Autumn MTB; an Exercise in Narcism
Why take pictures of other people and have to deal with egos, conflicting opinions, schedules and every other unforeseen bump in the road when you can just go take pictures of yourself? Think about how peaceful it will be; no riders complaining about you wanting them to ride it again, if the frame didn’t work and you want to get it there is no one to convince. No texting storm 3 hours before the shoot to clarify location, time, clothing…
Without the sarcasm loaded on like my desert plate at a chinese buffet, I do actually enjoy shooting and collaborating with riders, but shooting self portraits is also great and difficult for different reasons. For example; shooting with other riders they don’t make stupid faces as they ride (at least not as much), other riders can offer rider’s perspective on the shot; what they feel is working or isn’t. However self portrait shooting does offer some really awesome advantages too; out in the woods(heck yes!), riding my bike (heck yes!), taking pictures (heck yes!), beautiful(heck yes!) peaceful(heck yes!)…. autumn(heck yes!) etc. I felt a lot more connected to the passion behind riding bikes that makes me get out and ride and take pictures. The other thing with self portraits; if you really want to make a shot happen but its a difficult shot to get the rider is patient as long as you are!
As you can imaging shooting self portraits can become very tasking mentally and physically. You are the art director, the photographer, the technician, the sherpa, the subject, the critic etc. Instead of being just some of these contributing factors you are all of them, yeah.. woah. All of these shots are from one week where I did four shoots (one with riders not shown) and worked full time hours on the side. Two of the shoots were sunrise, two of them sunset (the last two back to back sleep-work-sunset-sleep-sunrise-work-sleep).
Some of these shots were taken using the DIY PW-Push Button Trigger which was just recently featured by the website: DIY Photography. While others were shot using my camera’s intervalometer (PWs are awesome but do have limitations on cold mornings over long distances strapped to bike frames (metal is to a PW as Kryptonite is to _______).
I would love to hear from more of my readers to get to know you guys, and am going to try to add a question to each post.
So..
Have you had a (mis)adventure similar to a subject/story i’ve written about? (Extra points if it was inspired by this blog)
Shooting self portraits is definitely a nice change from having to ask riders to “hit it again”. You just go hit it again, since it’s all on you to make what you want. I want to go do some self portraits now! Thanks!
I’ve been reading for a while, figure i would post something… really like the autumn pictures… I also have an answer to your question:
Remember the first time we tried to go ride moose mountain? We rode around (up and down) for who knows how long looking for the trail.. and then we finally found it, and i couldn’t ride it because my disc brake was broken. Remember that?
Patrick; because you are the rider it also poses more problems for timing, so even though you don’t ask other people to ride again you have to get your butt back up the hill after. Hope you get out and shoot some, they’re really fun.
Marcus I do remember that, too bad you didn’t get to ride TW that time, i haven’t ridden it in a while but i hear its getting pretty good now too.
Number two is awesome. I love that shot. It gives me a ton of anticipation to what is coming next while still showing the beauty of where you were at. Amen to having troubles working with riders… nice work getting out there on your own.