How has Tristan Still and Fred Mortagne explored the movement in skateboarding within their work?
SKATEBOARDING IS FAR BETTER THAN ANYTHING MAGAZINE’. ‘The spine of British skateboarding magazine ‘Sidewalk Surfer’, Issue 24, March ’98. One would be hard pressed to find a skateboarder who would disagree. The words – ‘Skateboarding is better than sex’ – more than once have been uttered to me at a skate park or dropped in a philosophical discussion of life between skateboarders. In this study I am going to investigate how the world of skateboarding and the movement in it can be portrayed through photography, capturing photographs from unusual angles that you do not usually see in skateboarding photography. I have been skateboarding from the age of 13 and have always been interested in the media side of skateboarding, whether that is filming or photographing skateboarding. I want to show in this study how the world can be portrayed through skateboarding and how differently the world is seen through a skateboarder’s eyes. Two photographers pop up in mind when I think about my intentions with this study, Tristan Still and Fred Mortagne. These certain photographers portray the world of skateboarding in their own unique ways, with Fred Mortagne even being nicknamed ‘Frangle’ – the unusual angle only he sees. Both artists have been documenting skateboarding since the 1990s, when skateboarding first started gaining popularity, capturing genuine and gritty shots of early skateboarders. This study could be linked with my previous urban photography work, as skateboarding is all about finding new spots within urban areas to experiment different tricks with. In this study I have explored finding new unused angles within the urban area of jersey as well as the skatepark to capture unique photographs of skaters. My work has developed from just taking my camera out with me every time I go for a skate with my friends, taking photographs of them as we skate about to create this photobook. Different digital processes were used to create some of my final images, such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom editing.
Both of my artists and my own work seem to relate to the photographic movement of Realism. Photo-realism first emerged in America in the 1960’s, it grew out of the Pop and Minimalism movements that preceded it. Photorealists were interested in breaking down hierarchies of appropriate subject matter by including everyday scenes of commercial life in their work. One of the biggest influences of the Photo-realism movement was Walker Evans, born in 1903 he is best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression, his elegant, crystal-clear photographs and articulate publications have inspired several generations of artists. Artists such as Paul Strand photographed subjects on the streets of New York, to which he referred his work as ‘Straight Photography’. With Straight Photography the goal was to depict a scene or subject in sharp focus and detail, many photographers used darkroom techniques and manipulation to their images to enhance the appearance of their photographs. Skateboarding photography fits perfectly into the subject of ‘Straight Photography’, capturing your subject with sharp focus as they attempt to land a trick, or capturing a photograph of multiple skaters with sharp detail as they all attempt tricks. Skateboarding photography started to emerge in the 1980’s, around the same time ‘street’ skateboarding first started to gain popularity. Skaters would go out with whatever camera they had and start documenting their sport. During the early days of skate photography, magazines, zines, and write-ups from media were almost the only way to distribute the photographs taken by these photographers, with one of the artists I am exploring mainly having their photographs portrayed through magazines. As the Internet became bigger and more dominant photographers could easily show off their work through apps such as Instagram the landscape of skateboarding photography was altered indefinitely. It became very easy to show off skate photography, gaining it much more attention and leading to a very big variety of different styles of skate photography. Weather theses different styles involved using different lenses or photo manipulation techniques, skateboarding photography has evolved so much since it first started to emerge in the early 1980’s.
The first photographer who I am exploring is Tristan Still, a multidisciplinary artist whose work is driven by his own personal relations, mostly in the photographic practice. His work has been published internationally and has won several awards for his work over his career. From 1996 to 2011 Tristan Still photographed skateboarders all over Australia in what he describes as his ‘personal search for Animal Chin,’ the proclaimed founder of skateboarding. ‘Skateboarding is powerful enough to change one’s vision of the world – concrete is no longer simply a building material, a bench is no longer just for sitting, and stairs and accompanying handrails are no longer simply devices to aid one in descending or ascending from one level to another. The urban world is a massive and intricate playground to be explored, full of potential.’ (reference using Harvard system) Tristan Stills work on skateboarding features not just the skateboarders posing and doing tricks, but also has a focus on the movements behind these tricks. Landing certain tricks with the right movements can be extremely difficult and Tristan Captures the right movements and moments within his photography. In this image photographed by Tristan, it showcases the perfect movement and moment a skater is mid-air in a stylistic pose. The image is shot in black and white, which I believe is very effective and adds focus to the main subject of the image, the movement of the skateboarder, as well as this, the black and white colouring of the image makes it much easier to see just how much height the skater has managed to get making the photograph much more impressive. The black grainy edges around the image seem to almost pinpoint the skater as the main subject of the image also, making it a much more effective image.
The second artist whose work I am exploring is Fred Mortagne, a French born artist who has a unique style of photographing skateboarders. As a teenager, Fred Mortagne shot his friends skateboarding through the historic city centre of his home Lyon. He grew to film and photograph some of skateboarding’s most iconic characters. Bit by bit, Mortagne began to blend still photography into his film. ‘I became used to visualising angles that would be good for photography, but didn’t necessarily work for video’, (reference using Harvard system) employing a 24-90mm lens with a high ISO so he can get a better grain within his images he has become known for picturing from angles no one else sees. Mortagne got one of his earliest shots of a skateboarder coursing through a hotels carpark while leaning off a balcony of a hotel room on the 17th floor. ‘Bewitched by skateboarding at the age of 8, my passion for the “useless wooden toy” eventually became the catalyst for my life to come. While feeling out of place at school, entering the adult world seemed like a never-ending foggy day. No perspectives at sight. Skateboarding was the only guiding light. It brought all the missing links: freedom, fun, friends, adventures… and all of a sudden, my future gained clarity.’ (reference using Harvard system) Mortagne’s work almost completely consists of black and white images, this creates a clear contrast between the skateboarders pictured in his images and the landscape surrounding them. With usual skateboarding photography, the focus is mainly on the subject within that image, but with Mortagne’s work the focus seems to be on the environment that the subject is within, leading to some very interesting pieces of work. Nearly 25 years since Mortagne started filming skaters he released his first photobook titled “Attraper Au Vol” (Catch in the Air) and features images of skaters on locations all over the world. ‘With skateboarding, you travel a lot trying to find new spots, we skate around modern buildings which often also happen to be very photogenic’ (reference using Harvard system). Mortagne explains that when you film skateboarders it is very close up, so you lose the dimension of where the skateboarders fully are, and he wanted to recapture that dimension within his photography. Attraper au vol is the culmination of Mortagne’s photographic career, from 2000 to 2015. A feast of lines and angles, his black-and-white compositions blend his subjects into their environments, offering an abstract perspective on architecture, geometry and the human figure. This image from Mortagne showcases the idea behind his work very well. The picture shows a skateboarder attempting a varial flip, as he is pictured from a very unusual angle that is showcasing architecture of a city as well, which is a unique but effective take on skateboarding photography. The skaters movement is perfectly captured within an opening of the architecture suggesting that anywhere can be skated with the right movements.
In conclusion, both artists who I have explored, Tristan Still and Fred Mortagne, showcase the movement of skateboarders through photography in their own ways. Tristan Still using a more traditional way of capturing skaters, showcasing the movements through up close shots as well as clear wide shots of skaters attempting tricks and skating around. While Fred Mortagne uses a less traditional way of capturing the movements of skaters, using unusual angles through the landscape around them to create some very interesting pieces of work. Both artists approach to photographing skateboarding is very different, however they both have the same outcomes, capturing the movement of skaters perfectly within their environments. Both artists have photographed in black and white, which I believe has made their work even more impactful as it provides a main focus on the subjects in the image instead of their surroundings, where the focus may be lost and the whole image would become less effective. Overall, both artists have used their own unique styles to capture the movement within skateboarding very effectively.
Bibliography
Renaldi, R. (2017), BJP #7856: Tales of the City
End essay with one of your own images as a response