Atiba Jefferson

Acclaimed photographer Atiba Jefferson initially established himself as a fixture within the skateboarding community during the mid-’90s in Los Angeles. His influence has since evolved into a singular and enduring career, as both a witness and active participant in the making, sharing and advancement of the sport worldwide. Jefferson’s image-making practice has come to define nearly 30 years of street, editorial and commercial skate photography, expressing a unique mode of spectatorship that engages with skateboarding not just as a sport but in tribute to its global vitality as a cultural movement.
This publication—the first book to explore Jefferson’s body of work—presents highlights from his extensive archive, which follows the careers of the likes of Kareem Campbell, Andrew Reynolds, Tony Hawk, Eric Koston, Ishod Wair, Keith Hufnagel, Stevie Williams, P-Rod (Paul Rodriguez) and Tyshawn Jones, and is supplemented by never-published works, contact sheets, undeveloped film negatives and personal photography. In addition to a foreword by Jefferson, the book includes an essay by Chicago-based artist Devin Kenny discussing Black skateboarding culture, as well as a multigenerational oral history reflecting on this monumental era, with contributions from Kareem Campbell, Ishod Wair, Eric Koston and Grant Brittain, among others.
Atiba Jefferson was born in Colorado Springs in 1976 before moving to Los Angeles in 1995, where he resides today. In addition to his 25-plus years of documenting skateboarding culture, he is deeply embedded in the world of basketball and worked as the staff photographer for the Los Angeles Lakers during the team’s heyday of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.