Russell Day called me up on a Saturday morning and told me he was at he Razors house with some people and was wondering if I could help them decide where to shred. I didn’t want to drive too far south because I had plans later that day, so I told them to meet me at Earl Warren Middle School in Solana Beach, which is only a few exits from my house but with plenty of things to blade.

Earl Warren is a very well-known school with a variety of different spots to skate. You have the big sign ledge in the front, low rails and step ledges on the inside of the school, then on the outside there is a kinked ledge and a high, skinny flat to 12-stair rail.

When I got to Earl Warren the swag was turned on and up to eleven. I met some new faces like Steven Tat, Jeph Howard, Mike Lilly, and Korey Waikiki. They were there to film with Philip Long for the Razors AM team video. To my surprise, Brian Aragon was also along for the ride because he needed clips for his Ground Control section. I didn’t realize it was hammertime for the Brian but I should have known he doesn’t mess around when he filming for a section. We Out Here!

I put on my skates and played around on ledges with everyone and watched the AM team get their clips. After a few minutes I stopped blading and watched Brian looking intensely at the flat to down rail. It was going to be swagtastic! I bladed over to my car and attempted to get set up for the shot. I knew I didn’t have much time because Brian was already charging at the flat of the rail while I was getting my camera. We all know what Brian Aragon is capable of, so I figured he was going to do a difficult switch up right at the kink. I skated to the bottom of the stairs with the 50mm prime lens already on my camera. Brian hadn’t done anything other than a top soul but he was planning something swagalicious. Originally, I wanted to set up my flash and get the right exposure, but there was no time. I took my first practice shot to see what my exposure looked like, but it was too dark. I continued to try and experiment with different f-stops but I forgot to change my shutter speed back to something other than the sync speed. I saw Brian charging and quickly framed and shot the trick at the kink. Brian did a perfect Topsoul 360 at the kink back to Topsoul. I caught him in the air as he is looking down to hammer the nail into the swagie switch up. I overexposed the shot because I shot it at 1/200, and thought it was unusable, but with the magic of Photoshop you get to see a swaggerful photo.

Keep in mind the rail is extremely skinny, high, and it’s on top of a ledge, which has a five foot drop to a cactus on the side Brian topsouls. No room for error, all swagger in the air. — Steve Steinmetz