Skate Park

Was out for a drive last night and noticed the local skate park ahd some kids there sO I decided to stop and shoot. Never shot skaters before and I have to say it was the most fun I've had shooting yet. The kids were great, a few talked to me about photography and my equipment and I noticed they stepped up their game when they knew someone was shooting. Good times, I'll definitely go back and try and improve.

Here's a few, C&C welcome as I'm very new to this:

Pretty sick shots. What lens did you use for these?

Also if you manually set your white balance they'll come out more consistent.

Crop tighter!

All of the WB were adjusted in lightroom, I guess I need to work on being more consistent. Sun was fading fast so I had to keep adjusting my settings so I could keep shooting.

I'll try cropping tighter, I guess I was wanting to show the ramps in the shots...is this not needed?

All pictures were with the 70-200 and nifty fifty, I think these 4 were the 70...

Thanks for the feedback guys, I really would like to shoot more skaters and bikers so all the advice is greatly appreciated.

Focus is spot on. While its definitely possible to do w/o, I would say most BMX/Skate photography is done with off camera flash. It helps to freeze the action (Duh, I know, just sayin) and it gives the subject a bit more pop. Your crops are actually good, as in its nice to see what ramp/box/set they are hitting/how high etc. Faces are good, unless the pic calls for something else.

Heres a thread that has a lot of good info, with a few more helpful links at the bottom.
http://www.bmx-forum.com …ashes-and-triggers-HOW-TO

Hope these links help. I've been out of the BMX game for a few years, I'd like to get back into it (on the photography side this time though)

I would say the opposite of crop tighter. In sport photos like skate and snowboarding its all about the feature. I have heard people say they want to see both the launch and the landing.

I would also say get lower.

Snowshooters wrote in post #10039222
I would say the opposite of crop tighter. In sport photos like skate and snowboarding its all about the feature. I have heard people say they want to see both the launch and the landing.

I would also say get lower.

As you can see the park is surrounded by a fence and this was as low as I could go. Is it ok to go inside the fence (public park) to shoot?

Yeah its okay to go inside. Talk to the skaters and ask em what their best trick is on a certain feature. Then you can position a shot easier.

Skaters will dodge you, but Don't leave anything sitting around where someone might fall on it.

Nic Rapacz wrote in post #10038682
Crop tighter!

No, crop looser. Check out this if you wanna know about skate photography. A common mistake is cropping closer, it looks awful, you get no sense of the trick, height, skatepark/spot, or anything really.

Bronxfireguy: That's my how-to you linked, how about that.

If the park isn't very crowded just get in there and shoot (assuming you're there with someone you trust will not run into you). I like to get inside the bowls so that I can crop fairly tight but still get an angle to include the ramp or set the scene. I agree with Nic that you should crop tighter but not at the angle you were shooting from.

Stephen,

Great write up! Had I known I would have given due props. I checked through some of your flickr, you've got a great eye for frames.

Cheers. I posted it here so it might get a few more views and help a couple people out.

Snowshooters wrote in post #10039222
I would say the opposite of crop tighter. In sport photos like skate and snowboarding its all about the feature. I have heard people say they want to see both the launch and the landing.

THIS.

I like #3, you can really see him concentrating.

+1 on the cropping looser. Other than that I do think that these shots are pretty good.