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Local downhill mountain bike series, Wellington, New Zealand.

Local downhill mountain bike series, Wellington, New Zealand.
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307

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Awards

People's Choice in Best Mountain Biking Photo Challenge
Superb Composition
LookSee
Absolute Masterpiece
Athena_B
Top Choice
MarliaPhotography
Superior Skill
TC_PHOTOGRAPHY

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Chasing The Action Photo ContestTop 20 rank
Chasing The Action Photo ContestTop 30 rank week 3
Chasing The Action Photo ContestTop 20 rank week 2
Chasing The Action Photo ContestTop 30 rank week 1

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Behind The Lens

Location

This was captured in a bush reserve in Wellington, New Zealand. Within five minutes of this site you can be right in the centre of our capital city.

Time

This photo was captured during the morning practice runs of a local mountain bike downhill event. Each rider had several chances to ride the course before having one timed run through the forest.

Lighting

The weather was very changeable during this event, alternating from bright sun to overcast skies. This was even more obvious in the bush creating very contrasting lighting. Sadly my current camera performs rather poorly in low light conditions so most of my shots were intentionally blurred to highlight the speed of the competitors. This one of very few where I tried to freeze the action and managed it using the built in flash.

Equipment

Shot with my Fuji X-S1

Inspiration

Since picking up my first camera I have loved shooting action and sports themes. Having competed (socially) in mountain biking events for several years I was naturally drawn to this event. This particular spot had plenty of space to follow the competitors whilst staying protected from injury in the name of photography.

Editing

There wasn't a lot of post processing done to this shot. The contrast was reduced slightly and the saturation tweaked. From memory that was it.

In my camera bag

Back in my film days I got caught out by using a SLR. This lead me to invest in multiple lenses, filters, flashes, etc. Eventually my bag of goodies became so cumbersome that I just left it at home. Therefore, since going digital, I have chosen to stick with fixed lens "bridge" cameras only. My current unit rolls with a polarising filter in place, occasionally a generic external flash and my tripod lives in the back seat of the car.

Feedback

Getting this image involved deleting many similar shots that just weren't as good. Being kind of lazy I believe that if you shoot enough times you will eventually get a great result. This was one of those days where I just kept hitting the shutter.

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