The faces of both Mahatma Gandhi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have graced the longboards built by South African Kent Lingeveldt.
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Cape Town, South Africa (CNN) -- Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi. They're names you might associate with protest and peace ... less so skateboarding.
But the faces of all three can be found gracing the boards created by South African Kent Lingeveldt.
The boards are part of the "Local Legends" series produced by Lingeveldt from his Cape Town workshop -- with Gandhi included alongside Mandela and Tutu because of the years he spent in South Africa campaigning for the rights of its Indian population.
And Lingeveldt says that when he presented the Tutu board to the man whose face adorns it, the Nobel Peace Laureate was so taken with the gift that he decided to hang it inside his office.
Bringing boards to life
Lingeveldt specializes in making longboards -- a lengthier variant of the traditional skateboard. Completely self taught, he has gained fame for bringing customized decks to life. As founder of Cape Town-based brand Alpha Longboards, he's equipped scores of local and international riders with distinctive personalized boards.
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Working together with local illustrators, who decorate the boards with their eye-catching artwork, Lingeveldt prides himself on customization. No two boards are the same, as each creation is tailored to the specific needs of each client -- taking into account everything from their height and shoe size to their skating ability and personal goals.
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"I can't make a board for someone I don't know," he says from inside his small workshop in Woodstock. "I want clients to come to me and then I actually customize something right for you. I don't want you to walk out of a shop with an Alpha Longboard and be like, 'oh, this isn't what I need.'"
'Shedding new light'
But Lingeveldt has also found success through his other great passion, photography.
"First and foremost I would imagine myself to be a street photographer," says Lingeveldt, who first started experimenting with taking pictures when he was 18. "I look for stories in movements and people's reactions and responses and just how we all work together."
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Always carrying his camera with him wherever he went, Lingeveldt decided a few years ago to begin shooting images professionally. Since then, his striking street images have been shown in exhibitions both at home and abroad.
"I won the Market Photo Workshop's Social Landscapes Contest last year, and I was like, wow, look at this," he says. "You know, someone who didn't have any training to win probably the most prestigious photo school in the country, which is cool."
Skating with ease between longboarding and photography, Lingeveldt is making the best of the two worlds.
"When I skateboard I see the world differently," he says. "Like you see the small finer details of the streets, of the city and I'm like, 'wow.' I see so many different things that other people don't necessarily see," adds Lingeveldt.
"I'm looking for the small things that we see every day, but shedding new light on it so that people can almost look at it differently."
Teo Kermeliotis contributed to this report.
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Lingeveldt is an award-winning photographer and the owner of Alpha Longboards, a Cape Town-based brand that produces customized decks.
Two years ago, Alpha Longboards launched "Local Legends," a series of boards designed to honor figures such as Nelson Mandela.
Lingeveldt first started skateboarding while growing up in Cape Flats, an area designated to people of mixed race during apartheid in South Africa. "It's like one of those natural things where skateboarding chooses you -- you don't choose it," he says.
Lingeveldt has also managed to find success through his other passion, photography.
He first started taking images when he was 18 but in recent years he's started working professionally. His work has been exhibited both at home and abroad.
"When I skateboard I see the world differently," he says. "Like you see the small finer details of the streets, of the city and I'm like, 'wow.' I see so many different things that other people don't necessarily see."
Lingeveldt carries his camera with him wherever he goes.
"I'm looking for the small things that we see every day, but shedding new light on it so that people can almost look at it differently," says Lingeveldt.
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