This is why I am a photographer
Boy howdy, did I have one helluva weekend! I haven't had so much fun photographing in my entire life... and the adrenaline! Good God. What a fantastic rush.
(no, I don't really say "Boy howdy!" in real life. But I do say "Cool Beans!" quite often. anyway...)
Last Sunday my humble town of Troy, Ohio hosted the 2007 Troy Classic on the Square, an exponentially-more-exciting-than-you'd-think bicycle race. After a bummer of a shift at work in the morning, I met up with the Boss Man around 1-ish to shoot the race(s). After trying to shoot a few artsy panning shots like this one:
I found out that my current camera and lens setup don't amount to a hill of beans for capturing fast motion, so I used Bossman's Canon 30D.
I shot hundreds of photos of the bike racers doing their thing. There was even one decently scary wreck and subsequent pile-up in the first race that I was shooting. It was down the street, and all I heard was this weird crunching noise only to look over and see a dozen or so bikes and riders all in a messy pile. One poor guy got knocked clean out and got carted away on a stretcher and into a waiting ambulance, but he came to and was treated on the scene with luckily only some butt-kicking scrapes, road rashes, and bruises.
You know, t's one thing to watch a NASCAR racer burst into flames on the television, but another thing entirely to watch people getting hurt in front of your eyes. Quite upsetting, actually. AFterward I had to keep telling myself that it's a risk they willingly take upon themselves.
On a side street, though, was a professional BMX team from DK Bicycle Company. They were doing a show with a big metal box ramp... the kind with a flat platform between the sharply sloped ramp sides. I got to taking photos of them and chatting with the guy manning the microphone. Got a ton of good shots.
Lemme tell you, you couldn't ask for a more pleasant and polite group of kids. I'm not being smart... I really mean that. I could've talked to them for hours. In fact, I did end up hanging out with them for hours just because they were so much fun to chill with. So much so that I missed all the subsequent races leading up to the main race, but not before first asking them if they ever had any photos taken from directly beneath a biker mid-flip. They said they'd put me in their last show...
(heehee... I said 'chill'. I am SO trying to act ten years younger.)
So I go and shoot the main race. All hyped up on sponged-off coolness, I get a little ballsy and perch myself right on the inside corner of one of the turns, only a foot or two inside the curb. I sat and waited for the main pack to pass by, and when they did, it's a good thing I wasn't any closer. The angle that they lean in, only a few inches closer and they'd've ripped my ear off with their handlebars. Through the lens, it looks like they're coming straight at me, and it took every ounce of self control I had not to dive away when the main pack of 40 or so bikers zipped by, inches past my face.
When they finished, I was so overcome by the adrenaline rush that I looked up at a lady standing nearby, put my hand over my heart, and gasped "Holy shit, that was intense!"
---
So I make it over to DK Bicycle Co.'s final show and start shooting. Part of their show is to have a guy flip over the announcer who's kneeling on the top of the box. This time they pulled a local bmx'er to get flipped over and then said (to the audience who'd grown quite large) "We're gonna kick it up a little... let's get the photographer up there too. We're gonna jump over two people!!" I ran up the less sloping backside and laid down next to the front coping (the joint between the box and the ramp). I sat my camera down and put my hands together like I was praying, and then looked over as the biker was charging straight at me. One thunderous clap of the steel structure as he hit the ramp, and...
I was cackling maniacally.
I slide down the ramp to my feet and the announcer says "Let's hear it for our volunteers!". The bmx'er and I share a moment of shameless vanity and pump our fists to the crowd. I walk back over to Boss Man's tent and viewing stations so his assistant could download the images onto his server. I call Dark Haired Girl on my new cell phone and leave her a long incoherent message, still trembling from this second, more intense shot of adrenaline.
The day finishes with thousands of images, my face burnt to a lovely shade of magenta, some very enthusiastic bmx pros who kept saying "Dude! Awesome!" at the photo viewing station, and one dazzled and completely overstimulated photographer.
---
More BMX photos up at the DeviantART gallery.
(no, I don't really say "Boy howdy!" in real life. But I do say "Cool Beans!" quite often. anyway...)
Last Sunday my humble town of Troy, Ohio hosted the 2007 Troy Classic on the Square, an exponentially-more-exciting-than-you'd-think bicycle race. After a bummer of a shift at work in the morning, I met up with the Boss Man around 1-ish to shoot the race(s). After trying to shoot a few artsy panning shots like this one:
I found out that my current camera and lens setup don't amount to a hill of beans for capturing fast motion, so I used Bossman's Canon 30D.
I shot hundreds of photos of the bike racers doing their thing. There was even one decently scary wreck and subsequent pile-up in the first race that I was shooting. It was down the street, and all I heard was this weird crunching noise only to look over and see a dozen or so bikes and riders all in a messy pile. One poor guy got knocked clean out and got carted away on a stretcher and into a waiting ambulance, but he came to and was treated on the scene with luckily only some butt-kicking scrapes, road rashes, and bruises.
You know, t's one thing to watch a NASCAR racer burst into flames on the television, but another thing entirely to watch people getting hurt in front of your eyes. Quite upsetting, actually. AFterward I had to keep telling myself that it's a risk they willingly take upon themselves.
On a side street, though, was a professional BMX team from DK Bicycle Company. They were doing a show with a big metal box ramp... the kind with a flat platform between the sharply sloped ramp sides. I got to taking photos of them and chatting with the guy manning the microphone. Got a ton of good shots.
Lemme tell you, you couldn't ask for a more pleasant and polite group of kids. I'm not being smart... I really mean that. I could've talked to them for hours. In fact, I did end up hanging out with them for hours just because they were so much fun to chill with. So much so that I missed all the subsequent races leading up to the main race, but not before first asking them if they ever had any photos taken from directly beneath a biker mid-flip. They said they'd put me in their last show...
(heehee... I said 'chill'. I am SO trying to act ten years younger.)
So I go and shoot the main race. All hyped up on sponged-off coolness, I get a little ballsy and perch myself right on the inside corner of one of the turns, only a foot or two inside the curb. I sat and waited for the main pack to pass by, and when they did, it's a good thing I wasn't any closer. The angle that they lean in, only a few inches closer and they'd've ripped my ear off with their handlebars. Through the lens, it looks like they're coming straight at me, and it took every ounce of self control I had not to dive away when the main pack of 40 or so bikers zipped by, inches past my face.
When they finished, I was so overcome by the adrenaline rush that I looked up at a lady standing nearby, put my hand over my heart, and gasped "Holy shit, that was intense!"
---
So I make it over to DK Bicycle Co.'s final show and start shooting. Part of their show is to have a guy flip over the announcer who's kneeling on the top of the box. This time they pulled a local bmx'er to get flipped over and then said (to the audience who'd grown quite large) "We're gonna kick it up a little... let's get the photographer up there too. We're gonna jump over two people!!" I ran up the less sloping backside and laid down next to the front coping (the joint between the box and the ramp). I sat my camera down and put my hands together like I was praying, and then looked over as the biker was charging straight at me. One thunderous clap of the steel structure as he hit the ramp, and...
I was cackling maniacally.
I slide down the ramp to my feet and the announcer says "Let's hear it for our volunteers!". The bmx'er and I share a moment of shameless vanity and pump our fists to the crowd. I walk back over to Boss Man's tent and viewing stations so his assistant could download the images onto his server. I call Dark Haired Girl on my new cell phone and leave her a long incoherent message, still trembling from this second, more intense shot of adrenaline.
The day finishes with thousands of images, my face burnt to a lovely shade of magenta, some very enthusiastic bmx pros who kept saying "Dude! Awesome!" at the photo viewing station, and one dazzled and completely overstimulated photographer.
---
More BMX photos up at the DeviantART gallery.
posted by Grover at 7/22/2007 09:45:00 PM
3 comments
