Skating with Paul Scott and the Spinner 360°

UK-based Paul Scott works closely with the UK skating community, documenting the scene in film and digital. We discovered some of his beautiful medium format photos taken using the LomoChrome Metropolis film and decided to reach out to him. We sent Paul the Spinner 360° and some rolls of LomoChrome Purple and LomoChrome Metropolis film to document the skating scene.

Hello Paul, tell us a bit about yourself?

I have been an active skateboarding filmer and photographer for around 20+ years, but now I am mainly focused on photography. I have been living in Portsmouth for 7 years and the City has a great and diverse skateboarding scene, which, since the lockdowns, has been growing. The city also has many great angles for landscapes and glorious sunsets being right on the coast. Throughout the whole pandemic, I didn’t sit back, I kept exercising through skateboarding around and continuing to shoot skate photos when possible, the emptier streets made it perfect. Most recently I have been involved with Skateboard GB, which allowed my photos to promote the growth of skateboarding in the UK in both their print and social media campaigns. Locally for Bored of Southsea and the ' Undercover Skatepark Project ' amongst others and been with Slick Willies in London for many years also. Skateboarding allows me to integrate with a lot of good skaters across the south and shoot both landscapes and street photos as I travel or move around.

Inbetween taking digital action shots of skaters you shoot quite a bit of film as well, what's the appeal for you?

With film, the unknown and the nature of you don’t get as many shots and without wanting to sound cliche the aesthetic too. You load the camera and run with it, Digital is comfortable and very forgiving as a format to shoot with you can test lighting or angle, but with film you don’t tend to test it, you just shoot it and hope it works out.

Often carrying either a 35mm Canon EOS 1 which shares the same EF lens and flash gear. I use with my digital canons or a 120 / Medium Format TLR a Yashica 635. Sometimes a Point and shoot depending on where or who I am with can depend on additional gear I carry. Most recently it has also been the Lomography Spinner 360

How did you like the Metropolis 120 results, did they come out as expected?

The first time of shooting with Metropolis 120 Skateboarding shots.  I loaded my Yashica 635 TLR and we headed to Brighton it was drizzling on the drive down, but we got lucky with some nice golden hour light at the DIY spot known as Black Rock, Shooting digitally and working out the angle and using the puddle as a reflection getting a low angle and then later that week developed the Metropolis 120 at home in Cinestill CS41 in my kitchen and scanned it the next day once dry. I love the detail you get from medium format, and the colors were reasonably saturated despite metropolis being a more subdued film. The results were good and had a style and look that was unique and definitely shall shoot more of 120 with the LomoChrome Metropolis in the future.

And how was shooting with the Spinner camera with our Metropolis and Purple films?

It was to start with a case of figuring out how to time the Lomo Spinner camera with a skater doing a trick or rolling past and pulling the shutter. One thing that the Spinner being a 360 camera does is show you behind the lens taking the photo. Both the Metropolis and Purple films performed and developed and scanned great, this was my first occasion shooting Purple, and think of these two films, the LomoChrome Metropolis for me will be the one to revisit with the Spinner again its very versatile with a style, and on a bright day can give some refreshing results.

What's coming up next for you?

Moving into the Autumn and Winter months it becomes harder to plan forward and shoot skating shots, it can become a very last minute due to the UK weather, I enjoy the empty winter beaches for landscapes too. Looking forward to more events and skate competitions next year and to continue pushing my skateboarding photography and shooting more film.

To see more of Paul's work visit his website and Instagram page.

2022-01-14