Will Linstead is the type of guy you can find rolling around the back streets of Melbourne on his skateboard, coffee in hand with a camera strapped to his body searching for new perspectives and opportunities to shoot! it is quite apparent that Will’s talents run deep inside the skateboard & snowboard scene for his photography work.
He has worked alongside and help capture pro skateboards such as Curren Caples, Chris Joslin, Pedro Barros & much more.

When Will is not shooting in the concrete jungle you can guarantee to find him amongst the snow coved mountains, it is very hard to keep track of this guy due to the amount he travels.

Will does a lot of work alongside his homies from the “Rusty toothbrush crew” stacking shots for DC Snowboarding, Transworld snowboarding & getting 4 page magazine spreads throughout Transfersnow magazine.

Will Linstead is the type of guy everyone wants in their circle of friends, super genuine, super humble, worldly knowledge and very inspiring.

We caught up with Will to have a little chat - Make sure to check his interview below.


Name: Will Linstead
Age: 30
Location: Based in Melbourne. Winter trips to Japan & NZ
Instagram/website: 
@wlinstead
www.wlinsteadphotography.com


WHEN DID YOU FIRST GET INTO PHOTOGRAPHY?
My Dad first got me into it when I was like 12. He was, and still is an amazing photographer and artist. He got me my first 35mm Canon AE1, which I still have. I always shot skate photos when we were growing up around London, and studied fine art photography through college, and a university degree. I wasn’t really sure where I wanted to take it when I graduated, as my degree was leading me towards the exhibition world of topographical landscape studies. So I thought I’d take a year to travel, starting in NZ, where I got fully hooked into the snow scene for like 6 years. I guess I found I could apply all my classical photography training in the arts to the snowboard stuff. Same photos, just people hucking themselves off stuff in them haha.


WHEN WAS YOUR FIRST MAGAZINE FEATURE AND CAN YOU RECALL WHAT THAT EXPERIENCE WAS LIKE?
Yeh, my first printed publication was in NZ snowboarder of Alex (A.Stewart Rusty Toothbrush). We were at Cardies (Cardrona NZ) filming for Diaries Down Under, and the park crew had built us a gap to rail just for the day to film on. 
Lots of tricks went down over the first few hours, with it already being a pretty successful day, but I knew Alex wanted to get something big, and man did he. His Back-rodeo 540 to front board bonk, is still one of the gnarliest things I’ve ever seen on a snowboard (In jeans sunnies and a shirt haha). He put in the work that day and so did I shooting for like 8 hours. We were trying to get that for like 5 hours, and was getting down to the wire, as you can see from the shadows, we were about 15 minutes away from losing the light.
I was so stoked to even be part of that day, and to get my first print from it just topped it off. Alex, you are a beast!

WHO DROPPED THE BEST PART THIS PAST WINTER?
Not sure about the best part, but anything 1817 boys put out or any of the trollhaugen edits get me really pumped to ride. Anything creative like that is good!


ON A SCALE OF 1 TO MAYHEM, WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING SO TIGHT WITH THE RUSTY TOOTHBRUSH CREW?
Hahaha man, those boys know how to have a good time! It’s been amazing to see how far they’ve taken “Rusty” since our first project filming “Southern Nights” in Queenstown. They’re the hardest working crew I know, and they deserve every bit of publicity they get. The crew’s grown a lot since then, but I’m super pumped to hang out, and film again with them this winter in Aus (and smash 100 beers!)


I COULD IMAGINE SHOOTING IN THE SNOW CAN BE A LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP AT TIMES, YOU ARE CONSTANTLY EXPOSED TO THE ELEMENTS.
DO YOU HAVE ANY SESSIONS YOU RECALL WALKING AWAY FROM EMPTY HANDED?
That’s the nature of the beast I guess. I used to put so much pressure on getting a banger from everything I did, but I learnt that sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be that day.
I remember my good buddy Jimmy building this HUGE gap off a construction site in Canada, but the weather kept closing out, and we didn’t end up getting the shot we wanted. I always feel for the rider when that happens, as it's hard to build yourself to do something like that, and not to have it work is a real mental battle.
But, we ended up getting the amateur photo of the year for Transworld which was rad and means we can forget about the time he dropped off a 3 story building to flat haha.


WE BELIEVE WHEN YOU ARE NOT BEHIND THE LENS YOU ARE TINKERING ON AN OLD SCHOOL BIKE, CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE? 
Yeh, I got myself a little Bratty Café Racer. It doesn’t go very fast, and I have no idea what I’m doing on it, but it makes a shit load of noise and sets off car alarms which makes me happy! I’d love to get something bigger, but for safety sake, ill stick with what I’ve got for now.



WHAT UP AND COMING WORK DO YOU HAVE ORGANISED FOR THIS YEAR?
I have a few secret plans in Melbourne for the rest of the year which I’m pumped about. The Rusty Toothbrush boys will be here too, so be good to have them all come crash with us, before some snowy missions.


Rad homie - Thank you for taking the time out with us today to give us a little more depth into what your all about, we love your work and keep doing what your doing!