You certainly know Volcom, but did do know who’s hiding behind the brand’s amazing skate imagery? Today we’re digging a little deeper than just the brand and go behind the scenes with one of Volcom’s main photographers Daniel Cabral.
Stay with us and keep scrolling to learn more about the photographer behind one of the most amazing brands in our industry, how he got in the position he is in now, international travels, favorite riders to shoot with, personal projects and more. Stay tuned!
Hi Daniel! How old are you and how long have you been taking photos for? I am 34 years old and have been taking photos for probably 20 years give or take a couple years. How did you get into photography? I first remember getting disposable cameras in my stocking for Christmas and just taking terrible photos of my brother skating in the driveway or whatever. When I was 16 I got a job at a CVS as a cashier that quickly transitioned into working in the 1-hour photo lab. At the time it was when film was still popular and we used to run like anywhere from a 100 – 150 rolls a day. I ended up spending my first paycheck on a Nikon FM2 which is when I really started to get into it. Not so much shooting skating but more long exposures and just life around Providence, Rhode Island where I’m from.
When and how did you start to shoot photos professionally? Hard to say because I never really considered myself as a professional until I started getting paid for photos a few years ago from Thrasher. After college I moved to California from Rhode Island with the intentions of just doing whatever I could with a marketing degree in the skate industry. After 3 months of looking for a job in California I landed a job entering sales orders at BakerBoys Distribution. It was around that time I bought a camera again and started shooting random things around their office for the brands under their distribution. It was quite a trip to be around all the legends I grew up watching like Andrew Reynolds, Erik Ellington and Jim Greco, so naturally I wanted a camera around to document whatever was going on which kind of grew into a sales / marketing position there. This was around the time Instagram and social media started to be a thing for brands and I actually started the Instagram accounts for Baker Skateboards, Deathwish Skateboards, Shake Junt and Brigada Eyewear. Funny thing is, the first time my photos made it to print were in a small Shake Junt ad in The Skateboard Mag issue #46 (I think). It was actually just a screengrab off all these photos I took on my phone for Shake Junt’s Instagram, so my first published photos were taken on my phone hahaha. First time I got paid for photos was actually when we did a bus trip from Montreal down to Chicago. The late great Joe Hammeke was starting his union job driving trucks at the movie production studios in LA and couldn’t go on the trip so by default Mike Burnett at Thrasher had enough trust in me to shoot the trip and actually got some of my first editorial photos published from that trip in the mag and a check! That was the first time I felt like a professional of any kind haha.
How did you end up being a staff Photographer for Volcom? Somewhere after The Deathwish Video I was let go from BakerBoys, there was no bad blood or anything, they just had to cut budget and I was the lowest on the totem pole. Nothing but love for my BakerBoys Fam! Anyways, at that same time Volcom was doing a Baker Skateboards collab and I briefly met Jake Smith and Remy Stratton from Volcom before I was let go. They thought I was just the social media dude so when they heard I was looking for a job, they figured they needed a social media guy and hit me up. In the beginning I was just running the @volcomskate Instagram and it only had 15K followers at the time, this was before stories and videos were a thing so it was strictly photos. After doing that for a few years, it slowly evolved into shooting the Wild in the Parks contests for the gram, events, then doing lifestyle and behind the scenes shoots and eventually full blown skate trips and beyond.
What are the perks of shooting for such an iconic company? The talent is what I admire most, having access to shoot some of the most iconic skateboarders like Grant Taylor, Louie Lopez and Collin Provost is what has kept me going for sure. I also get stoked on seeing my photos in the wild; in ads, store windows, lightboxes ect… it really makes it worth it to me. As an example, all the instagram stories posts you guys made with my photos for the Volcom Team Vitals really stoked me out! Seeing the end product of my work in its intended use is really fulfilling for me. So I guess having Volcom as a platform of sorts for my work is the second biggest perk. The trips and travel are definitely perks too, but they’re also a lot of work so most of the time I’m trying to find the balance between enjoying where I’m at and keeping the trip on track and productive.
You've been travelling a lot over the years, what were your favorite countries to shoot in and why? Not trying to pump you guys up because you wanted to interview me, but I’ve never had a bad time in Canada! We went to the Dime Glory Challenge a few years back in Montreal and it was the sickest vibe! We also went thru Ottawa and Toronto on that trip which was cool too, I really enjoyed the old architecture, reminded me of home a bit. Niagara Falls is also way cooler from the Canadian side. Even on the west coast, I’ve been to Vancouver a bunch and just the fact that you can be in the city then 20 minutes later be on some epic hiking trail is so rad. Whistler is sick too and everyone Canadian I’ve delt with has been so damn cool. Spain was really cool to experience too. Barcelona has some great architecture and the culture is absolutely prime for photos, on and off a skateboard. Not all the time, but when I’m on trips, whether it’s the last day or a rainy day or something I like to get out, just wander and shoot photos. On skate trips your so focused on the mission and sticking with your crew that you don’t get to do some of the touristy stuff. I had a day to wander in Barcelona and it was really cool to experience. Volcom does a contest in Bilbao, Spain at La Kantera which is a skatepark by the beach. That place and Zarautz which is a beach city in Basque Country of northern Spain was also every epic! Not necessarily a different country but my favorite place to shoot in general is New York City. I grew up skating there and watching all of the 5boro, EST and Eastern Exposure videos so it’ll always have a place in my heart, but man there is so much to photograph there it’s overwhelming! Beyond skating, the character that exudes from all different parts of the city and its people is so special to me. Good, bad and ugly, I truly do love it all.
Do you have any favorite rider to shoot with? They all have different things I like, so it kind of depends on the purpose of the shoot. Grant Taylor is obviously one of my favorites to shoot skate photos of, really hard to shoot a bad photo of GT. Louie Lopez is always such a professional too, I’ll be like “I need an ad photo” and he’ll already have a spot lined up and is very easy to communicate with. Axel Cruysberghs and Alec Majerus are always really good about shooting lifestyle which is something that can be a hard sell for skaters because it may involve wearing stuff they might not normally wear, but they do it naturally which helps make the photos better and good for the brand needs.
According to your Instagram, you also shoot a lot of snowboarding. What's the biggest difference between a snowboarding and a skateboarding photo mission? I actually just started shooting snowboarding last season, by happenstance too. I took Alec Majerus and Simon Bannerot out to the Volcom Igloo at Brighton in Utah to hang and ride with the snowboard team. I was only supposed to be there for a week but Seth Huot informed me when I got there that the snowboard photographer he hired for the month had to get surgery and suggested I stay and shoot instead. With nothing on the calendar I figured I’d give it a try and ended up staying out there for most of the season shooting the snowboard team. It really got me stoked on shooting again. Not because I was over shooting skating but more so because it was something new and fresh. Compared to skateboarding there’s not much difference from a technical standpoint, but hiking mountains with all the camera gear and riding down with it was a complete new experience. I’m not even that good at snowboarding so dropping in on a backcountry run with a bunch of camera gear on my back was definitely a nerve racking experience, but I only slammed a couple times the entire month. First day of the trip a little halfpipe session started to pop off with snowboarders Scott Blum, Mike Rav and a few others so naturally I posted up on the lip where I thought they would launch off of with my fisheye and immediately realized that snowboards in general are much bigger than a skateboard and snowboarders go much higher too! After a few times with Blum blasting out of the frame I figured it out, but out in the backcountry its way more beautiful than the back of a grocery store haha.
Take us in the van with the Volcom crew! What do your daily shooting missions look like when not on a trip? I wear many hats at Volcom, so when I’m not on trips I’m usually handling all of the boring back end stuff like sending out boxes, turning in invoices, making sure riders get paid, running all of the social media, non-skateboarding photoshoots and planning the next trip. But there’s always a random strike mission where we need something shot either for an ad or the website or something so it just depends on what the need is. Honestly not much different than being in the van on a trip, you just have a better idea of where you are I guess haha. Most of the time I’ll just hit up the rider I’m trying to shoot and line something up, meet up at a spot with a filmer, try and shoot a trick then usually get food. We all busy so I try to take everyone’s schedule into consideration
Over your years of shooting some of the best riders in the game, you for sure witnessed a huge quantity of insane tricks. What's the gnarliest trick you've ever seen go down? (Both snowboarding and skateboarding) Oh man, there’s been so many gnarly tricks and sessions. One of my first real skate trips was one of the last filming missions for Holy Stokes! and I remember pulling up to a 30+ something rail in Oklahoma and lighting up to watch Alex Midler and Axel Cruysberghs grind the entire thing. That was definitely the first session I remember being like “damn! I can’t believe I just witnessed that!”. A couple years back we were filming a documentary of sorts for Grant Taylors “Down South in Hell: 20 Years of GT” on Volcom. We invited a bunch of his friends out for a trip up in NorCal and one of the days was a mission to the Glory Hole which is a massive 20+ foot full pipe that you have to kayak out to. Before I could even figure out how to shoot it Grant did the most tweaked out frontside ollie at like 2 o’clock in the full pipe and everyone with a camera missed it haha! It was one of the gnarliest things I’ve seen on a skateboard for sure. There was also this MASSIVE bump to bar in Nashville that Chris Pfanner ollied, it was in the “RV Rampage” bus edit, but I didn’t think it was possible but he landed it like third try! As far as snowboarding goes, like I said, last season was pretty much my first season shooting, but watching snowboarders’ approach to street spots compared to skateboarders is somewhat insane. I remember showing up to the infamous ‘JLA rail’ in Big Bear and being like “so THIS is what you all session?!”. Snowboarders Benny Milam and Lenny Mazzoti did some rad stuff on it that will be coming out next year. Watching Scott Blum do 720’s in a tee shirt in the Brighton backcountry was pretty gnarly too!
On another note, you recently published a photo book portraying the 2020 BLM protests in Southern California. What made you decide to get out there and document this historical event? That seemed like a strange time for everyone. Seemed like everyone was going a little stir crazy from the COVID lockdowns and then George Floyd happened and things kind of erupted. Personally I was using that time as kind of a reset. I was furloughed from Volcom for a couple months so I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I started finding some freelance gigs and almost went that route full time until Volcom asked me to come back. But during that time I also tried to rediscover what else I would like to shoot outside of action sports. I started to shoot a lot of the effects of the COVID lockdowns, like empty streets, boardwalks, empty shelves in the market and such. Then George Floyd happened and I felt so useless watching it on all unfold on TV and the internet that I decided to get involved and participate in the protests. I attended the protests because I wanted to be on the right side of history and wanted at the very least for my voice to be heard with the millions of others. Documenting was never my initial intention. If anything it was natural, I had a camera on me but didn’t go to the protests with the sole intention of documenting it, it just started to happen. One of the main reasons I did start documenting them was because I could sense the gravity of the situation, that it was a very polarizing and telling time for our society and at the very least I wanted to show my perspective of attending the protests for the future generations to look back on. I think I attended maybe a dozen protests and documented maybe 7 of them, the last one was the ‘Roll For Rights” one in San Diego where literally thousands of skateboarders rolled thru downtown San Diego and it was by far one of the most insane feeling things I’ve ever been a part of. By the end of that one I figured I had such a solid body of work that I wanted to put it to print to share. I laid out the zine/book, bought a printer, printed and bound 50 copies in my bedroom and sold them through my social accounts and website. When they were all sold out I donated all of the money to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. I know it was a small drop in the bucket but it felt good to actually do something rather than watching from the sidelines. The book was later asked to be a part of the Ohio State Universities ‘Rare Books and Manuscripts Library’ so it felt like a huge honor and success in documenting my perspective during that time. Pat Field the lead snow outerwear designer saw it too and even included a few of the photos from it into the US Snowboard Team Olympic Uniform which was pretty cool too. Again, my only intention was to show what I documented in that time for future generations, everything else was just a bonus.
Any plans on producing more of these socially engaged publications? Nothing planned at the moment. I did do another zine that was a collection of all the photos I took on bike rides thru COVID lockdown SoCal that turned out pretty cool. Funny looking back at photos of signs for limited buying of toilet paper and empty beaches, but that’s what was going on at that time and I think it’ll be even more funny in the future. Then again who knows! The effects of climate change have been really prevalent recently and it’s been quite alarming seeing landscapes I’ve been to recently change so dramatically. It’s not something I’m planning on working on but if I’m in the position to document it and share it I will.
What's next for you? Any trips, shows, books or projects in the works that we should know about? Little bit of everything really, just got off a trip to Alec Majerus’ house in Minnesota that was super fun. Hit Copenhagen earlier this year followed up by a week in NYC so it’s been rather busy. Trying to get the Volcom Wanderlodge bus back on the road to fire up for another trip with the team. Surf dept has something cooking on the eastcoast and the snow season is coming up quick so there’s never a shortage of things to do. Haven’t done any shows really, I would like to do some photo shows in the future, I just don’t have those connections. My 10 year anniversary at Volcom is coming up too, I thought it would be cool to do a book or something compiling all of my favorite photos and the stories behind them but it seems like such a daunting task, it’s a little overwhelming! Other than that just keeping the ball rolling on shooting the never-ending cycle of Volcom products, that I’ll be doing in the near future for sure!
