As a photographer who is NOT a skateboarder (I mean… I tried for about a year so far… but you get hurt a lot, and I am not a huge fan of getting hurt 😜), I’m still learning what makes a good skateboarding photo.

I’m also trying to make sure I’ve got enough photos of the entire event - and not just the skateboarding photos - to flesh out the story.

Occasionally I take time out from doing family or wedding photography, and I document local events and activities happening around Kingston.

Last year, Kingston-based educator Katherine Morlog began a weekly skateboarding drop-in workshop for girls in Kingston to learn to skate. These sessions were held Thursday evenings at Daly Street Skate park (on Daly St, across from the Rideau Heights Community Centre).

It’s a fantastic initiative for many reasons.

Girls are waaay under-represented in skateboarding. It’s intimidating for girls to get into it, because it’s mostly boys and men who skate.

When I shot on auto for years, whether I got real good stills of motion or blurry ones kind of depended on external factors. How much light was coming in, mostly. I'm into limitations, so it was a little bit neat to wait and see what turned up.