In 2018 Mike Szpot took a leap of faith; packed two suitcases and bought a one way ticket to New York City. There he dove into making photography his full time job. 

“It's been nothing but love I just feel really at home there. I feel like that city is kind of a hard knock school for life.”

For Mike it all began in Milwaukee, WI where in 1999 he picked up the hobby of skateboarding. He immediately began to capture himself and others on 8mm tapes using a hi8 camcorder. 

“Skateboarding and photography have a lot of parallels like discipline, patience, expressing yourself creatively and learning from failures.”

After high school he was unsure of what to do and went on to study business. During his time in college he let go of skateboarding and creating as he decided to chase the money instead of his passion.

Following graduation he was having a hard time finding a job, so he bought a Canon 60D and began once again to capture and create skateboarding content. He began making skate edits that he would upload to YouTube.