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garysissons
May 02, 2019
Very Interesting photo love the Yoshi pipe and the matching helmet the red of the R stands out.. Very well crafted image. I would love to see a version with some blur in the wheels showing speed, you can do this in photoshop and it could look good also. I was drawn to this image as I'm a GSX-R 750 owner but my bike isn't blue it's a limited edition Orange and Black 2008 model I have had it since new. Anyway Excellent photo
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken in my studio ,it was during my 2018 motorcycle project . I had an idea to do self funded project to where I invited motorcycle riders to come down to my studio and do a portrait and a couple of photos with their motorcycle. It was to see what kind of people ride different styles of bikes and why they choose the bike they did. I meant many wonderful people and some amazing bikes. I've made some great friendship out of this shoot , new clients and opened doors to other automotive/motorcycle shoots. It was a well received project where I believe I photographed about 147 motorcycles & riders that summer.Time
This was shoot in the afternoon ,indoor im my studio under studio lightsLighting
The lighting in this project took me a few days to figure out how I wanted to light it to get the most out of the shape and highlights of the image. I wanted man and machine to blend to almost become one. The lighting that I finally decided was two 4 ft. srtips over head going the length of rider & bike then two more strips on the floor in front of each wheel angles at about 45 degrees to where the rear light was actually lighting the front and vice versa . Then I used a 7ft. parabolic umbrella behind me just to fill in some of the shadows. I'm not going to get into light ratios because ever bike and rider was different depending on what the color and shape of the bike was and what the rider was wearing. So I just metered the light to get my exposures .Equipment
The was shot with my Canon 1DX with a 100mm 2.8 Macro lens , all the lighting was Elinchrom 1100 watt RangersInspiration
As I mentioned before the inspiration of the project was to see what sort of people ride what sort of bikes and why ,Also to challenge myself on lighting motorcycles which come in all shapes and sizes.Editing
Yes there was some post processing , As I have a tendency to shoot underexposed by about a third of a stop just to protect my highlights on such a highly specular object. I did do some curve adjustment and photoshop and also some color grading .In my camera bag
Normal I would carry my Canon 1DX with the 100mm 2.8 Macro lens and my 70-200mm 2.8. . On my race days I would use the Canon 1DX and my 600mm f4 and 300mm f2.6 lens . But I have upgraded to a Hasselblad and now my go to lens is the 90mm.Feedback
My advice to anyone who wants to get into automotive / motorcycle photography is first of all have a idea of what you want your image to be. I would visualize and sketch images of what I wanted to see and look at other images to get ideas on my final project. I used scale models of motorcycles to practise my lighting on to get an idea on how lighting worked on such objects. I really don't think there are any set rules on how to light objects like these . I strongly believe in experimentation if you have the time to do so and you don't need numerous light I've shoots bikes with a single speedlight or Ice light or used multiple light, its whatever you need to get to your invision .