‘I’ve been very lucky to have people pass my name along on the premise of trust and hard work.’
Dylan Makar
August 2025
Can you tell me something about Texas that no one knows?
I would say a lot of people assume, especially from outside of the US, that Texas is mostly desert, like the stereotypical Western movie. I think it’s funny seeing some people’s reactions once they get here for the first time. Once they get to Austin, they like to mention how green everything is compared to what they were expecting or just how developed everything is. It seems like a lot of people have this idea that Texas is like a rare mythical western land. Other than the weather and excessive heat, Austin is pretty comparable to places like California or other typical Midwestern cities, but it’s got some good life and culture to it. One of Austin’s strongest attractions is the natural water sources we have here. You can just jump into almost any body of water that’s around town because it’s all mostly spring fed.
I’ve accessed your website. The portfolio of work you’ve done across brands and skaters and publications is impressive. And you are just 24 years old.
Thank you. I really appreciate it. So, there were a lot of things that kind of naturally fell into place over time in my childhood that led to me being a naturally creative person, I guess. My mom kind of raised me by herself and I didn’t have any siblings which pushed me to focus a lot on myself and how I spent my time alone. I would say it started in middle school when I was just a video game nerd. All I would do was spend like sun up to sundown playing video games in my room. I was also doing things like taking guitar lessons and playing music in a church with massive production abilities that probably contributed to my knowledge of creative production. I saw a lot of different aspects of production, more behind the scenes type of things rather than what’s directly put in front of you at a young age. I consumed a ton of media through YouTube and had a moment where I decided I could be the one making these videos I’m watching, so I took a step to learn how to start doing that.
Also, I learned pretty quickly that I’m not the best skateboarder. I mean, I can do the basics and have my few flat ground tricks but as far as going downstairs and handrails my skill maxed out pretty low compared to my friends, which naturally led me to capture their tricks rather than trying my own. I started following and taking inspiration from photographers like Oliver Barton and Jake Darwin that kind of established the staple, perfect skate photo in my head and how it should be framed, lit up, timed, etc. I had a drive to get better and wondered why my photos with the popup flash weren’t looking like a cover of Thrasher. After a lot of studying and gear investments I eventually started to figure it out. At this point I was probably 16 years old and realized that this is what I wanted to do with my life. I was in my newspaper class in high school and set a goal to have a Thrasher cover by 25. I imagined myself as a photographer working for a publication or doing some form of documentary journalism. Everything snowballed after that which led to me doing local client work in town like weddings, headshots, and graduation photos. I was still skating on the side of all this and around 18 or 19 had worked my way kind of into the skate scene here pretty well.
‘That one was pretty crazy, actually.’
And how did you then end up with those various collaborations?
Like how did it come about? My first considerable job in skateboarding was around when COVID hit, and as unfortunate as that was kind of kickstarted things for me since companies had to source local talent instead of traveling to the major hubs for photographers. Brighton Zuener had a Vans shoe coming out and had relocated with her family to Austin during COVID. Vans reached out to No- Comply Skate Shop and asked about local creatives that could help with the release campaign. My name got put in the bucket and it eventually worked out.
Classic jumping board.
Literally it was. There were a ton of things I learned on that photo shoot about how to capture photographs on a commercial scale for advertising. There were a lot of silly things I did incorrectly like not having the shoelaces tied correctly, but I felt very honored that I had the opportunity to do that, which led to the biggest paycheck of my life for doing something I loved.
For something you would’ve done for free.
Exactly. That job helped establish a reputation for me which got me my first photo in Thrasher through Michael Sieben and Roger Skateboards, the local board company here. Sieben was a major help and inspiration to me. We’re both from small Texas towns, so we’ve been able to bond over moving to the city and into skating type of situations.
He seems like a very nice guy with my interactions I had with him so far. Super supportive.
Yeah. He’s a low-key guy but he’s really cool. I’ve had a lot of work come in through No-Comply and Sieben. I’ve worked with Adidas and with the local soccer club, Austin FC.
A soccer club collaborates with a skate shop?
Yeah. That one was pretty crazy, actually. They literally let us go in and skate around the soccer stadium for a day to promote the collaboration.
I never heard of those two worlds kind of colliding but now here, we are. It’s pretty cool.
Yeah. It was a crazy day and an amazing experience. One of my photos got put on the shirt for the campaign and I got to add Austin FC and Adidas on my resume which felt like a big step.
It’s almost priceless, isn’t it?
Exactly. From 2019 to 2023, I was also going to college for communication design and learned graphic design, branding, marketing, things like that. So, I was focusing on my skills and learning how I could mix that with my photography and creative content. I feel like that helped give me a big step up in a lot of the work I got at a younger age because I had a deeper understanding of the sphere of my work. I like to think that people who hired me at that young age saw those abilities and trusted them, which I’m incredibly grateful for. Two other skate filmers in town, Calvin Millar and Taylor Morgan, also helped bring me a lot of new clients and connections in the professional world. One client eventually led to another, mostly through word of mouth from that point forward. I’ve been very lucky to have people pass my name along on the premise of trust and hard work, rather than the creative outcomes of it. I eventually got connected to a production agency in Los Angeles that does a lot of social media marketing for a lot of big companies. Their whole niche is partnering with high profile athletes and then pairing them with brands. This has allowed me to expand my portfolio massively outside of skateboarding.
That’s amazing.
It’s been a lot of hard work and now that I’m out of school and contracting work full-time I can’t all say that it’s all been super fun and sweet, but there’s nothing else I would rather be doing in retrospect. Looking back on everything though, and I’m sure you’ve probably experienced this too, it’s easy to forget a lot of the insignificant bullshit and realize how good everything is. I feel like that’s probably one of the reasons why I am so in tune with my camera and taking photos, so I can capture the good moments and have that memory to reflect on rather than the bad. It struck a bell in my brain whenever you mentioned that you were doing this magazine in the nineties and then you kind of got burnt out and did some other things, but now you’re back into it. I honestly feel like after nearly 10 years of doing what I’ve done I’m kind of reaching that same point. I’m definitely not burnt out, but that passion that I used to have when I was younger and my tolerance to a lot of the bullshit has definitely declined, especially with the heat conditions and other factors we have in Texas. It’s an interesting dynamic and as you grow up and realize you want to make more money and do other things. That’s kind of the position I’m at now which has led me to working with other clients outside of skateboarding.
‘I didn’t know this at the time, but it had been like his sixth or seventh day trying that trick, battling at it.’
Is there anything we talked about outstanding, like shots that really left a mark on you, but is there anything embarrassing or funny that you’ve experienced that you’ve done that may be a huge mistake from a client or something?
I’m a perfectionist with everything I do, and that conflicts a lot with the nature of skate photography. There’s been hundreds of scenarios where I’ve asked a skateboarder to redo a trick because I missed the timing or didn’t frame it properly, and that can be pretty embarrassing sometimes. One shot that left a mark on me was getting to photograph a Cyrus Bennet kickflip. Watching videos of Cyrus Bennet skate, I always loved his crazy style, especially his catch on his kickflips. Limousine Skateboards came to town, and I had the chance to shoot with them, and there was one spot where he did his kickflip and I didn’t really get the right shot. So, embarrassingly, I asked him to do it a couple more times, and all I could think was,”God, this is not a good first impression.” I had the same situation with Stefan Janoski too last winter.
Really?
Yeah. Nike came last year on a trip and Janoski was doing a back-tail on this popular out-ledge downtown. Some skateboard tricks are a little more difficult to capture in a photo than others, especially depending on how the person’s doing it. I was really struggling to get the angle and timing correct with that one. After a ton of attempts I finally got a photo where I felt like, “oh man, this is the one, I finally got it.” When I showed it to him, I think he was like, “oh, no, that’s not it.” (laughing).
Any proud moments you can share?
One photo that’s like I never imagined I would’ve gotten to shoot. It was Cyrus Bennett’s like ender in one of Thrasher video where he did the fakey Manny half calf flip on the courthouse in New York. Having a photograph of possibly one of the most legendary tricks to go down at a spot in New York where the way I even shot that photo and got on that session was just a miracle realistically. I only knew Cyrus from when they had visited Austin a few months prior, and I was in New York on a photo shoot for my agency actually. And so, I wasn’t even there to skate or really anything. And I had some free time, and I was texting him, seeing what he was up to, and he was like, yeah, we’re about to pull up to the courthouse. I’m going to try this trick. I didn’t know this at the time, but it had been like his sixth or seventh day trying that trick, battling at it. There was no time for a photo because it was so close to the deadline. But I happened to be there and within probably two hours of him trying it, he put the trick down and I shot a sequence of it. I had to do it like handheld because I didn’t have a tripod. And I luckily got it. It worked out and it was just crazy because, what are the odds of me being in New York, the day he lands it after being hit badly and out of all the photographers in New York even as well. It’s one of my most liked photos on my Instagram account at this point.
‘His name is Mark Roberts and in my books he’s one of the best skateboarders to ever exist from and in Texas.’
If there’s one person, a male or female, that you consider the godfather or godmother of Texas skateboarding, who would it be?
I feel like I would be a little naive answering that since I’m from the newer generation and there’s probably a lot of people that I don’t know about that have done this before me. There are older photographers I know about in Austin that did this way before I did, and they never had the opportunity to do any of the things that I was doing. There’s a lot of people that have paved that road to get skateboarding where it is now in Texas. In my personal view in Austin, I would say Elias from No-Comply could be considered a prominent figure. He’s kept No-Comply going in Austin for almost 20 years now, which is a big accomplishment for skateshops especially in this economy. He’s done a ton of things to support our local community like creating a scholarship program through the community college for local skaters.
If you could pick any skater in the world to shoot, dead or alive, who would it be?
This may seem weird actually, but out of the entire world this person lives right here in Austin, Texas. His name is Mark Roberts and in my books he’s one of the best skateboarders to ever exist from and in Texas. He’s kind of like one of those hidden gems too. A lot of people from Texas know about him, but outside of our communities I’m not too sure how far his reach is. For as long as I’ve lived here, I’ve never shot a skate photo with him, but his style is undeniable and amazing. So, yeah, if there was one skateboarder in the world, I could get a photo with, it would be Mark Roberts in Austin, Texas.
Last question. If you could interview any person in the world, who would it be?
It would be my grandfather on my dad’s side of the family that passed away when I was 14 years old, right when I started getting into all this stuff. He was the only artist in my family and had the walls of his house covered in paintings and murals. He was an architect and had his own business that was responsible for some really beautiful work during his time. I would love to show him the work I’ve done and the career I’ve made for myself but also hear his perspective on life and how he became so talented and artistically inclined.