The Konnekting Bowl Rollers skate and scoot competition was a community event held at an outdoor skate facility in Brisbane’s south — the kind of event that doesn’t make it onto mainstream event calendars but matters enormously to the people who show up. Local skaters competing on a local park in front of friends and family.
I enjoy photographing skate events because the subject matter demands technical precision and rewards patience. You have to know enough about skating to anticipate what is about to happen — where the skater is going to be when they reach the lip of the bowl, which direction the trick is going to go, how long the descent takes before the next moment of visual interest. Without that anticipation, you are always a fraction of a second behind.
On the half-pipe air: The image of a skater fully airborne above a half-pipe against open sky is one of the cleaner subjects in action photography — the figure is isolated, the action is legible, and there is no background clutter. The challenge is anticipating the peak of the jump, which happens and is gone in a fraction of a second. I made many attempts to get the board at the right angle and the body at the right extension.
On detail shots: Some of the most interesting skating images are not the aerial tricks but the close shots of footwork — the moment of a grind, the relationship between shoe and surface. Getting low and close for these requires being comfortable with the fact that a fall will come toward you. I find a short telephoto more useful than a wide lens for this work.
On the community aspect: What I appreciated about the KBR event was its self-containedness. It was not trying to be anything beyond what it was — a group of skaters who had organised their own competition at their own park for their own community. The event had its own internal logic and I was a visitor to it with a camera, trying to document rather than define it.
The young boy at the edge of the competition, helmet on, board at his side, was waiting for his turn. I have no idea how he went.