Pedro Barros takes out Wellington Bowl-A-Rama 2010

Brazilian Pedro Barros mid rotation during a 540 at Wellington's Bowl-A-Rama

As a photographer, you get to see & photograph lots of great events, this year’s Bowl-A-Rama was no exception. But the highlight for me was definitely seeing & photographing 14 year old Brazilian, Pedro Barros tear it up in the bowl. Pedro ended up taking out the pro division at the 2010 Wellington Bowl-A-Rama event & it was a title he certainly earned.

The kid is a freak…He started riding a skateboard at 2 years old & turned pro the middle of 2009 going on to win the Rock the Cradle contest in Texas in October of that year. I’m sure he has a big future ahead of him. In the pro final jam, Pedro went up against seven other skaters, all of them pushing the limits, but the standout was certainly Pedro. He has a smooth yet aggressive style, & was pulling off huge airs & 540’s wowing the crowd with every move. Brazil dominated the competition with fellow Brazilian, Otavio Neto placing second in the pro final & American Josh Borden taking out third.

I decided to shoot the final jam with a longer lens to get a little closer to the action. The edge of the bowl was pretty crowded with other photographers, so I tried to go for a few different angles rather than the normal wide lens bowl side type shots. I shot with a canon 70-200mm/f2.8 lens using a ND filter on it so I could open the aperture wide open to try to separate the skaters from the crowd. Following the action in a bowl was a little tricky with the longer lens, but I managed to get a few decent shots in.

I ended up with over 400 shots as well HD video footage shot with the canon 7D & fisheye lens, so I’ve got a fair bit of sorting & editing to do. I’ll post the rest of the photos once I get through the lot! But in the meantime make sure you scroll down to see a few photos from the finals jam.

You can also check out some of the action from day 1 here.

A complete set of photos can now be seen here, or check out the photo blog here.