Shooting at the trails can be fun and frustrating at the same time. It can be fun because there are all sorts of angles you can get and the only obstruction, more or less, is trees. But, the beautiful thing is that you can climb said trees and get crazy angles no one has seen before. It can be frustrating if you choose to light your photo with flashes instead of using ambient light. You need the right equipment and it needs to be used properly. Jacob pretty much nailed it in this week’s photo.
“As a ton of bmx related photos are, this was sort of a “spur of the moment” opportunity to snap a few photos on a set that rarely gets seen on a computer screen. Initially set up to shoot a photo of Will Blount, everyone got in on the session and I sat back, and snapped and grinned.
I set up an AB800 far left at 3/4 power and then a SB-800 behind the lip you see in the foreground mid right at 1/2 power. Shooting with my D300s and a 50mm 1.8 I snuck far back into the trees on my stomach to get a nice foreground and feel that is worthy of the woods in the winter.
The initial set up was 1/250th f8 at iso400 but it was later into the session and the sun was going down quickly so I ended up at f4 for this photo. Its always a struggle shooting strobes in the woods with the sun constantly being pushed behind clouds and lighting HUGE landings as you see here.
All in all I walked away content with a solid 4-5 photos as the sun dropped out of view and I didn’t have anymore ambient light to play with.
Shout out to all the locals who put up with my strobes and antics. Go balance some ambient light with strobes, its a challenge each and every time.
Gear:
D300s w/ 50 1.8
AB800 w/ vagabond
SB-800
Phottix triggers
Manfrotto Tripods”
Check out more of Jacob’s work here.
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Push It A Stop 