The ‘Nollie Faith’ community is basically a couple guys that are helping street kids in the area of Maboneng, Johannesburg.  I’m not quite sure how the whole thing works but it seems the kids have access to skateboards and other cool stuff.  I went down there on Saturday to take a look… these are some of my photos.

Meet Ginny.  Adopted 2 years ago from the SPCA and now a huge part of our daily lives.  She loves sitting on these chairs at the top of the garden where she can watch over all that is going on.  Or not watch anything at all. 

Sam thought it would be funny to balance his skateboard on his head, like a traditional Zulu.  I thought it would make a cool photograph.

I shot these photos on a recent trip to the Maboneng Precinct in the downtown area of Johannesburg.  This kid really enjoyed running up to the camera and then riding off down the street on his skateboard.

While cruising around the streets of Johannesburg recently, trying to find something worthy to skate and shoot a photograph on, we stumbled upon this rather interesting piece of sidewalk decoration.  A bath-tub from 1936 which was salvaged out of some old building in the Hillbrow area of downtown Johannesburg.  I thought it would make for some cool skate shots!  Sam did a well styled crooked grind across it while Bergen destroyed it with a Nollie Backside lip slide to big spin out!  Here are some of the still shots I took.

Johannesburg is definitely a place of diverse culture, with so many different languages and tribal back rounds, just about every person you meet has his or her own individual story of tradition and belief.  It’s an interesting place to say the least!  I’ve been going down there to meet up with the local skateboarders for the past couple weekends now trying to capture moments in time as they move about in this crazy, contrasted environment. 

POST has become one of our favorite places to go get coffee and hang out with some cool people in downtown Johannesburg.  If you’re ever in Johannesburg and you feel like some good food, music, excellant coffee and great company, make sure you stop by!  The address is 70 Juta!  If you’re rollin in on a skateboard, they’ll even give you some free lemonade! 

A couple months back I wrote an article for COLOR MAGAZINE about an artist/friend over in California.  I have since then been trying to get more involved with doing some photography for them and getting some other articles published about the skate/art life here in South Africa.  I’ve been pretty busy with shooting photos in the downtown area of Johannesburg, with skaters and random people alike.  Trying to put together a story of life on the streets of Johannesburg.  There’s so much to photograph and interact with, so many different kinds of people and skaters, all hangin out and goin about their daily routine.  It’s an adventure in itself.  Here are some of the shots I took this last weekend.