We Skate Hardcore: Photographs from Brooklyn's Southside

Afterimage, March-April, 2005 by Ilana Swerdlin

We Skate Hardcore: Photographs from Brooklyn's Southside, by Vincent Cianni. New York University Press/150 pp./$24.95 (hb). We Skate Hardcore, which was awarded the Best Overall Book Design by the Association of American University Presses (out of 250 entries), is a visually compelling book--even at a glance. For seven years social documentary photographer Cianni followed around a group of skaters from a Latino neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, documenting their lives as skaters-as youth in a tough environment. The images which are a mix of black and white and color photographs, along with a handful of video stills, provide an intimate emotional look into Cianni's experience with individual skaters. The text is comprised of expository writing by Cianni, hand-written comments by the skaters depicted and transcribed conversations that took place between Cianni and the skaters. A DVD containing footage of the skaters pictured in the book as well as additional photographs and an interview with Cianni comes with the book.

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