Atiba Jefferson
As a kid, I grew up around skateboard culture and punk rock thanks in part to my mom and dad playing Foo Fighters, Fugazi, MTV, and Tony Hawk Skate Tutorial VHS tapes. There are photos of me at age 3 riding on a Walmart Scooby-Doo branded skateboard with a shirt that says “I do my own stunts.” Punk rock and skateboarding is a big piece of me, and a large piece of Thrasher magazine. Those covers always caught my eye as a kid. Seeing big name skaters grind massive rails, ollie over a trash bin, or get huge air on a halfpipe. I hadn’t skated since I had a wipeout when I was 8 where I got a concussion, so I just started doing that again this year and it feels good to get back into it.
Basketball was something I got back into this year too, after going through a bit of a soccer obsessed phase in middle school. I never really hated the game, just drifted away from it for a bit. After Kobe Bryant’s passing, when I realized just how much I loved basketball and watching him play, I started paying close attention to the NBA again and just at the right time to see the Lakers win the 2020 championship.
You might be asking now “how does punk rock, skateboarding, and basketball tie into this?” These are all categories that my favorite photographer, Atiba Jefferson, has taken photographs in.
Atiba has photographed everyone from Pharrell Williams to LeBron James. Basketball, fashion, Netflix movie posters, musicians, and Thrasher magazine covers to name a few. Chances are that you’ve stumbled across his work whether you know it or not, which is why I admire Atiba’s work so much. It’s accessible to anyone and always so pleasing to look at. To get to photograph those greats though, you have to start out small. Which is where my conversation with Atiba begins.
I set up a Zoom call with him after reaching out to him a week or so prior. Currently, he’s in a hotel room in Arizona, quarantining before he gets to work on a project out there for a big 10-day long photoshoot. He’s wearing a beige Supreme 5 panel hat as he appears on my screen to greet me and ask how I’m doing.
Pharrell Williams, photographed by Atiba.
To start off, I just wanted to say thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to me. I really appreciate it.
It works perfectly with all this quarantine downtime so it works out well.
I saw you were from Manitou Springs and I wanted to ask what that was like growing up there.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been there but it’s really just a town. It has a couple of stoplights, it's not really a booming metropolitan area. So it was our own little world. We grew up down the street from an arcade. I have a twin brother, a sister, and we were raised by our single mom. She didn’t have it easy. She was a bartender and it was really hard to make end’s meet. We were kind of free to do whatever we wanted to do in a sense, just as long as we weren’t getting in trouble. Growing up by this arcade was awesome and then when we were 12 we started working. We had a good work ethic, we were bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant in town and then we discovered skateboarding at 13. That opened our world up to everything, to so many different cultures. Whether it was artwork, music, or just friends from all walks of life. One cool thing was the bar my mom worked at was a gay bar so we were already open minded. My mom’s white and my dad’s black so we were already pretty open minded. She was a big hippie; she liked reggae music. So we were growing up with a lot of different things compared to how whitewashed Manitou is. There were only a couple Black kids there, a couple Asian, a couple Latinx. But we discovered skateboarding and started going down to downtown Colorado Springs which, to us, was the big city. It was huge. Colorado Springs is interesting because it has [Colorado College] which is a very liberal, intelligent, college. It has all the military Air Force academy and Army so that brings all kinds of different walks of life and ethnicities. Then you have the right wing Christians, all the hippies, so it was like a big melting pot. There were a lot of things going on with punk rock and things like that which made it a really cool place. For us, I think we were so lucky to be in this area and not just be in this one single area. I was so quick to leave the town when I could. I started working at a skate shop when I was 16. As soon as I could visit California, I did, and I fell in love when I was 18 and I moved soon after.
I watched and read a few interviews you’ve done in the past and you mentioned you did some photography work for Transworld and Grant Brittan, what was that experience like?
I was in high school and a friend of mine was really into photography, he was a photographer too, and he sent some photos of ours to Transworld. Actually, he sent them to Slap. My first photos were printed in Slap. Then he sent some to Transworld. Then we did an article and that’s how I got to know Grant Brittan. Through that, I started building a relationship and I visited him and that’s what really got me stoked to move to California. And when I did, I didn’t really move with a plan of having a career or anything, I just moved because I wanted to have 365 sunny and 70. Get out of the snow, get out of the cold in Colorado. I moved to California with my brother and he was working at Transworld. I was living there and I wasn’t really sure about what I was gonna do. I was just gonna get a job at a 7-11 and I was just lucky enough to get a job assisting Grant in his office and he was showing me stuff on how to shoot. He really taught me a lot. It was really an awesome opportunity to have with him. Grant taught me so much being around Transworld. Just being around California, at that point San Diego was the place to be for skateboarding. I was lucky enough to get my start there. It wasn’t easy, a lot of people weren’t shooting with me at first. Over time, I seemed to show that I wasn’t going to blow it too hard so I was able to get opportunities. Which was awesome.
Then I started assisting Andrew Bernstein, the Lakers and Clippers photographer. That really blew me away because it really taught me so much about different techniques in photography that I brought to skateboarding. Andy Bernstein really opened my whole world up to working with a client and an agency on a commercial standpoint, but also using a Hasselblad. Specifically with a leaf shutter, which syncs at over 1/500th of a second. Showing me a whole different world of medium format, where I was just using 35mm. Even working with him taught me digital. Using these very early Canon digital cameras that were huge, that whole world. It was a huge opportunity working with both Grant and Andrew Bernstein.
Andrew D. Bernstein, Kobe Bryant, and Atiba on the set of a portrait session.
On that note, how did that opportunity come to be? How did that opportunity present itself to assist the Lakers photographer?
That was actually through my brother. He was working at a magazine called Warp and was buying NBA photos. I was sneaking my camera into NBA games and my brother showed the head of NBA Photos some photos that I’d snuck in and he was like “We always need new talent. You should see what Andy Bernstein has and see what’s up.” So he connected me with that. It was a really big opportunity from Joe Amati, who I owe a lot to.
That’s crazy how things can just present themselves the way they do.
Luck is a big part of careers I feel like. Right place at the right time, specifically photography because a lot of things I shot were because someone else wasn’t able to do it and you prove yourself to be able to handle it.
He quickly checks his phone on an InstaCart order. He can’t leave his hotel room for the quarantining and has to get food delivered to him. “They didn’t have the popcorn I wanted,” he says as he sets his phone down.
You ended up shooting for SLAM and doing those covers you’ve shot. How did that come to be and how has working with players you’ve shot created bonds with those players?
That was kind of the same time I ended up doing the assisting. There was a graphic designer that came from a skate background that was working there and reached out to me and liked my stuff. At the same time, I had a look compared to what they were doing and they really liked it. It snowballed pretty quickly. I shot a high schooler and they liked it. I shot another one and they liked it. I shot an NBA pro, Cliff Robinson. Then it led right to “Hey can you shoot Jason Kidd for the cover?” It was literally super quick. This is my 20th year of shooting SLAM covers. It’s unfortunate because of COVID, we were planning to do something super special. I’ve shot over 100 covers of SLAM magazine so it’s a huge honor working with them.
The relationships with the players are great. I had a unique situation where I was able to shoot and work with the players for the NBA and then I was also able to shoot and work with these players for SLAM. It was two different things. A cover is such a big opportunity so they were always kind of able to remember that photoshoot considering they do so many. That’s what really brought me close to Kobe Bryant, which was a very close relationship over the years. I was able to shoot LeBron James his junior year when he was just a kid. So it brought me into a lot of really cool opportunities. It still is when I can do a shoot for SLAM, I’m excited even if it’s a rookie. I’m excited because you never know who you’re going to shoot or who they’re going to become.
I’ve seen the photo of LeBron in the 23 parking spot and that’s a really cool photo.
Absolutely.
LeBron James, photographed by Atiba.
You have your own camera bag company and some other companies you’ve ventured into. How did those things come to be?
I had done some bag design for some other companies and the relationships just weren’t that good. I talked to a friend and he just said “You should start your own bag company.” I thought “You know, that’s not such a bad idea.” So I reached out to a friend I knew that knew manufacturers and a designer. I put up the money and said “let’s do this.” It’s a company that’s cool because we don’t have to worry about it being super successful or doing anything, we wanna make the best bags we can and that’s our goal. Our goal isn’t to sell a million bags, it’s to make the best bags. It’s a really cool opportunity to be able to do that and I love it. We have a great manufacturer and we have a great relationship with them. For me, I just wanna make good stuff for photographers and make their lives easier. So it’s nice to make a good product.
I saw recently you just got a sponsorship with Canon. How does it feel being able to have a sponsorship and have access to all these products?
It’s awesome. It’s such a huge opportunity and honor to be able to be recognized as one of the elite with them. They’ve always been the leader in cameras and I’ve used Canon since ‘95 so it’s been a brand that I’ve been using. To be recognized in the field I am by one of the best is great because I feel like it’s the first time a camera brand has gotten behind a skate photographer. It’s an awesome opportunity.
What would you describe your photographic style as?
I would describe my photographic style as simple and clean. I’m a clean photographer. Lighting’s clean, always in focus, composition is clean. It’s simple but not super crazy.
Not overdone, just straight to the point.
Simple is better sometimes for what I like. I think super [technical] is dope too. I think there’s no rules in photography and you shouldn’t really put yourself into one style of shooting. I try not to, but I gotta face the facts when someone hands me a camera pretty quickly. I’m a clean photographer.
Backtracking a bit, what made you realize you could do photography for a living?
I didn’t really realize I could do it for a living until I got a paycheck from it. That’s when you know you can do anything for a living. You get a paycheck and save some money. That’s really it. Once you can do that, you don’t have to do another job to make ends meet.
What’s your favorite part about taking pictures of skaters doing their thing?
My favorite part about it is that I get to see the best skateboarding in the world. I’m very lucky as someone who’s a big fan that I get to sit and watch the best. Same with basketball. I’m in a business to shoot things I’m a fan of. Music too. That’s what interests me.
In an article you wrote on Thrasher you talked about taking pictures of people like Bad Brains and people you grew up listening to. How is it being able to take photos of people you grew up with?
It’s amazing. That’s the coolest thing because I’m a really big music lover. Specifically Bad Brains. It was really cool because I did a tour with them and they used one of the photos I took on the back cover. That was insane. That’s my wildest dream because I would stare at their record covers all the time. It’s great to also try and portray these childhood heroes in the best way you can to help them out. That’s what I really love about it.
You talk about how Spike Jonze is one of your favorite photographers in that same article for Thrasher but who are some other photographers you look up to or admire?
Skating there’s always the classic skate photographers. Dan Sturt is a huge one, Grant Brittan obviously, Gabe Morford, Lance Stacy. There’s new skate photographers that I think are amazing too. Sam Muller and Jake Darwin. It’s really cool to see itself start pushing itself into other places. Walter Iooss in sports. Andy Bernstein. Walter always blew my mind as a kid. Music? I follow a few of these old ones I’m really into. Bill Daniels. I like seeing these old photos that people aren’t seeing yet. Because of Instagram now, people have this whole audience. It’s really cool. Linda Aronow is amazing. There’s so many of these older photographers of these images I really love. Spike’s always gonna be at the top of my list as far as that. He’s shot it all. Music, skateboarding and made it look so great. I’m also not the person that’s the most educated because at a young age someone told me to not look at other photographer’s work because you’ll rip it off subconsciously so I really never bought books. I just stayed in my lane.
I never really thought about it that way but yeah that’s probably true.
Oh it so totally is because I’m a Spike Jonze rip off.
He chuckles, and then we continue.
Back to the Kobe topic, when you did the MJ Mondays live during The Last Dance on the Foot Locker LA Instagram, I tuned in and watched that. You talked about your relationship with Kobe with people like Paul Rodriguez and Eric Koston. How was that with Kobe being around you and skateboarding?
My relationship with Kobe was a special one because when I started working with Andy it was the first year he’d won a championship. I definitely had snuck my camera in and got him during his rookie year, which is awesome. I’m really stoked I was able to do things like that and get those photos. I didn’t really remember or look at those photos until he passed away. I didn’t really know what I had because there wasn’t any use for them. Through the years I did SLAM covers with him and he really liked skateboarding. It was really cool because I remember there was a Maloof contest. I shot him during the summer and he asked me what I was up to and I said I was shooting skating since it was the season and he said “I love skating” so I told him to go to this contest in Orange County. I didn’t even go to that contest and the next day, I saw him all over my Twitter feed. He was really smart and super intelligent, he paid attention. He knew about me and the other things that I did. We always got along well because he had a work ethic like I have a work ethic. You wanna do the best you can, that’s the bottom line in life. If you get an opportunity, you do the best you can. When we did photoshoots, he knew I wasn’t taking the easy route, he always wanted to do what needed to be done to make it good and great. That relationship just continued his whole career. If I saw him after a win, he’d take the time to say hello and talk to me, give me a hug. It was great. I was stoked because I wasn’t even supposed to be there but they were using him in a Nike commercial. I was doing another photo shoot with [Manny] Pacquiao and then P-Rod and Koston came over to my set to get a photo with Pacquiao and I was like “what’re you doing here?” They say, “Oh Kobe’s here,” and I was like, “Oh shit, I’ll go over there.” Of course everyone’s like “oh my god Kobe” and he comes right up to me. “Atiba, what’s up?” Everyone’s weird about getting photos, but let’s do whatever we want as far as Eric and Paul. “Let’s get photos, Kobe” and we got photos. It was a really awesome opportunity and friendship. To be there for every ring he won was amazing. To shoot him and GiGi together as tragic it is, it was amazing to do it.
His phone in his room rings. “Sorry one sec.” He leaves to answer a call from the phone in his hotel room, the snacks he ordered earlier had arrived. He comes back and continues talking where he left off.
Being able to have that relationship with him and have those memories with him it was unreal. You really realize that when someone’s gone.
Kobe Bryant for SLAM magazine, by Atiba.
I personally grew up watching him, but I never got to know him. Even just watching him play it felt like getting close to him in some way even though it was through a TV or having his jersey.
Yeah absolutely. Everyone grew up on Kobe. A whole generation knew him. He played for so long. Jordan didn’t even play that long. Kobe played for a really long time and he was in our lives constantly.
How did you come to meet people like Andrew Reynolds and Na-Kel Smith?
That’s just skateboarding. Andrew and I were nobody and we were kids. Andrew was going to visit with Tony Hawk and needed someone to go skate with. We were both 18 and we just hit it off and became friends. Andrew and Nak were skating. I’ve known Nak since he must’ve been 12. He was just a kid that would hang out at Supreme and I’d see him skating at school yards.
Just networking and talking to people.
That’s the great thing is skating is just a big network that just brings people together. You keep running into the same people, you’re bound to make friendships.
On the skateboarding topic, with skateboarding being in the Olympics this coming year, how do you feel about a small subculture getting an even bigger stage than it’s already gotten?
I mean if it’s an opportunity for the skaters to make more money and set their lives up to be better, it’s great. Me personally, I’ve never been a contest person. I always think it’s hard to judge skateboarding. I think contests keep some of these pros from actually being in the streets. So that’s always not the best thing. Contests are here so they might as well be in the Olympics on the biggest stage that you can be on. I think it’s great. Someone gets a Wheaties box and a Toyota sponsorship, if that’s you want in life, that’s great. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, but I think for some skaters to have that opportunity is great.
Andrew Reynolds by Atiba.
Final question, on your Legend of Sport interview with Andrew Bernstein he asked you “what’s one piece of advice you could give a photographer” and I wanted to ask that question to you again since your answer may have changed a few months later.
I think there’s a lot of advice. So much of photography is social skills. Be cool. Be cool to people you work with, be cool to your subject, be cool and grateful for the person who hires you. Be patient. Be aware of your set and how people are feeling, try and make them feel the most comfortable. Do photography because you love it. It’s not an easy thing to do and if you put pressure on yourself, you might disappoint yourself to be successful.
Thank you again to Atiba for taking time out of your schedule to work with me. I felt so honored to be able to talk to a photographer I so greatly admire.
You can find Atiba on Instagram (@atibaphoto), on his website (atibaphoto.com), and his bag company Bravo Co Worldwide on Insta (@bravocoworldwide) and their website (bravocoworldwide.com).
“Be cool. Be cool to people you work with, be cool to your subject, be cool and grateful for the person who hires you. Be patient. Be aware of your set and how people are feeling, try and make them feel the most comfortable. Do photography because you love it. It’s not an easy thing to do and if you put pressure on yourself, you might disappoint yourself to be successful.
”
-MH
