How to be a great photographer: "f/8 and be there"

Why I'm not a great photographer: That whole "be there" part.

I had nothing but good intentions of going to shoot the Greenbrier Challenge mountain bike race this past Sunday. Unfortunately, something came up and I wasn't able to make it.

Looking at local Flickr user extraFunky's shots of the event, there was some good shootin' to be had. Soft lighting, sloppy trails, muddy riders. Man. Wish I would have been there!

Hopefully things will pan out better for next weekend's 12 Hours of Lodi Farm race.

TooFat@work

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?



Photo of your's truly behind the lens, by Jim Folliard at gearshift.tv

For god's sake, somebody get that boy a sandwich, he's wasting away to nothing!

Next up on the shooting deck: the 2008 Greenbrier Challenge on Sunday.

Leesburg cont'd.

The rest of my Leesburg Baker's Dozen photos are up. Check them out here, broken down (roughly) by hour. These are pretty much straight outta the camera. The only editing I've done is to resize them.

I'm sticking to my "free as in beer" ethos again this year:

If you want a copy of the web-sized version of the image (for non-commercial use on your blog, web page, whatever) right-click, save-as, done. I'd appreciate a link back to my gallery, or an image credit, but I'm not gonna be a hard-ass about it.

If you want an edited, fixed-up, full-res JPG suitable for 8x10" printing, email me. Assuming the full-res image is up-to-snuff, I'm gonna charge $10 for it. If you want an actual mailed print, it'll be more.

If you're a non-profit trying to save the world or something, email me. I'm a sucker for a good cause.

TooFatTwoOhOhEight

The 2008 mountain bike racing/shooting season kicked off for me on Saturday with the Leesburg Baker's Dozen race in VA. Unfortunately, I had lost track of dates, and was surprised on Friday to find out that there was a race scheduled on Saturday. As I already had plans for most of the afternoon/evening hours Saturday, I decided to hit the race early and try for some shots in the pine grove section (which, while I quite like this shot, overall only went so-so):



My master plan then had me taking off for my other planned activities, and afterward, heading back out to the race for some night-shooting ('round about midnight).

I had a couple of specific shots in mind that I wanted to try after dark, and I think I managed to nail them pretty well. I wanted something with rider's light trails with the farm silo in the background (since this was a race on a farm, I thought it only appropriate):



And I wanted some shots from a high vantage point, showing the racer's light trails running through the field:



After spending most of my daylight shooting hours in the pine grove, I decided to go back and try for some interesting "light-trails-weaving-through-the-trees" shots. Some worked better than others:



My next task is to figure out how to get the light-trail shots, but be able to hit the rider with a flash at the end, so they show up on "film" (similar to what this guy did). The trick is ensuring that I don't distract/blind the riders and cause them to ride off the trail into a tree.

I still have to weed through all of the almost 700 images I shot. I should have un-edited copies up in a day or two. I'll post back here when the task is complete.