Skateboard photographer and friend of Community Clothing, Stuart Clapp, took a small group of young skaters to Gunners Park in Leigh-on-Sea to photograph them doing what they do best. Naturally they were kitted out in CC Kids. Stuart shot the day using a fisheye ultra-wide lens, the same one he uses in his work for skate magazines, because it mattered to him that everything felt authentic and unposed. He also took the time to tell us a little about his fantastic young models: Edie (9), her sister Margot (6), and Blake (6).
Edie & Margot
Edie and Margot been skating for a couple of years and go to Seaside Skate School. They used to ride horses, but these days Edie is more interested in football and crocheting. She goes to watch Southend United with her dad and was a natural in front of the camera, clearly enjoying every minute. Who knows, this might be the start of something?
Margot loves gymnastics and dressing up as a vampire. She’s an absolute bundle of energy, giving Stuart only seconds to catch a shot before she darted off again. Fiercely independent, she insisted on getting herself ready for the shoot, resulting in a few photos with her trousers on backwards. Somehow, they still look great.
Edie and Margot have a gorgeous whippet called Otto, a swing in their kitchen and a mum with an allotment!
Blake
Blake first came to the skatepark with a radio-controlled monster truck, which is what sparked his interest in skating. He still loves remote-controlled cars and scooters, water parks and clip ’n climb. After going on a jet ski on holiday in November, he’s decided he needs one of those too. He prefers rugby to football and his favourite film is the new SpongeBob movie. Gunners Park sits right on the coast, barely 100 metres from the sea, so it gets bitterly cold. It was absolutely freezing on the day of Blake’s shoot, but he took it all in his stride and kept smiling throughout.
A bit about Stuart, in his own words...
I’m from Leigh-on-Sea and have been skateboarding since I was child. I’m now 49, so flipping aeons. Weird thing is, I think I enjoy skating more now than I ever did. When you get to my ripe old age, there’s no pressure to learn new tricks, I’m just happy to maintain the ones I’ve already got! And it’s still as fun as ever!
Ever since I was a kid, I used to obsess over photographs in skateboard magazines. I used to have piles of them in my bedroom; Thrasher, Transworld, Skateboard!, Rad… and my mum used to say that I’d have more money for a new board when I needed one if I stopped buying all the magazines. With hindsight, those magazines shaped me. It’s through those magazines that I got into skate culture; the art, the music, the fashion. After working in skateboarding - I was European PR Manager for DVS, Matix and Lakai - and getting older, I started taking my camera out skating and just shooting photos of my friends. No reason, just because. And like anything, like skateboarding or photography or chess, if you enjoy something, you do it more, and the more you do it, the better you get, and the better you get makes you want to do it more. Oh, I also have an Italian Greyhound called Chuck.
You can find Stuart on Instagram.
