NEIL Davidson is a 55-year-old father of two living in Glasgow.
Five years ago, he left his job as a stills photographer in the film industry after starting a family.
“I’d lost a bit of enthusiasm for travelling and long hours on film sets after 25 years,” he told The Sunday National.
Yet his passion for skateboarding led him to start an altogether different project in his spare time: Photographing every single outdoor skatepark in Scotland.
A map of Scotland’s skateparks
DAVIDSON'S love of the sport dates back to his youth in the 1980s.
“It was during the skateboarding boom - Bones Brigade, Tony Hawk, Back To The Future - that’s when I got into it,” he said.
“I’ve drifted in and out of it over the years, but I’ve never lost my love for it or its culture.”
The idea to photograph every concrete skatepark in Scotland wasn’t entirely an artistic pursuit, he admitted.
“Partly, I just wanted to have an accurate list of all the skateparks.
“Once I’d already got the project under way, Skateboarding Scotland - which is the national governing body - created a definitive online map which became the guide.
“Yet most of the photography which accompanied the descriptions of the parks wasn’t up to much.
“It was really just pictures people had snapped on their phones and they didn’t give you the whole story.
“I realised that with an aerial shot from a drone, I could give viewers a feeling of exactly what the parks look like, their scale, and all the unique features that surround them.”
Davidson’s journey took him to more than 100 locations across Scotland, from quiet wee villages to bustling skateparks in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
The only two photographs he didn’t take himself were of parks in Orkney and Shetland, which were submitted by locals who had been following his pursuit on Instagram.
“They saved me the trip,” he said.
The good, the bad and the wonky
THE vast majority of Scotland’s skateparks were built between 2000 and 2010, said Davidson.
However, the vast differences in design highlight how long it took before professional park designers were actually engaged in the process.
“At a certain point, building skateparks became a business,” he said.
“Councils could engage professional park construction businesses and a designer could provide them with what they thought was a decent park.
“But before then, councils were really just going off their own instincts. They’d go to the landscape architects employed by the council and try to figure out how to do it themselves.
“In the end, that’s resulted in quite a few low-quality parks that look slightly odd.
“But for photographic purposes, it makes an interesting study seeing these slightly weird or wonky parks in odd locations.”
Even so, Davidson said that the vast majority of Scotland’s skateparks serve their required purpose as a facility for people to learn and get better.
The legacy of park building
WHILE Davidson didn’t always get the chance to skate at every park he photographed, he’s been inspired by the level of skating he’s had the opportunity to witness.
“The quality of the skateboarding that’s going down is incredible,” he said.
“For instance, Kelvingrove Skatepark just celebrated its 20th anniversary. There’s guys in their early 30s now who have grown up skating there and the skill levels are nuts.”
But it’s not skateboarding that benefits from infrastructure that’s largely free to use, Davidson added.
“It could be BMX, it could be rollerblades, it could be scooters,” he said.
“They’re really just sports facilities that everyone can use.
“If you visit a tiny wee town and it’s just a few parents watching their kids whizz about on scooters, that’s great. That’s a useful facility for parents and children to play in.
“But you can go to another skatepark and see 30 to 40 teenagers on bikes, scooters and skateboards.
“The culture is healthy and the demand is there.”
Before the end of the year, Davidson expects to publish a book of his photographs and hold an exhibition.
“It’s set to be titled Not Just Concrete: A Field Guide To The Skateparks Of Scotland.
“The idea is that it will actually be a guidebook for those wondering where all these skateparks are and what they look like.
“My hope is that people will open it up, see the photographs and think ‘Oh, yeah, I fancy a wee road trip to Penicuik today.’”
While Davidson’s project has created a handy visual record of Scotland’s skateparks, it also shines a light on the importance of free leisure spaces.
The concrete sculptures of Scotland’s skateparks are a valuable asset to the communities they serve, even if they are a bit wonky.
