http://www.skateboarding.com/skate/photos/oversized/0,12680,789040,00.html

The pictures on that website (and that magazine) looks dark. I know they use a wide-angle lense for that fisheye effect, but how do they get it all dark and cenimatic looking?

The basic scene (background) is lit with available light, and looks to be late afternoon (deep shadows). It is slightly underexposed to get the dark dramatic effect.

The boarder is then lit with lights, most likely flashes to freeze him in mid-air. The flashes have limited range, and so do not affect the darker bg...

The main flash on the subject was put to the left of the camera, subject's right - and slightly behind him. That helps separate him from the background more than if the flash was on the camera. Look where his shadow is - you can barely see it on the right edge of the canopy.

I love skate photography. I buy all the photo issues when they come out. I think that skateboard photographers are doing some of the most creative and progressive sports photography right now. I buy those magazines for inspiration.

A lot of the photos in skate mags are done with slave flashes. This one looks like there are two flashes. You can actually see flare from both of them. I have a set of PocketWizard radio slaves I use to fire my flash remotely. Having the flash off the camera allows you to create and control shadows on your subject. And using manual exposure makes it possible to control the background and subject lighting separately. This kind of photo takes a lot of time to set up, and the equipment isn't cheap. But I think you probably agree that it's worth the effort.

Here's one I shot a couple of years ago using my PocketWizards: http://gallery.mtbr.com/showphoto.php?photo=113&password=&sort=4&cat=500&page=5

Hi, this is a little off topic on the original post, but I have always wondered how to take pictures like this:
http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/photos/oversized/0,14440,778086,00.html

You see lots of these in the snowboard magazines and they have some sequences in skate magazines too. I was thinking a multiple exposure, but would that overexpose the picture (or background if you properly expose for the subject). Do they just take multiple pictures and splice them together?

Hi, this is a little off topic on the original post, but I have always wondered how to take pictures like this:
http://www.transworldsnowboarding.com/snow/photos/oversized/0,14440,778086,00.html

It's software. You shoot a normal sequence and then build it into one image using Photoshop layers. I've done a few, but it's pretty time consuming. It is nice when you have something like the image you linked to where there's a large area and a big move that would be hard to show with just one frame. It's important to shoot sequences like this in manual exposure mode so that the exposure is consistent from image to image. If you use an auto-exposure mode the camera might change the exposure during the sequence. That makes it next to impossible to seamlessly combine tthe separate frames.

Thanks for the replies guys

I really like your photos, photo john.

In brief could you tell me what you did to make the backround blur with the guy riding the bike with little tires?

The sky color makes me think that a polarisation filter is used.

Thanks for the replies guys

I really like your photos, photo john.

In brief could you tell me what you did to make the backround blur with the guy riding the bike with little tires?

Sorry I didn't see this post sooner. And thanks for letting me know you like my photos.

Can you give me a link to the photo you're talking about? Background blur is usually a result of using a slow shutter speed and panning. But without seeing the image, I have no idea how I did it.