An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Skateboarders on the South Bank during the Black Lives Matter protest marches, London, 2020. During these demonstrations, hundreds of skateboarders from across the city rallied to show unity against racism by skating through the streets.

Lived Space

Sam Elstub

I found photography through skateboarding. Growing up, it provided a means to document friends skating in the streets of our hometown, or to capture moments when we travelled to certain skate spots. While skating and skate culture have remained constants throughout my life, the places I skate and the people I skate with have changed over time. This project is an attempt to represent that dual change.

 

Skateboarding by nature must exist within space. But there are infinite possibilities for skateboarders to define what that looks like in practice, both through interactions with the built environment and in custom designed skate spots. Skateboarding, and the physical movement it generates, is transitionary at its core – always moving from one point to another.

 

In skateboarding, the focus is firmly on the individual, and the personalities of those individuals are often clearly defined and widely celebrated. Individual identities are represented as much on the skateboard as they are off it. Through interacting with the city, skateboarding also becomes a collective act of lived urban experience. This happens through the actual act of skateboarding, but it is also true of all the moments found in-between. With this in mind, documenting the relationships between skaters and space becomes crucial to understanding the people who follow this lifestyle, and the collective spaces they inhabit.

An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Kaitlene at the Hackney Bumps, London. Hackney Bumps is a community DIY skate park in east London, originally built in the 1980s. Kaitlene is part of the group of skateboarders who, in lockdown 2020, painstakingly polished the entire 1200 square metre surface by hand to allow a smooth skate. The space has created a far-reaching community that continues to grow alongside the physical expansion of its concrete obstacles, mostly through the passion of people like Kaitlene.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Hackney Bumps, London. Hackney Bumps is a community DIY skate park in east London, originally built in the 1980s.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Kav in Hackney Street, London. Often the most fun and memorable times can be had during intermediary moments, where unexpected spots and street interactions are discovered and experienced.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Kav in Hackney Street, London. This portrait of Kav was taken at home in the garden, right before she stepped out the door and started pushing down the street on the way to the first skate spot.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Jasper at One Minet Skate Park, Saffron Walden. Jasper and I grew up skating at the same skatepark in Essex, but about 10 years apart - we have only met properly in recent years.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Jasper skating at One Minet Skate Park, Saffron Walden.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Daryl at Leigh-On-Sea skatepark, Essex. Skateboarding seems to naturally attract those who swim against the current. This chance meeting was a good example of that sentiment, when a man with a handbag full of snakes appeared at the spot, and Daryl - with a life size cobra tattoo - went to say hello.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
Natalia in London, 2020. Natalia is a tattoo artist and skateboarder from San Francisco. This photo was taken during her time living in London during the summer of 2020.
An image from the photography project 'Lived Space' by Sam Elstub, featured in blume magazine Issue 001
A skateboarder outside South Bank undercroft during the Black Lives Matter protest marches, London, 2020. During these demonstrations, hundreds of skateboarders from across the city rallied to show unity against racism by skating through the streets.
Janice ChungMotherland
George BurkeFlight