Lomography

Woodbridge Skatepark; A Great Place to Ride and Shoot
written by oldskool_rider on September 12th, 2009 , 13 comments (5 votes)

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So, let me set the scene. You are a 21 year old student who has been riding a BMX bike for nearly 10 years. You have broken your collar-bone twice before and you roll up outside A+E for the first visit this year with a lot of pain coming from that same shoulder after a very nasty BMX crash. Three hours later you walk out in a sling with the knowledge that you have a broken collar-bone (again), but this time you have also broken your shoulder blade. It’s a nasty break and has made your shoulder considerably weaker as well as a lot shorter. The Doctor advises you to stop riding your BMX bike, as things can only get worse for you and your shoulder if you continue.

Now lets skip a couple of months. You have taken the Doctors advice. Its not easy to give up something that you love, but you realize that your body has taken such a battering over the last 10 years and you are starting to pay for it now. You have started selling parts from your bike to raise money for your other passion (lomography). One of your friends owes you money for one of the parts you sold him. You phone him up and he’s down at Woodbridge skatepark (one of your local parks). You decide to venture down there to collect the money, but while there you decide to shoot some film too.

As you travel to the park, you start to anticipate that you might miss riding too much and put the camera down and ride someone’s bike. However when you arrive you are welcomed by a guy from Las Vegas doing backflips on his BMX. You are so excited that you can’t pick up your camera quick enough.

So that’s set the scene, now lets talk skatepark. It has a mini ramp, quarter pipes, flat banks, fun box, grind box, flat bank to wall, spine, etc. so is a great place for riding. It is a great place to shoot as it is quite small, so you can run along next to riders/skaters between ramps and catch them on film in nearly every obstacle in their run. It is a fairly new park, so still very popular, so there is always someone riding. It’s great to go there early evening when the sun is going down, as the light is lovely and creates perfect silhouettes.

All in all it is a great place to ride and shoot. And now I know that it doesn’t matter that I can’t ride, because I know I’d rather shoot than ride, especially at this park.