Varial Magazine

As part of our professional practice module, we are required to look for work experience within our areas of interest. My main interests within photography are extreme sports. I am also interested slightly with lifestyle/documentary photography surrounding extreme sports, and at this stage, sports in general. 

My first point of contact was with Varial magazine, an east midlands skateboard photography magazine. I firstly sent an email to Tom Quigley, who runs the magazine. I inquired about any available placements, however was told that as it is only Tom who runs the magazine on his own,  there wasn't specifically opportunity for a placement, but he was happy to help me out. 

Tom showed me a skating spot in Nottingham called DIY and helped me out with a few tips on skateboard photography.

These are a few of the images I took at DIY

Some of the tips I was given in regards to skateboard photography, was to include in the shot the whole feature that the skateboarder is hitting, in this case it was the wall. Also I was advised not to use auto focus, and to focus manually on the feature and keep the focus until the skateboarder performed the trick, which would result in the skateboarder being in focus as well as the feature. These tips both worked really well when put into practice as I came out with clear, in focus images. If I was to do this shoot again I would get much closer to the feature and explore more creative angles and viewpoints.

As well as the action shots, I also took some more general, documentary style shots of the people at the skate park and what they were doing other than skateboarding, in order to try and represent their lifestyle. Most shots included people sat around, drinking beer on hand made furniture. One person was picking tomatoes out of a bush that was growing at the side of the skate park.