Originally from central Virginia and now based in New York City, Jonathan Mehring is an award-winning photographer whose first book “Skate the World-Photographing One World of Skateboarding” was published by National Geographic in 2015. In his freewheeling creative quest, he combines a unique style of adventure travel with action and lifestyle photography that has taken him to over 30 countries around the world. His epic journeys include motorcycling through Vietnam, taking a riverboat up the Amazon, riding the Trans-Siberian Railway, road tripping through India, and most recently shooting skateboarders in Hong Kong and Macau—always with a skateboard by his side.
Mehring earned a BFA in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University, and even before graduation, his compelling skateboarding images and stories had appeared in Thrasher and Slap magazines. His work has now been published internationally in such prestigious publications as Rolling Stone, Details, Le Monde, The Wall St. Journal, and dozens of skateboarding magazines. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries in New York, L.A., Paris, Sydney, Cologne, Germany, Rotterdam, and Richmond, Virginia. In keeping with his active lifestyle focus, his commercial clients include such household names as Nike, Converse, Vans, Adidas, Levis, Burton, RVCA, Quicksilver, and Red Bull. Among his many accolades: he won the Commercial Category in the acclaimed PDN Photo Annual in 2015, and was listed as one of ESPN’s Top 10 Most Influential People In Skateboarding in 2013. Mehring has been shooting professionally since 2000, and has been a very successful full-time freelancer for the last 3 years.
What is the connection between skateboarding and photography that seems to motivate so many of today’s up-and-coming young photographers?
“Skateboarding tends to attract creative people because it’s a challenging activity that requires a lot of creativity,” says Mehring. “As a result, many skateboarders end up becoming skateboarding photographers because it’s a great subject at any level. It’s an action-packed activity that’s a lifestyle in itself, and it lends itself to a wide variety of imagery. It’s visually fascinating, and capturing it requires focus, concentration, and above all responsiveness to changing circumstances. In some ways, my work has moved toward a broader range of documentary and lifestyle imagery, but I still shoot the action, and I guess I’ll always be a skateboarder at heart.”
What’s in Jonathan Mehring’s camera bag?
“I use a Nikon D750 for most of my action shots and commercial assignments,” he says, “and I use a Leica M for personal and street photography and as a sidekick to my Nikons. I generally gravitate to prime Nikkor lenses including the 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.4, the new 135mm f/2 I acquired in Hong Kong, and a 16mm f/2.8 fisheye, but I also use a 24-70mm f/2.8 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 for framing versatility when required. For the Leica M I have 35mm f/2 Summicron, 50mm f/2 Summicron, and a 90mm f/2.8 Elmarit. I just got a Benro travel tripod, which is small, light, and seems to do the job, and I pack Nikon Speedlights and Pocket Wizards when I’m shooting on the road.”
“I’ve always shot Nikon since the beginning of my career,” Mehring continues, “and I think DSLRs are still the best for shooting action. I favor them because I’ve found they have the shortest shutter lag and mirror blackout times, and can sync at high speeds with their own dedicated flashes, which are tiny, good for travel, and decently powerful. The lenses are really great and system is perfectly streamlined for my workflow. I’ve been tempted by the new mirrorless EVF cameras but the ones I’ve tried all have longer shutter lag and other delays that are incompatible with shooting skate action where a difference of 1/100 sec can make or break a photo. I can’t take that risk, especially when someone is risking his neck on my behalf.”
“As you know I just returned from China, where I was on a joint project for Red Bull and Transworld skateboarding magazine shooting images of skaters in Hong Kong and Macau. I documented the vibrant skateboarding scene on the streets and in the skate parks of Hong Kong with an international crew of pros and amateurs from Finland, Germany, Portugal and Washington, DC, and it was an awesome experience. It was a standard issue skateboarder road trip, but that’s a good thing, and as usual I shot everything that was going on including hanging out, meeting locals, and skateboarding on the street.”
“Skateboarding is a link to street photography because in both genres you exist in the moment, in the environment of the street, and react and interact with what it gives you. Indeed, that’s why the things I learned honing my craft in shooting skateboarding have served me well in covering other freewheeling subjects. Because to be a good skateboarding photographer and cover every aspect of skating you have to learn every aspect of photography— including how to direct, how to lay in wait anticipating the action, and most importantly, how to have your camera ready at an instant’s notice because you don’t always know what’s going to happen.”
“For the Hong Kong shoot I used a loaner Leica T-System—it’s a great sidearm camera for capturing in-between moments. Shooting with telephotos is great for action shots, but I like to have something wider to capture more intimate scenes. I’ve also been getting into more video lately. I recently shot a video for a water charity in Haiti called Let It Flow, following their well repair team, and I think it’s a good example of what photography can do that’s socially conscious and uplifting. I also helped shoot a short film about a Lady Gaga fashion shoot with Steven Klein for V Magazine, a film directed by Ivan Olita.
“My approach to photography is simple and straightforward,” observes Mehring. “I try to have fun living life. That’s my overarching goal and photography helps me to achieve it. I think life should be as much fun as possible, and if I can make my work fun then I’m living the life I want to live. Things aren’t always wonderful of course, and sometimes you have to suffer now to have fun later, or to accomplish a specific goal. But ultimately when you look back on it, even the suffering can be remembered as fun too, especially after you feel the satisfaction of having accomplished that goal. The common thread that characterizes my photography relates directly to the three key aspects of skateboarding—struggle, triumph, and pride. In that sense, skateboarding is a metaphor for life as well as photography, which is essentially capturing and preserving life’s memorable moments.”
As you go through the outstanding images in this post it is evident that Jonathan Mehring is not only a consummate skateboarding photographer, but also a first class photojournalist and action photographer with an incisive eye, an open heart, and an uncanny ability to capture what is timeless in the intense and fleeting moments that pass in front of his camera.
To see more of Jonathan Mehring’s work visit his website at:
