“To set up the shot I put my main flash on a tall light stand just over my left shoulder as I was crouching down with my 15mm fish eye lens. This was right at 180 degrees from where the sun was coming in from the trees and served as the only flash lighting up Scotty and his bike. The ambient light behind him gave a pretty good key light on his helmet, shoulder, and arm. I would have liked to have another key light hitting the back side of his rear tire, but I only had three flashes with me, and the other two were used to light up the under side of the take off. With that said, I set up my two fill flashes low to the ground just out of the right side of the frame pointing up at the under side of the wooden launch. Without them lighting up the take off it was very dark and shadowy with little to no detail in the wood. Since the take off was so unique in this setup it was important to me to show where he was coming from in the best way possible.
These trails are located behind John Jennings’ parents house, and on the day we were scheduled to shoot Scotty couldn’t get in touch with any of the locals to unchain the roll in, so he had to find a very creative (for lack of better words) way to get the speed for the gap. Being the boss that he is, Scotty not only got the speed, but fully clicked a turndown on his first and only go at it. One and done, in and out…off to the next spot!
PHOTO INFORMATION
Date: May 10, 2013
Location: Area 51 Trails, New Jersey
Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: Canon 15mm
Camera Settings:
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/320
Main Flash: Quantum Q Flash with Turbo 400 w/s battery pack (set to roughly 1/4 power)
Fill Flashes: Vivitar 285 (set to full power)
Transmitter: Pocket Wizard MiniTT1
Receivers: Pocket Wizard Receivers”
More post-processing techniques here.
Push It A Stop 