Bike vs. Jet

I can't wait to see how this turns out. My money is on the bikes. http://www.bikecommutenews.com

Inspirations

So I like to say that I have had a camera in my hand since I could walk. That's not much of an exaggeration. A little maybe, but not much. I have also been a wilderness advocate for most of my life. My parents tell me that I saw a bear in the Smokies when I was 6 months old.

I first discovered Galen Rowell from magazines when I was in high school. This was way before the internet. His mountain landscapes captured in such vivid colors just pulled me in to whatever landscape he was shooting. What was that film? Usually Fuji Velvia or Provia, there's still some in my fridge. What was his camera? A Nikon f4, I have one. The flat Mississippi River farmlands of West Tennessee were so far removed from the exotic places like Nepal or even the Sierra Nevada. When I was in college I bought a book called Mountain Light. It was a softcover book of beautiful mountain photos from Rowell and he wrote a page or two about each one. In his narrative he not only described technical aspects of making the image, he also delved a bit into his thoughts on the subjects he photographed. He was an amazing climber. He holds the first one day ascent of both Denali and Kilimanjaro. He was born the same year as my father, 1940, and he died in 2002 in a small plane accident in California. His wife and the pilot were also killed. If you want to know more about him, I'll let you do your own research. I've opened the first door for you. Its worth looking up but here are some of my favorite photos of his. All of them are lesser quality than the prints. He shot film for print, he did not shoot for your monitor. He would have if he were still shooting but he left us too early.

Big bike weekend

This weekend is filled with bikey stuff. Tomorrow is New Belgium Brewing's Tour de Fat. I will be riding from the Brentwood REI parking lot at 8 to the event which is being held at Nashville's Centennial Park.

Then on Sunday, Harpeth Bikes is hosting the Fat Tire Festival and 50 Miles of Hamilton Creek at Hamilton Creek Mountain Bike Park. Should be a lot of fun and hopefully some cool photos from these events.

I need to see this film:

Bike Fridays -- My First Real Bike

In an effort to post on the blog more consistantly and to branch out of photography a little, I have decided that Fridays will now be Bike Fridays. Some Fridays may be pictures of rides from that week, others may be bike races I've shot, still others may be cool bike related stuff I've found on the web. Tonight's post is about my first "real" bike.

I had a couple of bikes before my first real bike. I had a kid's bike with training wheels that I learned to ride on around the age of 5. My next bike was a bit bigger. I don't remember the make but it was red with ape hangers and a black banana seat. Sometime when I'm at my parents house I will have to dig around for a picture of that one. But my first real bike was a Schwinn Scrambler. It was metallic walnut with yellow mag wheels. Why was it more real than the previous two? The Scrambler did not have a kickstand, thank you very much.


The Scrambler was a gift for my ninth birthday, I believe. This was the first bike I picked out for myself. I was so proud of the fact that this bike had no kickstand. Real bikes don't, you know. I rode this bike all over town. Back in the 70's, kids were allowed to do that in small towns like the one where I grew up. And without a helmet on or adults along. I rode it all over my neighborhood and beyond. I rode it off jumps that we would build from planks and mounds of dirt. I rode it to Wal-Mart where I would lock it up with a big chain and combination lock that I kept around the seat post. I even rode it on trails in the woods near my house to that secret place that the older boys would leave dirty magazines. This bike was freedom. One day I rode it over to my friend Sean's house about 2 miles away with my friend Brian. I photographer from our paper was out looking for a story. I think we made the front page. I did mention that it was a small town, didn't I?



Here is the catalog picture of it.

What was your first "real" bike?

So I got called out

So I was having dinner with a good friend of mine tonight. She is an artist and we were talking about marketing ourselves. She called me out for only having two posts on my blog. Well she is both wrong and right. I actually have 10 posts. But this is over 16 months. That's a pretty lame average. So her exaggeration was appropriate to drive the point home. I need to post more. Problem is I am not shooting enough to post about new shoots every day. I may have to expand the content of what I post.

Here's some shots of a race I photographed a few weeks ago. It took place in Brentwood, TN and was put on by Harpeth Bikes from Franklin, Tn.

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:

The Reverend Gucci

Ginger

Will Ross

Chicken Head

Graham Knight

Bryan Bloebaum

JonO

Justin Sowders

Janet Harrison

Shannon Porter

Family

Sometimes its hard to get the shot when you're in the shot.