Skating By On A Saturday Afternoon

 In America, despite it's popularity, skating culture and the drug culture are still sometimes wrongly assumed to go hand in hand, the same way that in some places in the world tattoos are associated with gangs and gang culture. Although there are cases where these two do mix they aren’t the standard. I’ve always thought the concrete spaces of a growing city should belong to the people; which is why I’ve always loved graffiti and skaters. Both aren’t always socially accepted. The difference between public art and graffiti is the people who pay to put it there. Both feature people wanting to say something but only one is socially acceptable to be heard. Although I do not support graffiti that's placed on public art or on the shutters that shop owners have artistically painted.

The difference between skaters and cyclists is the public perception that skaters are going nowhere; drifting on the fringes of society out of boredom.

 To become a skater you need five things: perseverance, strength, passion, the ability to calculate and balance. Skill comes from constantly engaging these five things.

Skateboards are not cheap, neither is maintaining them. Being a skater takes passion because you’ve got to love the freedom you gain from it, the pride of mastering a trick that’s evaded your victory for months or even years. You’ve got to be willing to invest the money, time, energy, skin and blood that goes into anything you are passionate about and skating is no exception. It takes perseverance because you’ve got to be willing to keep getting back up even if you fall, including in front of other people. You’ve got to be able to willing to keep going despite the scuffs, bruises, broken skin and broken bones. Skating takes strength, training your muscles to curve around the wind and bend into the speed. Skating takes the ability to calculate, with the various surfaces: how fast you should go and which angle you should tilt your body. A lot of brain power goes into fully engaging in this sport.

When I asked a few of the skaters gathered on the gloomy Saturday outside The Whitworth Art Gallery if they listen to music while skating and if they are thinking their answered for each of them. Some listen to music and some were constantly thinking, especially before doing a trick, for others while doing the trick they are so lost in the moment that they cease to think at all. I’ve always admired skaters for the five reasons I’ve listed above as well as their ability to defy gravity and the status quo.

In a lot of societies skating is frowned upon (especially in public spaces) and I struggle to understand why. The last time I checked people driving cars were more likely to kill someone in their four wheeled vehicle than someone balancing one a four wheeled skateboard but before you tell me I’m comparing apples to oranges stop and think about it. You have one person operating a device that may cause injury to themselves or to others.   If we have all these concrete spaces they should be used and enjoyed instead of just sitting there empty.

Like most groups, cliques, communities (or whatever you want to call them) that don’t fit in with the rule abiding, briefcase wielding stiff shirts that set our rules (aka the government) skaters, along with punks, goths, metal heads and anyone who’s different, make us all question who we are and where we stand whenever we see them and this tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Personally, I admire them. Even if you skate alone the community is enormous so you’re bound to find at least one other human being who understands you and whether you start because it’s fun, you think it’s cool or because you want to make friends or push yourself physically or mentally the skating community is made up of people who are literally always outside looking in.

With lockdown restrictions being over I've loved seeing the city alive with skaters and roller-bladers whizzing past me.

In this post, the photographs I’m including feature two weekends worth of beautiful skaters (and roller-skaters). The first was outside the Whitworth Art Gallery (thank you to Liv, Jack, Brian, Max and Raheem for talking to me) and the other was outside The Central Library at exactly the same time as a wedding was taking place.

I think it’s an interesting thing to see two different forms of life in the same public space. For one skating is a way of life and getting through the day (as well as for getting from place to place), for the others, at the wedding, their new life is about to begin. For me it was like seeing two sides of the same coin. The space was large enough for both to exist peacefully. But it made me wish that this city loved skaters (and roller-skaters) as much as I do and made more spaces available to them the same way they do children’s parks (and I’m not talking about those tiny skating sections you find dotted in the parks around Manchester either).