PHOTOGRAPHING THE BIG BLACKPOOL PUSH 2026
Photographing The Big Blackpool Push 2026 | Youth Culture, Skateboarding & Commercial Lifestyle Photography UK
2026 The Big Blackpool Push 2. Hillbombers
Watching an infestation of skateboarders roll through Blackpool in the summer of 2026 is difficult to comprehend, if you remember how the blackpool and the uk skate scene looked 30+ years ago.
When I first started skateboarding in the early 1990s, skateboarders were a rare breed. There was no Instagram, no YouTube and no endless stream of clips. Skateboarding history travelled by word of mouth. Whispers of legendary skaters, seemingly impossible tricks and iconic spots became folklore, often with little to no photographic evidence to prove they had ever happened……..information was scarce, imagination simmered.
1990s Blackpool bandstand. The Rare breed.
If you wanted outsider inspiration, you ordered VHS skate videos from America and waited months for them to arrive, only to wear them out within weeks.
Back then, scarcity gave everything way way more value.
Fast forward to July 2026 and Blackpool is transformed. Hundreds of skateboarders from across the UK descend on The Big Blackpool Push, the community-led skateboarding event created by local skaters Jake Powell and Joe Packman. For the second year running, The Blackpool Push becomes one of the UK’s biggest celebrations of skateboarding, youth culture and documentary photography.
Standing on the promenade with my camera, in front of over a hundred skaters, I couldn’t help but think back to the days when seeing five skateboarders on holiday, from outside Blackpool felt like a major event……..hard to imagine these days.
It was at that moment i became aware that what i was really photographing wasn’t just skateboarding….
I was photographing multi generations of youth culture sharing the same spaces, stories, battle tales and traditions.
More Than a Skateboarding Event
The Big Blackpool Push is about way way more than just skateboarding.
It’s about community, belonging and preserving youth culture for the next generations.
Jake and Joe have built something genuinely special here. Younger skateboarders share the streets with the OGs who helped shape the local and global skate scene, skating the same iconic spots, and proving that skateboarding has always been as much about its people as it is about tricks.
For a documentary photographer, those relationships are pure gold.
Earned Access
What makes authentic youth culture photography different isn’t the camera.
It’s trust.
I’ve lived in skateboarding culture for most of my life. That history allows me to photograph people naturally because I’m part of the community, not an observer.
Photography has always been my passport into cultures, giving me access to moments that simply can’t be organised or recreated. That access has been hard earned over decades. I have served my time with blood, sweat and lifelong injuries. Once a skateboarder, always one, even if your board riding days are over.
Photographing The Big Blackpool Push
For the second year running, I rocked up to The Big Blackpool Push as the event’s 100% unofficial photographer.
Not because anyone asked me to.
Because this is my community, and as time passes, that becomes more apparent.
Over three days, skateboarders took over Blackpool, skating everything from Starr Gate, The Sandcastle, Pleasure Beach all the way through to the Comedy Carpet. The standard was high, but the moments I’ll remember most weren’t the biggest tricks, they were the quieter moments away from the chaos.
Friends reconnecting, Younger riders skating alongside people they’d admired for years.
Parents watching their children experience the same culture they grew up with.
Those are the moments an outsider rarely notices.
Those are often the photographs that tell the strongest stories.
The weekend ended with a revisit to the legendary Norbreck Hill Bomb, where creativity mattered just as much as speed. Human wheelbarrows, dudes in bins, inflatable airbeds and even a case of Red Bull all found their way downhill, reminding everyone that skateboarding has always balanced progression with an acquired taste in humour.
The annual King of the Push award deservedly went to local standout Logan Wilkinson, recognising not only gnarly skateboarding but the attitude and do or die commitment that defines the craft.
Congratulations to Logan, Jake, Joe, every volunteer and every skateboarder who made this year’s event another huge super important cultural success.
Why all this Matters to Brands
Looking back through the photographs, one thing becomes obvious.
The strongest photographs happened because people trusted the photographer enough to simply carry on being themselves.
That’s what audiences connect with.
Creative agencies, global brands and fashion labels increasingly ask for authentic youth culture photography, commercial lifestyle photography and documentary brand storytelling. The challenge is that authenticity can’t be manufactured through casting calls, art direction or carefully planned shot lists.
It comes from understanding a community, recognising meaningful moments before they happen and being close enough to capture them without changing the atmosphere…..,it becomes symbiotic
The result is imagery that is honest, energetic and culturally believable—photographs that help fashion brands, streetwear brands and commercial clients build credibility because they reflect real life rather than an imitation of it.
Whether I’m commissioned for a global fashion campaign, a streetwear campaign, a lifestyle advertising campaign or a documentary photography project, my approach remains exactly the same.
Why I Continue to Photograph Youth Culture
The Big Blackpool Push reminded me why I’ve never stopped photographing skateboarding over the last 30 years.
Not because it’s nostalgic, but because it’s honest…..
Everything I’ve learned through skateboarding shapes the way I approach commercial photography, fashion campaigns, streetwear photography, documentary photography and lifestyle advertising.
Earn genuine trust.
Respect the culture.
Wait for the moment that can’t be art directed.
Because the strongest commercial photography doesn’t just look authentic, it is authentic.
Thank you skateboarding.🙏🏻