More Photos at the Skatepark

I've been taking more shots of the action at Legacy Skatepark. On Friday, one guy said in a loud voice, "anybody takes a picture of me, I'll slap him." I looked over to the group where the voice came from but none of them were looking at me.

A biker in a white t-shirt who'd been doing a lot of stunts in front of me said, "polite people."

"Who doesn't want their picture taken?" I called out. Nobody answered so I shrugged and went back to snapping away.

There are several things I wondered about as I took these pictures.

1. Shouldn't these lads be wearing helmets? and maybe other protective gear?
2. That really young looking kid... is he on his lunch break too or is he playing hookey?
3. Is it possible that when they see a photographer they'll try a trick that is too hard for them and hurt themselves?

I don't actually worry about whether they mind me taking the photos. If I made any money from the shots, I'd be happy to share it with them and my experience is that people doing things like this like to have pictures of themselves in action.

Just as I was leaving the skatepark, a rough-looking older guy walked through it. He called out to the biker in the white t-shirt and told him he should do a series of moves that would finish with going up one side of a steep slope, doing a back-flip, down the other side of the slope up the opposite wall, "...and then lock your handlebars.... Or do something else f--ked up. I'd do it myself, but I already got brain damage."

He then went on to describe one of the stunts he'd pulled that had wound up with him cracking his skull.

So, yes, a helmet might be a good idea.

Skatepark Flickr Set