(c) Skate the World Jake Darwen Paul Battlay Ordos China
SKATE THE WORLD: Photographing One World of Skateboarding is the first book of award-winning photographer Jonathan Mehring. It presents an artful look at skateboarding culture around the world and captures the heart and soul of this fascinating lifestyle in an impressive manner. Two hundred selected photographs and incredible stories from diverse settings invite the reader along on an exhilarating adventure across six continents, including many unexpected destinations like Mongolia, Kazakhstan and the Amazon.
Each chapter of SKATE THE WORLD highlights the impact that skateboarding has had on particular areas of the world. For example, Wounded Knee 4-Directions Skate Park in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, serves as a place of refuge for youth from the local Native American community, while in Skateistan, the first skate park and largest sports facility in Kabul, Afghanistan, forty percent of the skaters are female.
Mehring succeeds in perfectly illustrating how skateboarding offers a sense of community, confidence and purpose, and how it transcends social, economic and cultural barriers. The book not only celebrates the joy of skateboarding, it also teaches a valuable lesson on its power to inspire young people to overcome obstacles – on the board and off.
Award-winning photographer Jonathan Mehring has been named one of the most influential people in skateboarding by US sports channel ESPN and the X Games. Born and raised in central Virginia, and now based in Brooklyn, New York, he discovered his passion for photography at an early age. Mehring enrolled in the photography department at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he earned a BFA in Communication Arts and Design. Since then, his work has taken him to over 30 different countries around the world, where he has photographed both pros and locals. His work has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, as well as in top skateboarding magazines such as Thrasher Magazine, Transworld SKATEboarding and the Skateboard Mag. In 2013, Mehring partnered with Levi’s Skateboarding in an effort to build free skate parks in developing nations around the globe.
Do you want to win the book? Then just leave a comment why you want to win it. We will choose the winner December 15th 2015.
