Dave Swift

As my first book gets closer and closer to delivery I wanted to share the back story on how I came to pick this image of Heath Kirchart. A lot of you may have seen this switch heel photo of Heath as it was in his feature interview in The Skateboard Mag back in 2005. In the grand scheme of things it is not the first image you think of when it comes to the times Heath and I shot together–El Toro Lipslide, Santa Barbara 50-50, any one of the UCI hammers or the Oceanside High back tail with the American flag would have been obvious choices. I knew in the beginning I wanted something of Heath that was a little more obscure for the cover and my original choice was an artsy B&W of a frontside tailslide at night. I was dead set on that image until the book designer on my project sent me a mock up of this switch heel. Far from what I was thinking but a pretty colorful image shot in the blissful Hasselblad days. I tried to convince myself on the B&W and asked him why he liked the color better. He said to me, while he liked the B&W, after looking at all the images selected for the book, he thought my work was more about color skate photography. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to go with it but I still had reservations. It wasn’t easy but after looking at it for the last six months I’m convinced it was the right decision. Thanks Pablo. #AllIn #daveswiftphoto #heathkirchart #skatephotography #skateboardinglooksbetteronfilm #skateboarding #hasselblad500cm