Tristan Martinez’ Waiting Room
Artist, photographer, Bright Young Things alumni - does Tristan Martinez do everything? Yes.
He also rips at skating. Fucked up good at skating. It’s bullshit. You can’t have it all, Tristan, pick a lane, and hopefully you pick photography, because you’re good at it, and that’s why we are here writing about it. Tristan’s new book, Waiting Room, released last week via Friend Editions and is as vibrant and active as it is crispy and glittering, covering life in skateboarding and art in the cities of the world with clarity and near anonymity, and though it is often funny, Tristan remains reverent for the subject matter. But in a book with this much time and care put in, it’s important to know which spreads are most cared for by the artist, so we texted Tristan to share his favorites and say why, unedited and in their entirety, emoji’s and all.
Get Waiting Room here.
This is one of the first spreads in the book. I couldn’t tell you the night I photographed this but I feel like it captures a specific spot in a story that puts you into the moment, like you’re sitting there getting every detail about ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . The hands of the person on the left plus the shirt of the person in the middle give you a sense of place and feeling that’s just universal.
This spread is a photo of my best friend Andrew (right) and a rendition of “The creation of Adam” (left). I put these two together because it made me laugh to see Andrews finger become the “hand of god” in the spread.
I think the real story here is that this was the second time Andrew stayed at my apartment while visiting New York. I had to keep a close eye on him the second time around because I lost him the first time he visited.
I think I took these the same day? Idk the funny part is that the hands on the right were waiting in line to buy a hotdog.
I don’t really have a story behind these but just a story of why I paired these together. When I was a kid I would go to a lot of Dodger games, my brother and I would sit top deck or in that area. For some reason this one game these guy were trying to do the beach ball thing in the stands… but instead they were blowing up condoms.
These were taken probably a year apart.
Carl in his hotel one day before going to Tompkins and this day that Carl was trying to skate this huge bump to bar in east village. It was a mission because Carl had to change his wheels and get towed in. I think we went to the spot 2 or 3 times but security kept putting fabuloso cleaner on the ramp up to the bump to bar making it impossible to skate.
I felt like there was a good comparison between Jesus on the cross and the way chacho was falling. Chacho ended up getting the trick but definitely took a solid slam skating the rail against the wall. Also the picture of Jesus in a fire place just seemed ironic.
I was coming back from a roadtrip with my girlfriend. The wind was catching her hair just slightly. So naturally while driving it makes sense to roll the window down and ask her to stick her head out.
Love this spread. Ones in New York, the other in in Chicago.
To me they both read as fake places even though the on on the right is very much a real place not a set or facade.
That day on Chicago my camera diead because it was so cold the lake was frozen over along the shoreline.
These are both of my girlfriend Marge. The left is a necklace that her friend gave her of one of her paintings. The right is some what an ode to titanics heart of the sea(her fav movie) the images kinda read as an angel devil duo also.
Love how these two speak to each other the person in the right looking up at the firework seems like looking up on the people on the fire escape.
The night on the right was at my friends apartment on canal. My homie got stuck in the elevator for a few hours while everyone was still just partying and hangout.
