I’ve been running this site for quite some time and by design have not spoken much about myself because this has not been about me but rather about the images, the skating, and the places. I feel now, that the time has come that I pull back the curtain a bit, and let you all know a little bit about myself.

Hello,

I am Sam, the human behind the camera that is The Skate District. I’ve been using cameras since I can remember, which admittedly is not that long since I lost a great deal of my memories in June of 2006 due to a skateboard accident. I do have memories of summer camp and disposable film cameras, middle and high school shooting with film cameras of all descriptions and developing the film and images myself. Film has always and will always be my passion, digital is just a means to an end. My photography is mostly based around skateboarding.

When I was given my first skateboard (a longboard to be exact) I whole heartedly refused to call it that. I wanted longboarding to be something different from a sport I thought I didn’t have the dexterity, skill or passion to pursue, and for a long time it was. I never really connected the dots between what I was doing and what skateboarding was or really, is. Which in hindsight was a good thing. I would never have arrived where I am now had I tried to skate vert or street. Longboarding held my hand and gradually introduced me to the world of skateboarding.

Many years later and here I am attempting to make a living photographing a sport I once wanted nothing to do with. The relationship I have with skateboarding will never be simple or happy. I will always love it and hate it. It has made me so euphoric and so miserable throughout my decade or so with it, that I still have trouble deciding what I think about it. I guess that drives right to the essence of what makes me take photographs, it allows me to break down skateboarding, and I guess the world, into little snippets that I can understand, that I can definitively say one way or the other how I feel about them.