Maybe it is being born in California, I don’t know, but I spent a major part of my youth skateboarding in empty pools, dreaming about half pipes, watching Tony Alva tear it up. I still skate today on my 30 year old Alva board. The other day I met Eric, a high school student, and watched him do tricks I didn’t know were possible on a board on flat pavement. So this naturally led to a photo session in the park. I decided to shoot a cross lighting set up, using a Elinchrom Rotalux Deep 100cm softbox as my main light, and a gridded (40 degree) head as an accent light. The deep Rotalux softbox has a great quality of light, somewhere between a beauty dish and a standard lightbox. Eric would skate to his mark, do some wild move, and skate on through. Of course I wanted lots of takes to get a good shot, but I couldn’t seem to wear Eric out. In fact he suggested he do tricks over something, like some of my expensive camera gear. I had faith in his abilities, but we opted for a softbox instead of me. tech: ISO 100, 1/250, f 18, Nikon D3 and 14-24mm 2.8 lens, Elinchrom Ranger packs triggered by Skyports. We underexposed the ambient exposure by 1/1/2 stops and added some ‘snap’ using Photoshop and Lucis Art. Check out the short video behind the scenes.