Before I was really into downhill skateboarding or photography, I saw some totally badass shots of downhill skating by Nate Lang (I can’t find ‘em now but check out his Flickr).

I had no idea how he’d gotten the sharp skater and blurry background that captured the speed so well. Eventually, I figured out that he’d shot with a wide-angle lens while skating in a pack, bombing one of the big mountains outside Vancouver.

I’d never really tried that until recently because I put my hands down a lot when I skate and didn’t want to break my camera. There’s a filter in photoshop–zoom burst–that’s supposed to mimic this look; but it rarely looks right.

Calvin, Matt, Tai and I were taking some runs up in the San Gabriel mountains last week and I decided to give it another shot. I broke out the follow-cam handle, set my camera to take a photo every second, and tried to stay as close as I could (check the shadow).

We only did one run with the camera; but I still got a few cool shots. Not bad for 6 minutes of work.

I think the trick is to stay low and get as close as possible while keeping the skater in frame.

Anyway, yeah. If you’ve got pack skating skills and friends that shred, skate with your camera. – Max.

Edit: forgot this one. I shamelessly ripped off Lewis Hine‘s idea.

Raw Run Photos