SK84EVER

When my son, Will, took up skateboarding as a passion in 2002, I decided to paint and play with the photographs I took of him to emphasize the energy and artistry of this fast-paced sport. I had fun with the colors by over-saturating or altering them. Many of the images, such as Brooklyn Bridge feature selective tone reversal, a process in which I reverse the tone of the background in order to heighten the contrast between it and the skater. These transformations celebrate the ephemeral moments of beauty that enliven the life of a city.

Skateboarding is a sport that is incredibly hard to master. The harder the tricks get, the more skaters get to know their good friend, cement. Many skaters deepen this friendship in attempts at “jumping the door,” (Jumping the Door) a rite of passage at the Orcas Island Skatepark. To do the trick imagine carrying enough speed to not only hold yourself against a vertical wall, but to jump a sizable hole in the middle of it!

An Ollie is the most basic skill: it is the ability to pop the board as high as possible above a surface. The use of a fisheye lens in shooting Ollie into the Sun exaggerates how high a skater can fly.

In The Red Balloon a red ball provides a reference point for gauging just how deep the big bowl at the Orcas Skatepark really is. A huge amount of speed is needed not only to reach its upper edge, but to stay planted against the wall on the way down.

Something as seemingly simple as consistently landing a kickflip (shown in the images Kickflip Shoreline and Water Street) requires intense practice and extreme precision under constantly changing conditions.

I find it thrilling to witness the bravery and ingenuity of the most inventive skateboarders. The images Wall Ride NYC and Brooklyn Bridge show a what’s known as a “wall ride,” the art of skating a vertical surface for as long as possible.