skate photography only works when the photographer knows what to photograph

[toadster]

this is just my opinion at the moment. I have a friend who cares way more about photography then skateboarding. He skates on occasion and likes to take photos when we are skating. A lot of the time he's not actually photographing the trick being done, he photographs the end of it or the start of it, or a clear photo of a bail and posts it. Like yesterday my friend is doing fakie ollie to switch 5-0, and rather than actually getting the switch 5-0, he gets the fakie ollie into it(not even on the ledge).I even told him what my friend was doing and what it should look like. Which leads me to the point where skate photography does not work unless the photographer actually understands what he is taking a photo of. I would show the pictures, but I'm kinda embarrassed by them and would rather not. If the photographer cares more about the elements of the photo rather than the skateboarding itself, it doesn't work. He also doesn't really go through the photos with us and just posts them. I feel bad about not liking them but its just like a reoccurring thing at this point. Maybe I'm an asshole, I don't know.

[bert0202]

If you're young and like the dude tell him, if you're old he's probably a lost cause for skate photography lol

[Audrey II]

post your portfolio poosey

[back smith]

Maybe it's more fine-art photography than sports photography to him.

[Magnolia]

Yea this drives me crazy in news articles about skating and other non skate-centric media

[rawbertson.]

its crazy, i could take better skate photos on a digital camera from like 2002 with a massive delay, than people could who were "professional" photographers who didnt know anything about skating. i think they were just shit photographers. anyone with a fancy camera is a photographer technically, very few have actual sick portfolio of hard work to back it up. wedding photos and shit doesnt count... unless you really did something unique with it

[TwisT]

Take a look at these action shots I took at the skatepark!

[shannamal]

is he trying to take skate photos, or photos of skating? there is a difference.

[Fongstarr.]

its crazy, i could take better skate photos on a digital camera from like 2002 with a massive delay, than people could who were "professional" photographers who didnt know anything about skating. i think they were just shit photographers. anyone with a fancy camera is a photographer technically, very few have actual sick portfolio of hard work to back it up. wedding photos and shit doesnt count... unless you really did something unique with it

Haha. I always sort of tell my wife this. I know liking photos are in the eyes of the viewer but I always say no wedding photographer is going to have their photos in say a gallery. It's just a different market of photography where it's definitely appreciated by people but won't be a photo that will stand the test of time.

Photography in general just got a lot easier in the last years where people are getting good fast. I sort of hated it but it's really just a sign of the times with anything these days. I will say it helps to know or mimic skate photos of the past but I feel like you can break out of tradition and it can work at times.

A good example is Matt Price in his recent cover for Closer. I don't think this would have never been a cover back in the days.

[Audrey II]

Photography in general just got a lot easier in the last years where people are getting good fast. I sort of hated it but it's really just a sign of the times with anything these days. I will say it helps to know or mimic skate photos of the past but I feel like you can break out of tradition and it can work at times.

A good example is Matt Price in his recent cover for Closer. I don't think this would have never been a cover back in the days.

its not terrible, but he kinda blew it with the 2nd shot. id guess it was used because of who shot it instead of the photo being of quality, which is lame.

skateboarding is not a difficult thing to photograph if you skate. especially if youre shooting someone willing to do something big or technical. the hard part probably is making friends with people who skate/skating yourself to get access to those photo opportunities.

i would be surprised to hear there are more than 10 guys currently making a living off just shooting skate photos. sometimes you gotta shoot weddings to pay the bills.

[Fongstarr.]

It's almost like skateboarding is pro-bono work unless it is like Nike or New Balance. From hearing Alex Papke podcast, he does corporate work for other companies that mostly pays the bills.

[Christ Puncher]

this is just my opinion at the moment. I have a friend who cares way more about photography then skateboarding. He skates on occasion and likes to take photos when we are skating. A lot of the time he's not actually photographing the trick being done, he photographs the end of it or the start of it, or a clear photo of a bail and posts it. Like yesterday my friend is doing fakie ollie to switch 5-0, and rather than actually getting the switch 5-0, he gets the fakie ollie into it(not even on the ledge).I even told him what my friend was doing and what it should look like. Which leads me to the point where skate photography does not work unless the photographer actually understands what he is taking a photo of. I would show the pictures, but I'm kinda embarrassed by them and would rather not. If the photographer cares more about the elements of the photo rather than the skateboarding itself, it doesn't work. He also doesn't really go through the photos with us and just posts them. I feel bad about not liking them but its just like a reoccurring thing at this point. Maybe I'm an asshole, I don't know.

So your friend started taking photos and isn't immediately great at it but he still has the fucking nerve to fucking enjoy it? You were right to come and complain to a bunch of strangers about it, but I'm so fucking pissed.

[Sondor]

guy just needs to know how a good skate photograph looks like, and the only way he can learn this by looking at the great skate photogs work who came before him (from publications like transworld, free skatemag, etc)

[ferguu]

Totally agree, I'm in similar situation with a friend of mine. He's the kind of guy that buys the latest iPhone everytime it comes out, he skates a little with us, mostly just doin laps of the park / spot while we try tricks. He loves to flex the photograph capabilities of his phone and always offers to record clips with his trademark horrid slow-mo from way too far away. Our skate crew has a shared instagram account, I said to him sure you can post our clips, thinkin' they'd be good... big mistake - slow motion bails of flatground tricks we didn't even know we were being recorded for... and the photos are always taken right as we pop. Never again haha.

It's like peeps r saying, if it's a photograph of skating, instead of a skate photo, then it's kind of worthless.

[toadster]

Expand Quote

this is just my opinion at the moment. I have a friend who cares way more about photography then skateboarding. He skates on occasion and likes to take photos when we are skating. A lot of the time he's not actually photographing the trick being done, he photographs the end of it or the start of it, or a clear photo of a bail and posts it. Like yesterday my friend is doing fakie ollie to switch 5-0, and rather than actually getting the switch 5-0, he gets the fakie ollie into it(not even on the ledge).I even told him what my friend was doing and what it should look like. Which leads me to the point where skate photography does not work unless the photographer actually understands what he is taking a photo of. I would show the pictures, but I'm kinda embarrassed by them and would rather not. If the photographer cares more about the elements of the photo rather than the skateboarding itself, it doesn't work. He also doesn't really go through the photos with us and just posts them. I feel bad about not liking them but its just like a reoccurring thing at this point. Maybe I'm an asshole, I don't know.

[close]

So your friend started taking photos and isn't immediately great at it but he still has the fucking nerve to fucking enjoy it? You were right to come and complain to a bunch of strangers about it, but I'm so fucking pissed.

Maybe you read my post in a really angry voice in your head or something, but I'm not losing my shit over it. I'm just sharing my opinion based on a reoccuring event for me. Why would I be upset that he enjoys his hobby? I enjoy it too, I just think it would be better if he had more knowledge on skateboarding/ skate photography. However, I did acknowledge maybe I'm an asshole, maybe we're both right.

[Audrey II]

you can give advice or critique without being mean to a person. also, you should honestly be flattered anyone gives a shit about you or what youre doing enough to take your photo in general.

it just sounds like you want your friend to be as interested in capturing skating as you are, in a specific way that you are, which means... you should just get a camera and start taking pics yourself. but you might find that you dont have an eye/knowledge for photography, you just have an eye that knows to get a low angle with a fisheye when capturing skateboarding, because its what we have seen a million times.

we tend not to shit on people who arent good at skating because hey, they are trying, having fun with it, and thats the most important part, as cheesey as that might sound. id say that can apply to photography when its clearly a hobby for the person. but thats just like, my opinion, man.

i look forward to seeing some of you post your photos in the photography thread!

[Yakusoku2]

You need to know how everything around you behaves and anticipate to the action. This works for all types of photography. Maybe he doesn’t know how skateboarding works but he will figure out.

[ferguu]

You need to know how everything around you behaves and anticipate to the action. This works for all types of photography. Maybe he doesn’t know how skateboarding works but he will figure out.

IDK... speaking from experience, and I'm sure a lot of ppl can relate, the peeps that take these kind of photos / vids are always ridiculously stoked on them. Don't think they'll change without a push in the right direction.

[Allez_Jambon]

Stock photo, Venice Beach tourism Flickr account, or local news photos are funny. You either get guy-in-the-sky, poorly timed photos, or instances where the photographer doesn't recall if it was a make or a bail. You absolutely need an understanding of skateboarding to make a good skate photo considering anticipation/timing and showcasing the spot.

This could be yours for only $300
https://www.markmackinnon.com/products/skatepark-venice-beach









https://www.alamy.com/young-man-on-skateboard-jumping-mid-air-low-angle-rear-view-image5432812.html

[Audrey II]

seemed like the right thread for this.



shot by trevor wisecup, hes a good and kinda known street photographer out of nyc, he probably was just walking by when this happened. he isnt a skate photog but he certainly blew it here.

(edit: im dumb and couldnt get the insta link to embed, but if youre interested in checking his stuff out https://www.instagram.com/trevorwisecup/?hl=en )

[Fongstarr.]

This won a photo competition on IG a couple of weeks back. Most voters I would say aren't skateboard enthusiast. To try and critique the photos anyways, I feel like it's not centered right and most of the time, you would want to see the obstacles that the skater are skating.

This is her whole set. Not shitting on her take at the Red Bull contest but I am shocked her photo got picked out of all that I saw. Or even the won that came in 2nd.

[Garfiled L. Asagna LLC]

This won a photo competition on IG a couple of weeks back. Most voters I would say aren't skateboard enthusiast. To try and critique the photos anyways, I feel like it's not centered right and most of the time, you would want to see the obstacles that the skater are skating.

The first photo is solid. Cropped weird but that's a nice shot. Especially in terms of like a photography contest that isn't skateboarding centric. Rule of thirds and shit. It's got depth and it makes ya feel something looking at it.

The other photos she shot wouldn't look good on a cover but if you were writing up an article for a skate mag about the event or even a blog post those check out. Not great photos for sure but not out of place for skateboard media.



Of course someone who has never shot skateboarding isn't gonna nail it right away. Everyone here whose ever tried and shoot skateboarding sucked at it initially. Timing escpially. Same with angles. It's something you learn. That's not exclusive to skateboarding. Anytime your shooting things in motion theirs going to be a learning curve. Everyone's gotta start somewhere and while good skateboarding photog is impressive it's not all that challenging of a medium to learn in the sense of photography. Like theirs dudes who shoot formula 1 cars going 200mph for a living. Be glad you got some to shoot photos for you and help them learn the nuances of shooting skateboarding. No need to dunk on the dude for doing you a solid. Your not gonna find a lot of people out there who shoot skateboarding photos exclusively these days but you do got a dude who has the capacity to learn it and should try and grow off that instead of just writing him off.

[Hairy Ballsagna]

After shooting photos of high school sports, I get the newspaper guy-in-the-sky photo thing. Most sports the photo doesn’t need to show any context. If a basketball player is grabbing a rebound, you don’t need to see where the hoop is. The best looking photo is usually a tighter crop with just an upper body and an in-focus facial expression. You know where the hoop is - it’s 10 feet off the ground like always. You know what the player is doing - trying to get the ball.

A skate photo has to convey a sense of where the skater came from, where they’re going, and what they’re doing. If you tried to take a photo of a quarterback throwing the ball that also showed where in the field he was and who he was trying to pass it to, its probably gonna be a shitty photo.

So send the newspaper sports photographer on an assignment to the new skatepark and you’re gonna get some guy-in-the-sky action, because that’s what works with most sports.

[Fongstarr.]

Expand Quote

This won a photo competition on IG a couple of weeks back. Most voters I would say aren't skateboard enthusiast. To try and critique the photos anyways, I feel like it's not centered right and most of the time, you would want to see the obstacles that the skater are skating.

[close]

The first photo is solid. Cropped weird but that's a nice shot. Especially in terms of like a photography contest that isn't skateboarding centric. Rule of thirds and shit. It's got depth and it makes ya feel something looking at it.

See.....this is where I feel like I need to be back in a classroom setting or something. It's nice to see or hear other's thoughts on a photo. It opens my eyes to it more anyways.

[IWANNABEABIGDOG]

Isn’t that how all photography works?