STATEN ISLAND — After hopes of becoming a professional skateboarder faded for Marco Hernandez, the Port Richmond resident decided to pick up a camera and shoot his friends instead.
Since he began in 2011, the 22-year-old mostly photographed skaters at spots around Manhattan, but recently decided to turn the lens on his home borough.
"I was out in Manhattan all the time, I almost forgot about Staten Island," Hernandez said. "I just felt like Staten Island should be seen, there's potential."
Earlier this year, Hernandez teamed up with the UK-based Meanwhile Press to publish the limited-run zine "Mean Streets," featuring photographs of Staten Islanders skating mostly in their own backyard.
"Nobody really knows about what goes down here, I just kind of wanted to expose it," he said.
"It’s kind of forgotten about. I’ve always been a fan of the hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan, and they put Staten Island on the map. I kind of wanted to do what they did, but for skating."
The zine, which sold out of both its print runs in only days, was shot by Hernandez over the summer as he and his friends drove around the borough and skated at various spots. They skated mainly in industrial parts of the North Shore, by the St. George Ferry Terminal and even on the roof of a public bathroom in Midland Beach while Hernandez shot worked the camera.
"Its always going to be a cult following of street spots," Hernandez said of the locales. "There's nothing really more satisfying than the streets."
While there's no immediate plans to reprint "Mean Streets" unless demand gets high enough, Hernandez said he tries to put out two to three zines a year and could make a second version of "Mean Streets" later on.
So far, "Mean Streets" has been successful in exposing the forgotten borough to the outside world, Hernandez explained. He's sold copies of the zine to people in Germany and all over Europe, and had people tell him they want to check out skating on Staten Island after seeing his photos.
"Never did I expect a zine that has no major publishing brand could really get the word around," he said. "People can buy it and they look at it, and they want to come around here."
