Photo of the Week: Adam Cook

My favorite part of this photograph is the composition- it’s almost symmetrical (it would be completely if the homies weren’t chilling (but that’s what homies are for- chilling)). I love the tones and textures in the pipe itself. I like sneaky homie holding the flash and quiet homie way in the back. I’m thinking this photo would look great printed big.

“The guys and I were planning on riding this full pipe in our town all summer but never got the chance to (its one of Lake Eries main waterways, its pretty dangerous to be in there apparently). Anyways, towards the end of the summer my buddy Bryan was getting real serious about riding this thing. He and Herby knew what to do because they were the only ones who rode the thing before. I got a text when I was finishing up a music video for a hip hop artist to get down there and ride it that afternoon. Well I couldnt ride it because my shoulder was still seperated and I knew I only had an hour until I had to help my cousin with something so I grabbed the camera bag and flew down there. When I got there they had already set up the ply wood and woodpallets and were riding it so I got right into shooting.

I couldn’t bring a flash stand because the water was 3 inches high and flowing fast so they had to hold it for me. I snapped a few pictures of Tommy. All of those were vertical and I was leaning on a wall hiding everyone else from the shot (also keeping me out of water). I slipped up and totally soaked my shoes so I said screw it and just stood in the deepest part of the water to get one more picture of Tommy. Andy was up and asked me to get another picture of him going as high as he can. Soaked and short on time I was totally reluctant to do it but I did one last one anyways.

I got home later that day and just applied a preset I made that I usually use on my photos and work from there. Turns out this one was pretty underexposed and looked a tad out of focus so I pretty much trashed it from the start. I came back to the computer later and just tried to see how much I could fix it by bumping the exposure up a ton and boosting the whites, all it did was make it worse. Black and white was my last option because I really liked the colors of that place.
I played with every possible adjustment lightroom could offer in attempt to save this photograph and this is what I came up with.

Weird sometimes that the photos you may think are your weakest end up being the best in that set.

Details:
Canon 550D
1/200
f8
ISO: 200
@ 40mm w/ 40mm 2.8

1 Yongnuo 560 @ full power to the left of the rider near the ground.”

See more of Adam’s work here.

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