Streets, Airports, and Windmills

Photography by Robert Christ

Skate photographer Robert Christ talks about his magazine Parallel Skate Mag, the business side of skateboarding, and making the best out of shitty situations.

Düsseldorf, Germany

What is your history as a photographer?

I think I bought my first camera in 2009. At the beginning, I simply shot everything that came in front of my lens – photos of friends, landscapes, flowers, architecture… everything you could imagine. But after I learned how to properly use a camera, what is possible to do with flashes and all that stuff, I started to focus more and more on skateboard photography, because skateboarding was what I was already doing for some years and what I felt in love with.

How did you get into skateboarding?

I was living in a very small town, so there weren’t many skateboarders. But one day I saw this group of around five people, pushing along a street and one of them did a proper 360 flip. At that time I had never seen someone in real life doing that and was pretty stoked. So a few days later I bought my first board. None of my friends were skating, so I tried on my own in the beginning. A few weeks later, one my best friends also bought a board and from then on we went skating every day on the parking lot next to my house. Now, 20 years later, I’m still addicted to it and try to go out as much as possible.

What do you love the most about shooting skateboarding?

I’m skating for more than half of my life now and I think about skateboarding every day. It’s my passion, so I take photos of what I really really love. I like to be out in the streets with my friends, have a good time, share good food or some beers and afterwards coming home with some good shots on my memory card. I do like editing photos, too, but being outside and shooting is what really makes me happy.

Sometimes it’s not easy, because you have to handle the business side of skateboarding and it’s politics. This can be frustrating and there were times where I didn’t want to go out and skate because I was fucked about the skateboard photo business, with unreliable people or simply idiots. But nowadays, I think I’m better at handling those situations. When you see your photos in a mag and get a call or message from the skater in the photo, telling you how happy he is about —then you know why you are doing it and forget about the shitty parts.

Tell the story behind one of your favorite photographs.

If it’s ok, I would like to go with three photos. The first one is the Hippie Jump of Martin Schiffl, which we shot during the first contact restrictions caused by COVID19. We went to the airport in Düsseldorf, one of the biggest airports in Germany, and found it almost completely empty which felt really absurd. We were looking for a spot to shoot a photo, found one and five tries later Martin did the trick before we got kicked out by the security. The second one is the Handplant by Andrè Gerlich, which we shot shortly after the first lockdown and when wearing masks was introduced as mandatory. Therefore we thought about getting a photo with someone wearing one in the background. So I did kind of a digital double exposure and André did a overstylish handplant. I really like Andrés spot choice, how the photo turned out and that it got a double page in the newest POCKET book. The third photo I’d like to choose is one of Patrick Wenz, cruising down a hill, smiling all over the face while lying on his belly. Patrick and I were skating a lot of shitty spots in smaller villages during the lockdown, which was really fun. One day, when we were searching for spots, we came across that old mill and I asked Patrick if he was down to shoot a photo there, which ended up being printed together with the photo of Martin in the Irregular Skate Mag

All three photos were shot during a strange period of time, but we made the best out of this shitty situation, had fun and didn’t lose our smiles.

You run a magazine called Parallel Skate Mag - what is the magazine about? Why did you decide to make it?

I started Parallel Mag with Fabio Schöneweihs, a friend and graphic designer from Hamburg. We both like magazines, skateboarding, and photography a lot and were motivated to start our own little side project. So we publish Parallel once or twice a year. The mag comes with interviews, tour reports, photo galleries and articles that are more about good photography than showing the craziest skateboard stunts. For example, handmade prints by Friedjof Feye, a Davy van Laere Portfolio or an article with Cyanotypes. The last zine we did was about skating an old Volvo right before it was off to the junkyard.

The feeling of coming up with a magazine completely on your own and then holding the result in your hands is just great. Unfortunately, this of course also comes with the business side, because you have to get money for making the print happen at all. Somehow it had always worked, with little ups and downs... So thank you Fabio!

Are you teaching your son photography or skateboarding? Are these things important to pass on to him?

My son is more into soccer than into skateboarding. Last spring, he had a short period where he was more motivated to get on the board but now he is back focussing on soccer and wanting to play it all the time. For me that is totally fine. I usually just see him on the weekends because he’s living with my ex-girlfriend and so I wouldn't tell him to skate if all he wanted to do with me was playing soccer or doing other things. I want him to have a good time and fun.. so Daddy is trying to be a good soccer player, wrestler, trampolinist or whatever else he wants me to be. But he’s just 10 and maybe he likes to go skateboarding more often in the future.

With photography it’s a bit different. The last times we went on vacation, I gave him an analogue point and shoot camera and one or two films. At the end of the vacation I brought the films to the labor and gave the small prints to my son. It seems like he really enjoys it. At first he didn’t use the camera that much and I was like “ohhh look at this tree, or that building or whatever” but he didn’t listen to his dad. Now he prefers to take photos of animals, funny things or “some kind of” portraits. However, he shot his first skatephoto last year which still hangs on the wall of a friend of mine.

What's next for you in your photography journey?

I recently worked on an article for Irregular Skate Mag focussing on the center of Düsseldorf – my new place of residence. The article got printed in their newest issue and was a mixture of skateboard-, architecture and street photography. I’m really happy how it turned out. There are some ideas for articles, I would like to work on but I don’t like to talk about it too much before I’ve finished it or even started. But one thing I can tell is that it will be about skateboarding, of course.

Maybe in 20 years my interests will change and you can see me trying to shoot artsy black and white street or architecture photos or pictures of beautiful and silent landscape scenarios while wearing a hat and holding a walking stick. Who knows.