Ewan Burns Goes From One Project to Another in New York

Sometimes, one project leads seamlessly into another. Such was the case when Ewan Burns was heading home from an outdoor motion shoot with athlete Kalen Norton, for which he had rigged a rideable dolly using an electric skateboard on loan from Soho shop, Filipacchi

“They look really pretentious, I think,” mused Ewan. “Skateboarding’s cool, but electric skateboarding is kind of silly.” Still, the model he’d rented would retail for about two grand and could sustain speeds of 30 miles per hour.

The thing was too heavy to carry the mile-plus home, and too dangerous in N.Y.C. traffic to ride at top speed (Ewan also had recently sustained an injury). He was riding it, slowly, and was caught ironically off guard at a light near the Manhattan Bridge, where a group of kids was taking turns skating the crosswalk every time the lights changed.

“This was one of those real, New York lifestyle moments,” Ewan said, unable to get the kids’ raw coolness out of his head. Once home, he swapped his relatively uncool electric board for his bike and camera, and headed back out to capture the rest of the action in the inflamed late-afternoon light.