski closes out Photosynthesis week. He switched from Element to Habitat, but never went pro. It's good to see on Epicly Later'd that he is alive and well with a family now. I hope he still skateboards for fun every so often.

There was no credit, but the safe bet would be that Ryan Gee had his hand on the camera.

Transworld - September 2000 Volume 18 Number 9.

Fred Gall #2.

"Freddy Gall switch ollies a chained embankment in Philadelphia."

If you are looking for any sort of clever writing today, you aren't going to find it here. Go check out You Will Soon. They've been blogging it up over the last 24 hours. But if you want to see an old photo of Fred Gall from the Photosynthesis days, then this is your stop on the internet. He wore a lot of yellow shirts back then.

The photo is by Ryan Gee.

Transworld - September 2000 Volume 18 Number 9.

Pat Corcoran.

"East Coast kids are the craziest > West Coast kids always runnin' shit > Pat Corcoran runnin' a 360 flip."

Pat was another new am for Alien Workshop who debuted in Photosynthesis. He was from Philadelphia and had a lot of Love Park footage. He disappeared from the scene rather quickly. I know there was an interview with somebody from Alien saying that Pat was still skating, but not into the limelight. I also think I remember reading that he had gotten into doing graffiti.

I have no clue about the caption. Seriously. That's bad even by Transworld standards.

Note: There was a Pat Corcoran who reviewed albums for Slap and was not the same guy. The Pat who wrote for Slap had tastes in music that agreed with mine and I'm sure I bought a couple of the CDs he reviewed. He liked a lot of shoegaze/indie type stuff.

It's another Ryan Gee photo.

Transworld - August 2000 Volume 18 Number 8.

Anthony Pappalardo.

Not to be outdone, Pops had another of my favorite tricks in Photosynthesis based on how it was filmed: a nollie heelflip down some stairs that had a board over top of them. I like the composition of the shot and how it is more or less a silhouette. It was kind of surprising when he left Alien for Chocolate. Alien is or was one of those companies that guys are on for life and if they leave, they usually vanish from skateboarding. The Epicly Later'd show helped shed some light on why Pappalardo switched teams and made me like his part in Fully Flared a little more.

Note: This was the second page of yesterday's ad.

Ryan Gee handled the photos.

Transworld - February 2000 Volume 18 Number 2

Brian Wenning.

The first Alien Workshop ad for Brian Wenning and Anthony Pappalardo. One thing that I liked about the Workshop was that they found their own obscure East Coast riders rather than just looking for guys in California. I know that has changed in recent years, but I'm not going to point any fingers of blame at them. Of the two, I think Brian had the slightly better part in Photosynthesis. He did obscenely long nose grinds on the ledges at Love and some big switch 360 flips. He also did one of my favorite tricks ever based solely on how it was filmed: a backside 180 to fakie 5 - 0 to half cab out on the ledge of the fountain at Love. It was a wider shot and the camera was rolling along with him. It just looked very graceful with all the rotation involved in the trick and how the sun was lighting everything up.

Note: This was a two pager and I'll post the other half tomorrow.

Ryan Gee handled the photos.

Transworld - February 2000 Volume 18 Number 2

Tony Ferguson.

"Haven't we seen you someplace before? Tony Ferguson lipslides backside over painted smoothness. Ottawa gas station."

This was from a Transworld tour of Canada. It was probably Tony's first major bit of coverage. He went on to ride for Plan B and turned pro for Girl.

I figured I needed to end the week with some street skating since next week is going to be Alien Workshop stuff from Photosynthesis. I made a list of the guys to find pictures of and I'm doing the scanning this weekend. It would be tempting to do a week of Rob Pluhowski, but I'm going to mix it up. I forgot about him until I saw the Epicly Later'd and I'm not sure how that happened either since I like Habitat's Mosaic video a lot.

Thanks to Police Informer for including Vert Is Dead in the links.

The photo is by Spike Jonze.

Transworld - January 1991 Volume 9 Number 1

Wade Speyer #3.

Ever wake up thinking it is Saturday and then realize it's only Thursday? I'm not firing on all cylinders today. I mean to keep up with the Epicly Later'd show on Vice, but I'm not always successful. I have seen all the Anthony Pappalardo episodes since there's been a lot of discussion about him and Brian Wenning online lately. I watched Photosynthesis last night. I forgot how good of a video that was. What that has to do with Wade Speyer is beyond me, but next week is probably going to be all Alien Workshop stuff from when they were making Photosynthesis. It is a little hard to believe that was almost ten years ago now. All the old guys, myself included, love the late 80s/early 90s stuff, but I think I like 1998 - 2000 just as much, if not more. Those years had that same type of feel as the late 80s for me because I had met a new group of friends to skate with and there were all sorts of new spots around. The gear was a little more functional, too.* So anyway, it's all good skateboarding whether it is Wade blasting a big air or Pappalardo nollie heelfliping down some stairs.

* Osiris and swishy pants don't count. I seem to remember visors being popular as well. Those don't count either. I wore big ass Plan B shorts in 1992, which means I can pick on any fashion statements I see fit.

Thrasher - September 1990 Volume 10 Number 9