Bryce Kanights, Portland, November 2019. Photo: Tozer

“You know you’ve got the shot, and that you’ve exposed it properly. But you still don’t know if it’ll make it safely back in your hands”

Skateboarding royalty alert! There’s really no other way to describe Bryce Kanights, one of skateboarding’s most legendary photographers.

Bryce really has seen and shot it all. He came up as an original SF local, honing his photographic talents by shooting his local punk and skate scene. From there, his career developed as skateboarding itself did, meaning he had a ringside seat for every notable development in skateboarding history.

Think of an iconic image from skate history and chances are Bryce was behind the lens. Gonz at Alcatraz? Bryce. The iconic pic of Jake Phelps everyone ran when he passed? Bryce. The EMB heyday? Yep. Bryce again.

Today, he lives in Portland, still shoots skating and is, as I discovered, absolutely fantastic company with a bottomless bag of anecdotes that could fill an entire season of the podcast, let alone one episode.

It was a true pleasure to sit back, and listen to a master tell tall tales from his incredible career. My thanks to Jen Sherowski for doing the intros, and for Bryce himself for taking the time to spend the afternoon with us.

Listen to the episode here:

HUGE thanks to Travel Portland, Hertz and Black Diamond for their help in pulling this entire Portland trip together.