Steel Wheels....A Few Snap Shots To Share...

[ErikJonas]

I shoot bikes at a local bike shop...The Bike builder years ago had a Coors Light bike build off against Jessie James and he came out of it with the better bike....Hell Bent Iron formerly Widowmakers...If you want a bike built by kevin its a 3 year waiting list....These are some snap shots i took round his place.....

I really like this shot with the front fender of the Road King in it taken outside the shop.It turned out pretty nice.........

Erik Jonas: Steel Wheels 1​

Taken obviously outside the shop this shot taken for the owner of this bike a red Victory with a starburst of sunshine coming accross the front of the bike...People always ask me, Filter?....No F22 you get that.

Erik Jonas: Steel Wheels 1​

Inside the shop you obviously cant set a shot up.I just tried to get the best composed shot i could.This black and white ones i made black an white cause of all the conflicting colors,purple wall checkered floor,blah....Just make it black an white...This is one of the bikes in process....If you want to wait 3 years,an you want to spend $55,000 you can have a bike like this.....

Erik Jonas: Steel Wheels 1​

The back room where all bikes start out from a frame thats built.....Again doing the best i could to compose a decent shot but a snap shot none the less.....I just thought it was interesting....

Erik Jonas: Steel Wheels 1​

So these are my snap shots of the bike shop....I started shooting a calendar for them with Jordan on a number of the bikes but that fell through...As it is no one notices the bikes in the shots just Jordan so i wont post those....

 

[Asher Kelman]

I shoot bikes at a local bike shop...The Bike builder years ago had a Coors Light bike build off against Jessie James and he came out of it with the better bike....Hell Bent Iron formerly Widowmakers...If you want a bike built by kevin its a 3 year waiting list....These are some snap shots i took round his place.....

I really like this shot with the front fender of the Road King in it taken outside the shop.It turned out pretty nice.........

Erik Jonas: Steel Wheels 1​

I'm most impressed with this first one as the sheer size of the wheel and it's uniqueness makes the picture and ablates all distraction. Very strong imagery.


Look at Nicolas Claris' pictures of boats speeding on the water, here. They are often like this, focusing on what's impressive and artistically composed and that's hanging from the belly of a helicopter!


Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I shoot bikes at a local bike shop...The Bike builder years ago had a Coors Light bike build off against Jessie James and he came out of it with the better bike....Hell Bent Iron formerly Widowmakers...If you want a bike built by kevin its a 3 year waiting list....These are some snap shots i took round his place.....

I really like this shot with the front fender of the Road King in it taken outside the shop.It turned out pretty nice.........

Hi Erik,

I like this one of the series best. I would have prefered a slight rotation (to get the background verticals more vertical), which would also have given a stronger diagonal of the wheels. I also would have tried to avoid cropping the wheel of the (Road King and) the second bike, or do a more radical crop (half wheel) of the second bike. You did well by just capturing the front wheel of the Road King, otherwise things get cluttered with too much detail very fast. The fender is a characteristic part of the bike.

Taken obviously outside the shop this shot taken for the owner of this bike a red Victory with a starburst of sunshine coming accross the front of the bike...People always ask me, Filter?....No F22 you get that.

This one is also rotated, which IMHO doesn't add but rather subtracts from the image because the background draws too much attention this way. The narrow aperture also increases the distraction by background detail. You did get a starburst, so that part was successful.

Inside the shop you obviously cant set a shot up.I just tried to get the best composed shot i could.This black and white ones i made black an white cause of all the conflicting colors,purple wall checkered floor,blah....Just make it black an white...This is one of the bikes in process....If you want to wait 3 years,an you want to spend $55,000 you can have a bike like this.....

Yes, too many colors can be, well, too much. It's almost impossible to make a nice composition of a whole bike in such a confined space. Black and White will reduce the color cacophony, but a good B&W image requires a strong composition, and beautiful light. I'm not sure what you did with sharpening, but I find it a bit distracting (HDR+mediocre tonemapping effect). I have no idea how I would have taken this image to make it more appealing (maybe by only using natural window light), it's very difficult to make something decent out of that situation/setting.

The back room where all bikes start out from a frame thats built.....Again doing the best i could to compose a decent shot but a snap shot none the less.....I just thought it was interesting....

You've caught the atmosphere quite well, the natural light helped a lot and you've captured it well.

It's an interesting subject, but by no means an easy one. I imagine that by revisiting a number of times one will learn to capture the essentials, but that will probably also require more close-ups than overviews. Using a wider aperture can help to suppress background clutter, and also allow to use natural light. Wide angle lenses increase background clutter, so by going for details with a longer focal length you can address 2 challenges at the same time.

Thanks for sharing,
Bart

 

[StuartRae]

Hi Erik,

Some nice bikes there. Heavy metal indeed! But none as beautiful or musical as my old Velocette

The B&W shot looks really odd, like an illustration in an old magazine, but I quite like it.

...i made black an white cause of all the conflicting colors,purple wall checkered floor,blah....Just make it black an white...

Mmmm, it doesn't look good in colour, let's make it B&W. That's probably why there are so many crap B&W shots out there

Regards,

Stuart

 

[ErikJonas]

..............

Asher.....Thankyou so much sir!!!

Bart...Where to start and note i am not taking a defensive stance, seems i always need to explain that.... When i shot that i shot it in a way to keep distrations that i could not move out of the image....I wanted to get the entire Road King wheel in the shot but based on what was near by i could not.....On any image i do at the time of shooting i check various composures and at the time of editing i check various croppings to see what other looks i have....

Cropping is the number one thing people talk about....I do check that both on site and while editing....But that said i understand those things being pointed out to me...

Bart i never HDR a image...I did go back and look at that B/W and yes i see why you might think that....And for those who dont know the Pentax K20D has a HDR system built right into it, it does it all on board and gives you the finished product. I have no interest in using that though...I am liking that B/W more an more. Its kind of growing on me....

The red Victory bike Bart i said very specifically was a snap shot...Snap Shot...For what it is it does'nt look all that bad....

Stuart.....You said to me......"Mmmm, it doesn't look good in colour, let's make it B&W. That's probably why there are so many crap B&W shots out there " .....

..I never approach a image with that kind of mind set....Kind of insulting....All the conflicting colors but i liked how the bike was in the shop...I shot it knowing i would make it black an white....Some things i shoot just for black an white but i never approach it with a hap hazzard oh what the hell just make it black an white attitude....I'm sure you did not intend that to be offensive or derogatory, that i expect from Ken....But it just reads that way....

Nice link to your bike shots...Too bad you still dont have them =( But you have the pictures and memories.....

Again to thank Bart for the thoughtful input to my images and the time to type that all out =)

 

[Rachel Foster]

Not my cup of tea, so I can't comment. But I see you've had some good comments from some very well-informed folk.

 

[StuartRae]

Hi Erik,

I never approach a image with that kind of mind set...Kind of insulting....

Apologies. It wasn't meant like that, just a passing comment on something I've heard so often that it bugs me. Colour or B&W, you need a good shot to start with.

Regards,

Stuart

 

[ErikJonas]

...........

I see...Well i was fairly sure you did not mean it in a derogitory way...So often its easy to misread things or put emotion there that was never intended....No worries and i will put the pistols away, no dueling pistols at dawn....Which is a good thing cause its been really cold in the mornings lol....

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I see...Well i was fairly sure you did not mean it in a derogitory way...So often its easy to misread things or put emotion there that was never intended....No worries and i will put the pistols away, no dueling pistols at dawn....Which is a good thing cause its been really cold in the mornings lol....

On the other hand, what an interesting subject to shoot, ehh, photograph. ;-)
Not easy though me thinks.

In general, some well placed emoticons (even as text symbols) can help to communicate sentiments.

Cheers,
Bart