Lukas Kolasowski / For The Record Vol.1

Lukas is an incredibly talented skateboarder who, as you will see, has a great eye for the overlooked, simple daily moments in his current home city of Milan. He has had great clips in each of the Panorama videos in Milan as well as releasing parts filmed in his hometown of Verona. We spoke to him after work over a couple of beers to take a look behind the scenes at some of the most impressive photos in his latest zine ‘For The Record Vol.1’.

When I first met you from what I remember you weren’t shooting as much as you are now. So in the past year or two what has sparked your interest in taking photos ?

For a long time I was finding myself not wanting to go outside for whatever reason, only going out to skate and work. But there were times that I needed a breath of fresh air to go for a walk to get outside, just to enjoy the sun, think and look at things. I like finding links between what I’m seeing outside and what I’m thinking. When I’m outside I’m looking for patterns or elements that catch my eye and find a meaning for it or I’ll give it a new meaning. 

That’s interesting, the same person could look at two different photos and just think completely the opposite things about it, like a lot of these photos, it’s pretty normal stuff that lots of people see all of the time.

Yeah, everyone sees differently, thinks differently and ignores some things or puts emphasis on specific things.

So with For The Record Vol.1 did you plan to make a zine or did you have all of these photos and put it together afterwards ?

No, I was collecting photos for a bit and just realized I wanted to have something like a collection, like a printed project. From time to time I was printing single photos like our parents did for family albums back in the day. So I got the ones that I liked most and got them printed on this app where you pay only the shipping and they send them to your place.

How many prints can you get each month ?

Like 45 a month of the classic little ones (4×6), I hung some on the walls around the room and at some point I just wanted to do an actual put together project. I didn’t plan it out as it’s something that I wanted to do without thinking too much, I’m someone who thinks a lot, sometimes getting stuck in my thoughts and often it doesn’t go anywhere. Especially in a creative process you have to feel it more than thinking about it.

 How did you go about printing it ?

 I had never printed an actual project before this so I put in a lot of effort to find a good way to print it. I didn’t get them done at a physical store but I found about this website that offers you different options, so once I had a finished project I uploaded it and just had to choose the type of paper and all the details.

It was really cool that you gave these out for free, most people definitely wouldn’t have, so what was your thinking behind that ?

With photography it may be an expensive hobby in some ways but I don’t find it that hard to spend money on it. There’s some things that when you have to spend money on your kinda bummed, but when I have to spend money on a roll of film I’m like fuck it, it’s my project and something it’s that I want to do. I didn’t care too much honestly and I didn’t want to get money back or earn anything from it.

Yeah that’s a selfless move, also its quite good quality as well, it’s very clear that you could have chosen a cheaper, worse option but it’s great the way it turned out. I’ve seen zines that are printed worse and have cost like 10 Euros.

So do any of the photos have good stories behind them ? Have a quick look if you need to.

This one of Rob was in Warsaw. We were just chilling right before our departure back to Italy, I really like the light here. 

On the other side was in Italy, right behind my place we were just riding the bike and he had this Super Tele, the OG ball, that probably everyone here in Italy played with when they were a little kid. He had it while we were riding the bike in the middle of the street and I asked him to throw it so I could get a photo. I was in front of him riding the bike with one hand and I had the camera in the other one, he just threw the ball, I got the picture and I’m hyped on how it came out.

I think it’s one of the best photos, really both of these photos go well next to each other.

 I don’t know why but Rob’s photos are the ones that I like most, shout out to my man Rob.

We were just looking at simplicity, but there was beauty in this simplicity” 

This is a funny one of Ale in Barona, we were skating Barrios, had just finished the session and were feeling pretty tired so we went to drink a coffee and relax for a second. This place is a centro sociale (social center), it’s a spot where old people meet but it’s open for anyone. Anyway, they were throwing a party, having lunch all together, everyone was dancing to the music and having so much fun. It’s nice that they can have fun doing simple stuff at this age. We were just looking at simplicity, but there was beauty in this simplicity.  

This is the oldest picture in here, it was shot maybe in 2019 and was actually my first roll of film I shot. It was in my friend’s crib where we used to spin records. The shirt my friend is wearing was from the first batch of T-shirts we did with our collective NPS, it’s short for Nice Planet Sound.

When you say collective, what kind of stuff do you guys do ?

We spin records, do events and we all love music so that’s what connected us. Personally I don’t play but we’re just a bunch of friends hanging out in the nights till whatever time, spinning records and drinking some beers, hanging out and having fun. This photo was in the beginning, and at some point it just came naturally to do something together.  

This is Leo and Bruss my two friends that are still spinning records and representing nice planet in Verona and elsewhere. I have nice memories of this even if it was only five years ago, but I mean looking at those outfits it could be even the 90s.

Also the TV looks super old.

You’re right, also with the records and that TV, the Nike tracksuit with the Opel sponsor, you don’t know what time it is. 

This one was pretty random, with the guy mowing the lawn

I just love the attitude of this guy, him just doing a regular job but doing it with style you know. Those cool ass glasses that he actually needs to wear, but he’s wearing them like a boss, the fucking cigarette. He’s just doing something which probably most people wouldn’t like to do because you may say it’s not the best job, maybe not the funnest job or whatever but he’s doing it with style.  

The slicked back hair is pretty fresh too 

He looks dope,  I just wanted to capture that, like it’s not what you do but it’s how you do it, that’s what they say and it’s fucking true. So that’s why this guy is randomly here printed and he doesn’t even know about it, I’m gonna show him if I see him.

If we go back to the one at the premiere (for Panorama 2), that was a sick night for everyone, you had a good part in that, probably a good minute and a half or 2 minutes right ?

Not even that much, a little more than a minute maybe.

How was it filming for that ? In the sense of does it affect you trying to take photos when you’re focusing on skating ?

 No, I actually can do both at the same time, but yeah (during filming for the video) I was probably more focused on skating than on shooting photos, so when we went on sessions I was just trying to get clips.

You had some really good ones, what was your favourite clip you got in that video ?

My favourite trick was probably the last one because it took me much longer than the other tricks I had. It was one of the tricks that I needed to go back to a few times. Sometimes you just go to a spot by chance without knowing about it before, and maybe you do a fucking great trick but it doesn’t feel as good because you didn’t plan it and there wasn’t as much build up. This one was planned because I really wanted to get a nollie tre and the Gioia stairs are the perfect spot to do it. 

So I see that you’ve got here For The Record vol.1, do you have some plans to make a second one or what are you thinking for your next project ?

Honestly yes, I mean I want to keep shooting that’s for sure. I have started to do a second one actually but I don’t know how it’s gonna come out. I’m still thinking about themes it could involve, still trying to understand what I really want to put inside in the second one. Knowing myself it can change and might be something totally different. It’s a work in progress and as I said before I don’t want to plan too much, I want to feel it out. For now I’m just gonna get more photos and let’s see what we have. 

Alright nice, thanks for sitting down and having a chat.