Eric Koston: The Return | Hypebeast

Definitely. So you worked with Keiichi Nitta and Atiba Jefferson for the Oakley launch in Japan, can you tell us about your personal relationship with each one and how they became involved in the project?

Atiba for one thing is a really good friend because of the relationship we’ve built just working together for so long. It’s gone beyond just that, with him, he’s just a really, really close friend of mine. It’s definitely a lot more than just a skateboarder/photographer relationship. He was a part of my wedding, just to give you an idea.

Atiba is really just someone I’ve admired a lot and his work I’ve really trusted throughout my career.

Keiichi was nice, I wasn’t too familiar with him but it was an idea that was thrown at me by Dylan (Oakley), so i was like “Yea, that sounds cool.” I’d never really done any shoots like that or worked with anyone like Keiichi, so it was cool for someone of his background to take portraits of me. Usually it’s really limited with me, I mean how many times can i really pose? It’s just a portrait for a skater you know?

[laughs]

But working with him was cool, it was fun, he had these wild ideas and was trying to get me to do all these things. Keiichi would make me laugh and that would just spawn something else. I really had fun with it, it was nice just hanging out with him those few days that I did and getting the opportunity to work with him. I was just soaking it up the entire time. Hopefully we can work on something else together soon.

Just chatting with Keiichi for a bit, you definitely get the sense that he’s a really cool guy and has tons of unorthodox ideas. The shoot certainly looked like a good time.

Yea, we had fun. At first, I thought it would be strange or awkward, but the eggs were broken fairly quickly. It was a pleasure to work with Keiichi.