Sunday, August 8, 2010

Mountain Bike Photography

Even though it was a short lived period in my photography, I can't go without mentioning it because I was incredibly passionate about riding and photographing the people I rode with and the events I got to.
This period also got me back into photography after a few year break, where I sold both of my Nikon F3's due to lack of use and financial need.
In 1999, I had been riding for a few years, and was going through a divorce, I had these series of dreams about mountain biking, that were rather vivid, they were so vivid that I felt the need to recreate them some how. I was fortunate enough to still have one camera, a Holga no less, that I bought in college, which was the perfect tool for the task at hand.
I made the first "singletrack dreams" photographs during my first trip to Moab, in February of 2000 after I had bought a new bike too.




































The thing about these dreams is that I could be riding along and all of the sudden I would have this deja vu like moment where a moment from the dreams of a place I had just ridden by or was coming up on or even moments that I saw before they even happened.
With few exceptions, all of the photographs I did for this series were double exposures, and normally when I do double exposures, there is a significant period of time in between each exposure, because I don't usually come upon each component as quickly as I'd like, but with these photographs that wasn't the case.












By the summer of 2001 life had changed for the better, and I had been able to save up enough money to a new camera, another Nikon, their F-100, and because I knew I wanted to do mountain bike photographs, I also bought a 180mm lens too.




































A lot my friends were into downhill racing so I did a lot of photography of the local races too.
























I have a number of great friends who also rode as well living close to some equally great singletrack, getting great photographs was pretty easy.




























































From 2001 thru 2004 Red Bull did an event in the desert of south eastern Utah called the "Red Bull Rampage", I was fortunate enough to attend and photograph with full credentials three of those first "Rampages"
































































































During this period too, I was beginning to get some photographs published, in local cycling and sports publications, but was able to get into a few larger magazines as well. It was great seeing my photographs printed in a magazine, it's especially cool seeing them on the cover.




































 One of the things I enjoyed so much about photographing mountain biking is that I got to see some many beautiful places, from the high alpine trails, to the desert, mostly the desert though, which is where I did most of my mountain biking photographs.
From Cainville:










To the foothills of Salt Lake City:










And down to Virgin:









































































That's about all for my mountain biking photographs, thanks for checking it out, I hope you enjoyed it and will check in again for the the next part of the 26 year retrospective as I lead up to my 40th birthday next month.

RIDE ON!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't believe there are no comments. I have one.

WOW.

I've never heard of Holgas. Very interesting stuff and obviously you know how to put a device to good use. I do a little nature and fishing photography and I can only aspire to create shots like I've seen here on your blog. Great work. PS - I found you through the Facebook page of BlueRaiderFan...

Owl Jones
FFSBR

Unknown said...

never heard of holgas too,,and your photos are just awsome,,,i've found when lookinf for mtb in salt lake, i'm thinking about a trip,,(studing trip), and here im Brasil i'm a rookie biker and rookie Photographer ( both just as robie) , if you like check some of my photos in my friends blog, , www.amagrela.blogspot.com