As part of my walk with Ruby, I took in the skate park at Arnot Hill Park. It’s a bit hit and miss if you walk to the skate board area, sometimes it’s empty other times there may be a lone person, today it was really busy.
As we walked by the group at the park one of the BMX bikers approached Ruby and started stroking her. That was a perfect introduction to start some dialogue.
Meet Matt, who at 31 years old is an experienced biker. He was recovering from a wrist he broke in May and had took the cast off today, so he could do some stunts, but it hadn’t been a success. His mate Will, showed me a photo on his phone of Matt’s fall when he broke his wrist.
Matt told me he had been all over the world with his bike and had rode in New York. I asked him if he was famous. He said he liked to think he was, but in reality no he wasn’t. He was sponsored by his bike manufacturer (Polar) to ride the bike and he said he “tagged onto tours” to take part in promotional videos.
When I asked Matt to be part of my project he agreed straight away. I suggested Matt stood in the shade of the trees rather than by the concrete bowl of the skate park that was in bright harsh sunlight . “Is it a wide angle lens” quipped Will, who was joking about Matt’s size and stature ! “Actually it is” I said.
I shot a few photos in the shade and then asked Will if I could photograph him riding in the skate park. Will had a young looking face, so I asked if he was over 18, Will told me he was 20 ! He’d been drinking beer and sharing a cigarette with Matt, so that put him over 18 !
I asked Will where would he be riding out of the bowl, as it was using a manual focus lens and would need to pre focus it on his exit point to guarantee a sharp in focus shot. I will share some of the shot of Will later !
As I was photographing Will, I was also holding Ruby’s lead, so Matt said he would hold Ruby while I photographed Will.
After I’d photographed Will, I thanked Will and Matt for the shoot, Will gave Ruby back to me and offered his hand to “shake hands”. “We cannot do that” I said, so we bumped elbows instead
Thanks for being stranger number 219 Matt.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
