In association with our partners at Canon, we enabled one of Britain’s most talented Photographers & Gather.ly Collective member Lee Kirby to do just that. Labelled a ‘Fashion Photographer’ it doesn’t take long to realise where Lee’s true passion lies. Having grown up in Norwich, skateboard in hand, it just seemed too perfect not to explore those roots in the world’s most skate-able city, Barcelona. Canon sorted kit & we helped with anything else Lee needed to realise that vision.

This collaboration wouldn’t have been complete without an equally talented videographer. Massive shout-out goes to Chris Turner for his efforts in capturing this adventure on film.

We also had Pro Skateboarder Harley Miller representing Milk Skateboards flown out with Lee & Chris to give the guys someone awesome to point their cameras at. We really couldn’t have lined up three more suitably talented mugs.

Oh, nearly forgot Gather.ly’s very own Ben Howell... thanks for helping us out on the trip man and putting up with these three for the day.

Holly at Gather.ly contacted me about this opportunity at the beginning of the year. This phone call changed my life.... The start to my year had been pretty shit up to this point. After a long battle with illness I lost my Father in January and my plans for my career in photography had taken a back seat to look after my family. I initially thought that I wasn’t anywhere near ready to start working again, but I can honestly say that being involved with this opportunity really helped me through these sad times. Without this experience I don’t think that I would have done anything in photography this year. So I’d just like to start with a massive thanks to Gather.ly for your help and determination and getting me back doing what I love.

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Barcelona being a city that’s been skated so much over the year’s means it’s also been photographed a lot. I hadn’t been there to skate before and was warned to stay away from it's many famous spots if I wanted to come away with unique skate photos. I wasn’t going to miss out seeing all the skate spots I’ve grown up watching on skate films because of this though so we decided to ignore the advice and do the complete opposite. I did a lot of research before the trip and thought all I needed to do was approach the places I’d always wanted to visit with new eyes and create a new visual of these over documented skate spots.

The journey began with a 5am start in Stansted Airport. I hadn’t met Harley Miller before this trip. Our first encounter was a memorable one. Harley rocked up at Stanstead Airport covered in mud and stuff, stinking of beer having slept rough in Harlow train station after a big night out at a skate film premiere after being ditched by a friend because of a girl. All he had on him was his board, a bag with limited resources and a couple of quid in his pocket. I instantly knew this was going to be a fun trip and this guy was rad!

Saying that, I hadn’t slept either after stupidly deciding to go to a house party instead of getting some much needed rest for the 24 hours I had ahead of me. Then turned up Chris, our videographer, his situation was pretty much the same ours.

We touched down in Barca and within a matter of minutes we started shooting. This spot was actually just outside arrivals at the airport. We got to skate here for about an hour without getting thrown off. I found it funny that we had come all this way to literally the best city in the world to skate and Harley wanted to get a trick on a fire hydrant.

I had seen this mad looking sculpture before in videos but not many photographs of it, I soon realised why…. It was a challenge to shoot and a fucker to skate. The surface of the sculpture was pretty much a mirror, reflecting the bright sun straight back into my lens. The giant matchsticks looked to be from a Dali painting or something, making the image look surreal or photo shopped (which it’s not). I’ve always enjoyed capturing the landscape within a skateboard image, not just showing off a do-or-die hammer, just a simple backside flip can do the trick sometimes… Excuse the pun.

The wallride below was another spot that we had pre planned to skate, again this was soon apparent how difficult this spot was to skate. I made sure I shot at an angle that I had not seen a trick here photographed before. Dodging stray dogs Harley got a cheeky wallride and we moved on….

After walking completely the wrong direction for ages we found our next spot. If you’re ever wanting to visit these banks I would advise bringing a gas mask (dog shit everywhere).This is my favourite shot from the project. Midday sun illuminating the rich colours from the trees, the bank was in the shade, perfect to balance the overall exposure with a bit of fill flash freezing the trick at 1/1250sec at F3.2. I was using Canon’s 70-200mm F2.8 L-series telephoto lens at 200mm so I was pretty far back squeezing everything into frame. You can see one of the flashes in shot, which I would normally take out but I quite like it left in here.

This photo could have been really something. An old guy and his dog were sitting on the seats to the left, watching Harley warm up. His dog was staring straight down my lens the whole time, as soon as Harley aired over the bump they left… probably in disgust, as we got loads of hassle from another old dude whilst trying to get a trick here. I managed to convince him to move for one more go before we left by giving him ten euros and this is the shot I got. In the video it looks like I give him my wallet (I obviously didn’t). You can see the man and his dog below in the next set of images taken on my disposable.

You’ll see my reaction to getting this shot in the video. We had literally 5 minutes left of sun, perfectly hitting the power plant in the background. The quickest set-up in my life happened. Harley got a few tries down in the mean time then he got a backside nose grind first go. One photo, one attempt… Then we got kicked off by a policeman in a smart car.

Gather.ly in partnership with Canon made this project happen, my dream as a photographer is to travel and skate. Whatever your dream may be in the creative industry I strongly advise getting involved with Gather.ly, they’re dream weavers. Props to Milk Skateboards for lending us their gnarliest member for the day, Harley Miller you’re a fucking legend. So much content was created in such a short period. Check out the video below put together by Chris Turner for more of an insight into our day.

Enjoyed this feature? See more of Lee's work here