Riot In The Streets: Vans in Cyprus

This article appears in the November 2010 issue of Skateboarder, and is another good example of why Jonathan Mehring's features were some of my favorite parts of the magazine. Rather than a bunch of stories about how many beers were consumed or joints smoked, how many civilians were pissed off because they don't "get it", or other familiar themes that appear over and over in trip articles, Mehring uses the space to give the reader some context of what it was like to exist in that space at that moment: describing the exhilaration of being in the streets after a Cypriot soccer team win, approaching and exploring the war-torn areas of the de facto state of Northern Cyprus, and finally returning to the comfort of Aya Napa stacking clips during the last ten days of their trip. His words immerse you within the spaces you see in the skate photos, and make the tricks feel a little more meaningful. 









Another photo from this trip appears at the front of this issue before the Contents, and is one of my favorite photos ever: a two-page spread of Chris Pfanner ollieing through a tree. There was a pull-out poster of this photo included within the main article, and it's been on my walls ever since I carefully tore it out of this issue thirteen years ago.

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