Different . . .
By
John Terence Turner
Stock Asylum Columnist
May 1, 2007
©
2006 John Terence Turner
In an earlier column (“Speed…”), I described the making
of a best-selling photograph of a mountain bike speeding through autumn
foliage. For that picture, I clamped a camera to the top tube of my
mountain bike, just in front of the seat.
 Really good photographers are always trying to find a new way to shoot old subjects. For this image, the author built on what he had learned from a previous shoot. ( © John Terence Turner ). |
I used slow-shutter speeds with a motor-driven camera to blur the foliage through which my bike passed. That worked extremely well and I got lots of usable images.
Upon examining the results, I started thinking about what I liked about those images. Then I considered what I could do to shoot the same subject in a fresh way.
I knew I wanted a blurred picture to show speed, but I also wanted some part of the bike to be sharp. What could I do to accomplish that in a new way?
I put a 20mm wide-angle lens on the camera and used it to explore areas on or near the bike. I wanted to see what I could capture that was different from the original images.
One of the great things about the internet and the many stock companies that now market images online is that it is easy to find and scroll through hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures about any particular subject.
What you inevitably find is a lot of mediocrity — and a few good images. Some photographers submit every single image they shoot, regardless of quality. Some stock web sites seem to post all of it on-line. But, looking through all these images gives you a good idea about what is available and, more importantly, what is not.
So, after viewing several web sites, my goal was to do another slow-shutter speed shot from a mountain bike. I wanted the background to blur. Some parts of the bike had to be sharp. But, I wanted this image to be different from the first one and unique among the images I saw on the web.
To accomplish this, the camera was mounted to the seat-post, angled down at about a 45º angle with the handlebars and my hands, the front fork and front wheel all in the frame.
 Turner had to maintain this akward position for the entire run in order to get the image he imagined. ( © John Terence Turner) |
The camera was aimed toward the bike just enough to keep the ends of the handlebars equidistant from the edges of the frame. The entire front wheel was still in view.
At a slow-shutter speed, the trail and the fallen leaves would blur and convey the sense of speed.
I selected a smooth trail. I would have preferred one that was steeper, but those I found were too rough for a slow shutter speed shoot. The bouncing on a rough trail would blur the image details, including the bike itself, to the point of uselessness.
Then, there were minor technical issues to solve. Similar to the previous shoot with the camera clamped to the top tube, I would be triggering the camera with a cable release that ran through my right glove to my thumb so I could shoot without the telltale cable being visible in the final image.
On the previous shoot, the cable ran up my sleeve, down my back and around my waist to the camera.
In this case, I couldn’t do that without ripping the cable from the camera while getting on and off the bike. So, for this shot, the cable ran up my sleeve as before, but exited from the neck of my shirt and snaked back to the camera without getting tangled with my leg.
The cable had to permit me to get on and off the bike without becoming tangled. With this arrangement, there was an excess of cable. So part of the cable was coiled and held between my teeth while the bike made its run down the slope.
In the second picture, you can see me during the shoot. It looks like I’m hopping onto the bike, my left leg appears to be coming over the saddle and my foot is heading for the pedal.
Not so!
That
was my position for the whole run down the hill. I could not get my
left foot to the pedal because of the location of the camera.
Therefore, the way you see me in this picture is the way I had to remain
for the whole descent. My right leg supported all of my weight, while
my arms steered the bike and my right thumb triggered the motor drive.
Gravity created the speed I needed.
At the bottom of the hill (and the end of the roll) I got off the bike, pushed it back up, set a slightly different shutter speed and did it all over again. The awkward-looking posture you see enabled me to run the bike, operate the camera and get the picture.
It is fun to solve problems so I get the picture I have in my mind. In this case, I’m pleased with the result because the image is very close to what I had imagined.
There are times when I imagine a picture, but can’t immediately figure out how to solve the problems. Having a problem that I can work on, either in my mind or by experimenting with a camera, lenses and a location is a significant part of what I do. Sometimes I get the solution and sometimes I don’t.
(John Terence Turner has been shooting stock photography for 20 years. His work can be seen at Getty Images, Alamy and, of course, The Stock Asylum, where his column appears twice a month. He lives and works in Seattle, WA.)
Turner's web site can be found at: http://www.johnterenceturner.com.
For more of his images: click here.
For all of Turner's columns: click here.
