I chose this photo because of the simplicity- blue sky, white puffy clouds, a good balance of ground and water in the composition. The position of the riders arms resembles a bird taking flight and the wide open framing allows for a dramatic proportion between the world and its possibilities.
“Last year was a busy one for me in Chicago and I had the opportunity to shoot with some amazing riders through Brian Kachinsky and the Bakery. It was a bit surreal at times shooting photos with people from all over the world and it was definitely a new experience for me and something I wasn’t accustomed to. During the summer we had Matthias Dandois come to town for a whole week to film for his Bakery edit as well as just spend some time in Chicago.
One afternoon during Matthias’ visit the Bakery crew and friends all met up at the 31st street skatepark on the south side of the city to take a break from being cooped up inside filming. I remember it being a really hot and muggy Chicago summer day and not being too prime for riding. After cruising the park for around an hour everyone headed toward the lakefront to scope out some ledges, but no one was too motivated to ride em’ as the sun was a bit draining.
I noticed Matthias busting out some flatland moves while most of us were sitting around bullshitting and chugging sports drinks and eating slushies trying to stay cool. Just at that moment there were some big clouds that blocked out the sun and were lingering over the water. They provided this great blue hue over everything and the lighting on the water looked crazy from the reflection of the clouds. I thought it would be great to get an almost silhouetted photo of Matthias riding with the water as a backdrop, so I asked if he would do some links by the water. He just did his thing freely and I snapped some photos from a distance just waiting for everything to line up perfectly. He made me so nervous with how close he was getting to the edge of the walkway, but he has some insane bike control and probably didn’t think twice about almost falling in the water. It was just a super casual moment that turned into a great photo opportunity.
Nikon D800
Nikon 70-210 f/4 AF
Shot at 70mm
1/500
f/6.3
ISO 400
Post processing in Photoshop CS6”
See more of Timothy’s work here. More of Matthias’ riding can be seen here.
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Push It A Stop 