I'll make a separate post from my recent, cuz I'd like to discuss the process of shooting, and hear how you guys approach it?
I can chip in with a couple of my own evaluations
Focus
In the beginning, I would have my skater stand still approximately where he would do his trick, auto focus on him, and then go on manual focus for shooting the photo. I would have to bother my skater every time I had moved slightly, and never felt too cool doing so.
These days, I arrange with my skater where he should do his trick. Just like point "this tile" or "this leaf", and then when I move my ass around, I can auto focus on where we would've arranged it. Sometimes I keep the shutter release half in to focus until I release, sometimes I'll focus and switch to manual focus again. I can switch between these two techniques during one session, and I've yet got to find out what's really to prefer over the other.
Light
I'll still have the skater stand where he'll make the trick, in order to set up exposure and light. Usually I'll arrange how I want my ambient light first, probably slightly under exposed, and then find out where to put the flash.
I just try out a couple of test shots to find out how much power I want the flash to unload, and I don't really use this feature were you can see if your photo is clipping. I don't care too much to what extend the exposure is perfect. I just eyeball it on the screen, and if I can't see it burn out, I'm happy.
Lens and angle
This is where I really want to put my attention, as this to me is where you really are getting into the portraying of skateboarding. It's hard really to put many words into it, except that I try to think of photos that I've seen of specific tricks, and try to re-create them, but with the certain skateboarders style in mind.
I plan on making a library of cool shots of every thinkable trick I might end up shooting as preparation. I would love to say, that I can just come up with ideas at the spot, but sometimes I feel at loss, and end up just setting up the fisheye, though I've got a feeling that a long lens could work out. I fair amount of experimentation is of course in it's place, but then there's also no reason to make mistakes that other people have all ready made.
Sum up
I do want to put some more work into getting great exposure later on, but at the moment I'm happy with my photos looking rough, clipping, having lot of noise or what not. As said, it's more important to me, to have a photo where you really get a feeling of what tricks has been presented to you.