Rendering the world of skateboarding are specialist documentary photographers and videographers. Along with the skateboarder, these ‘locals’ challenge the values and ethics of habitats, seeing these spaces as more than just concrete and marble. Focusing on the collaborative human experience of the skateboarder, photographer and videographer, this practise PhD examines the phenomenological experience of the photographer/videographer, ‘imagineering’ the action and environment synonymous with challenge and unrestrained persistence.

Reflecting on participatory practises, the research documents the visual heritage of contributors working in Los Angeles and Northern Europe. Critically deconstructing specialist methods, the research turns its attention to the dilution of skateboarding’s identity within fashion environments. Capturing the visual narrative of skateboarding’s story, heritage and style by high-end fashion brands, the approach taken to seduce viewers with circuitous shadows of skateboarding’s is reflected in fashion photography and fashion film. Containing elements of skateboarding’s specialist approaches this media is often a reductive echo absent of cultural positioning.

Adding to current debates within media anthropology, visual ethnography and autoethnography the PhD hypothesises future possibilities, combining visual communication practises with a focus on designing for the idea of possibility rather than for a solution by way of bridging media gaps.