Skateboard Photography How to get Started, and some Inspirations

Zane Vanderhorst-Sewell
Apr 3, 2018
6 min read

A brief history of skateboarding, how I was inspired to start photographing skaters and what you will need when you do start getting involved with the skate community.

In 1958 the first skateboard was created out of roller skate wheels and trucks attached to a board, this was around when surfing was becoming more and more popular. At this time skateboarding was also know as “Street Surfing”. In 1959 the company “Roller Derby” mass-produced a skateboard with metal wheels, which was the first commercial skateboard available to the public.

From 1963-1966 all the major surf companies started to make better quality skateboards with clay wheels and trucks made for skateboarding. This also overlapped the first skate contest in Hermosa Beach, California in 1963.

In 1964 the band “Jan and Dean” released the song “Sidewalk Surfing” which contributed to the already growing popularity of the skateboard industry. It was around this time that skateboarding magazines started to come out with the first one being “Skateboarder” which was a quarterly magazine released as a subset of “Surfer Magazine”.

ABC wide world of sports started to broadcast the skateboarding championships at this time.

In the year 1973 along came the invention of urethane wheels opening the door to new possibilities for skaters everywhere. Skateboard transformed in this period from bumpy and noisy to smooth and silent. This opened the door to skating banks and ditches because of the new ability to grip concrete because of the new urethane. This was a major change in the industry and where skateboarding really began to flourish.

Now 1975 fiberglass boards became popular around this time with surfers, comparable to what we now know as “Penny” boards. Skate companies started to pop up and boards where being made from everything from wood to aluminum, and the release of the first skateboarding movie “Spinning Wheels” was around this time as well.

From 1976-1978 the California drought forced residents to drain their pools and urethane wheels just being invented the year before made skaters see these pools as territory to be conquered. New tricks being invented daily such as Arial’s, Inverts and the Ollie. This caused skate parks to close due to low attendance and no money to pay the insurance.

In the 80’s skateboarding continued to push its boundaries turning to handrails and walls. This is when skater owned companies started to rise and become more common.

The ESPN Extreme Games started in 1995 and really dragged skateboarding into the mainstream and started to become a spectator sport. Skateboarding really took off being featured in commercials, and influencing the fashion industry.

After the year 2000 almost everyone was enjoying skating people as young as 2 years old to people in their 20’s and 30’s, with every major city having built a skate park, skate camps and lessons available. Since the 2000’s skateboarding has continued to grow with constant new trends and tricks it is hard to say where it will go from here with magazines such as thrasher starting to become less and less popular due to online presence, I am excited to see what the future has in store.

I started skateboarding when I was very young, around the age of 6 even though I never really took it seriously nor was I particularly good, I knew that I loved it whether I was on the board or just spectating. I was very influenced by my next-door neighbor and best friend throughout my childhood who was always skating, he was always pushing m to skate and bringing me to skate demos, where I would be even more inspired by the professional skaters and meet people deeply submerged in the industry.

As I got older friends came and went but my passion for skateboarding was always strong. Some of my friends went on to get sponsored by the local skate shop “Green Apple”. We would always go to green apple as kids and just hang out and talk with the owner and whatever skaters where hanging around as well.

I always knew I wouldn’t ever be the guy doing insane tricks on the board, this was due to the fact that I wasn’t comfortable with knowing that you have to get hurt many many times to get better, and improve your skills on a board. All I knew was that I wanted to have something to do with the scene and that this was where I belonged. I started shooting skateboarding by just showing up at the skate park in my spare time with my camera and I got some interesting shots this way, but once I started planning out shoots with more experienced skaters the images improved dramatically.

Some tips and tricks to think about when shooting skateboarding.

1. Shutter speed is a major key when shooting skating. You want to have it around 1/1000 if you need to you can go as low as 1/500 but you might start to see some drag if you go much lower. If you are still having trouble freezing skaters, try bumping up your ISO without going to high and ruining the quality of the image.

2. Depth of field is not as important of a component with this type of photography, so aperture is not as crucial as I usually shoot on shutter priority.

3. Selecting the right moment to press the shutter. I will always try to capture my subject at the peak of the trick or the highest point if that’s the type of shot I am going for, but if you are trying to capture a trick, you want to press the shutter at the most interesting point of the trick. Try to keep it clear what trick they are doing or use the angle you choose to tell a story.

4. Some other things to keep in mind while shooting skateboarding are to always try to capture the effort and emotion within the trick especially if it is a trick that has taken a few tries to get right and perfect.

5. While this may seem obvious, it is highly overlooked in skating photography but it is also easily forgivable. Always try to get the face in the shot to give some personality to your subject, but there have been plenty of amazing shots without the face so it’s a good rule to break once in awhile.

6. Get close to your subject. I like to use my fisheye lens when shooting skaters but it makes it so I have to be dangerously close to the subject and have come close to breaking it many times. A 7-14mm or a 12-35mm is a good idea to keep on hand ensuring you don’t get to close to avoid damaging your equipment.

7. Shoot on continuous, this may take an unnecessary amount of images but it will ensure you get the shot at the right moment usually, until you feel that you are experienced enough to shoot single shots. Continuous is also great for creating sequence shots like you see in magazines. I shoot on auto focus continuous almost always when im with skaters.

8. Keep your compositions simple try to avoid messy and distracting backgrounds in your shots that will take away from the subject your trying to focus on. Try shooting from different angles, get low and shoot up or get high and shoot down anything to avoid your typical handheld camera position that is incredibly boring. Use natural light and shadows to paint your subject, along with getting experienced with off camera flash, which will be a huge help for shooting skateboarding, but I personally try to avoid it. use negative space to help tell a story, for example the direction the subject is moving to give an idea to what they are doing, and just pay around and experiment.

9. Submerge yourself in the community of skateboarding around you, get to know local skaters and skates shops, which will make it easier to get people to collaborate with you because you are a familiar face.

10. If skateboarding photography is something you wish to pursue, try making some skate videos as well as it is harder to make a name for yourself based solely off images, and clips are where all the hype is these days, but if your just in it for fun don’t worry about it and just have fun.

11. My final tip is to study other peoples work and discover what you like. Buy a thrasher and study the way the images are captured this will help improve your overall composition and the skate magazines are a lot of fun to read as well.

Some amazing photographers that have been an inspiration for me:

J. Grant Brittain

https://www.instagram.com/jgrantbrittain/?hl=en

Mike Blabac

https://www.instagram.com/blabacphoto/?hl=en

Anthony Acosta

https://www.instagram.com/aacostaa/?hl=en

Atiba Jefferson

https://www.instagram.com/atibaphoto/?hl=en

Arto Saari

https://www.instagram.com/artofoto/?hl=en

Glen E. Friedman