What makes a great skate photograph? Why is it that corporate executives continue using inane images of skateboarders doing nothing, falling off their boards or simply having no frame of reference for the viewer? Jon Spooner & Zach Petschek saw a problem. They knew that skateboarding desperately needed a stock photography site which kept the primary interests of the riders & photographers paramount.

Shrelp was designed to do this. Shrelp was assembled to provide skateboarding with a stock photography site that could provide authentic images of legitimate skateboarders completing real skateboard manuevers with the images photographed by professional skateboard photographers within the industry.

Jon, Zach & myself, came together and are attempting to develop Shrelp so corporations & consumers outside our sport can obtain stellar, authentic images for advertising & editorial use. No longer will useless images & advertisements be acceptable to us. We need to unite the skateboard riders & photographers together, and collect images from the past, present and future of skateboarding, so that our sport can be represented legitimately in the media & press.

Please sign on to Shrelp & take a good hard look at what we are offering. It’s your hard work, time and skateboarding involvement that is at stake. Why let some  advertisement corporation present the world with another awful image of a kid falling off his skateboard or appearing like God just dropped him out of the sky, surrounded by that unending moniker they never tire of—’Extreme’. Lets band together & place the future of our sport in our own hands. Let us never let another ‘Extreme’ image go by without a howl of protest.

Take a look at this image of a skater at Mt. Baldy pipe. The Baldy pipe has been a major proving ground for over-vertical sessioning since Pat ‘Muck’ Mullis found & rode it in the very early 1970’s. No corporation or advertisement company would know any of this or the history behind the images. At Shrelp…we know the deal, because we are the deal. We are skateboarders.

With Shrelp, the rider will be paid for the image & some small compensation for the years of sacrifice & pain it takes to develop our skateboarding talent. With Shrelp, the photographer will be paid for the image and a small measure of compensation for the hard work it takes to create our art. Do the right thing. We are lifelong skateboarders trying to help you. Skateboarders for skateboarders. Please take a look. We will not let you down. -Jon, Zach & Ozzie

http://shrelp.com/images/shJ2kUiBkgXGg