Bloeblog: The Harpeth River Spoketaculars

So even though I'm pretty much the greatest photographer around, I also have a retail job. I mean, why devote all this awesomeness to just on field, right? Anyway, I work for an equally awesome company called Recreational Equipment Incorporated, or as you may know it, REI. As you may or may not know, May (that's a lot of mays) is National Bike Month. Our store has two teams entered in the 2011 Group health Commute Challenge. It's put on by a Seattle area bike club, Bicycle Club Cascade, to encourage people to commute to work by bicycle. There are 1200 teams of 4 to 10 riders participating to see who can log the most miles, most trips to work, and highest percentage of bike trips to car trips. Most of the teams are from Washington state but since REI is headquartered in Kent, Washington our store decided to be a part of the challenge. As an organization, REI has 23 teams participating. I am team captain of the Harpeth River Spoketaculars and this is our team photo. (click any photo to enlarge)

Getting ten people with retail schedules together for a group shot was turning into a logistical nightmare. I have a personal goal of riding my bike to work every day in May. That meant I had to do the shot on my day off as I wanted to bring lots of gear and couldn't do it by bike. I have to admit, the idea to use mannequins came from one of my team members but making the heads oversized to look like bobblehead dolls was mine though. My assistant for the shot was another guy from the store named Mike Flynn. He is an aspiring photographer and was a damn fine assistant. He took a lot of phone calls and texts during the shoot but I only paid him with a chicken biscuit for breakfast so I guess that was fair. He also loaned me his 10-24mm lens and a reflector and suggested I shoot the headshots against my softbox to make it easier to crop them. Props to Mike. Hire him. Here is the unedited background shot:

It was lit with a large softbox camera left and a small softbox camera right. There is also a background light in the back left with only a reflector. The headshots were taken over two days. I shot them with my 35 to 70mm at about 50mm. Here are the headshots: