The bike shot

I've been on at my brother John for a long time to bring his bike over so that I can photograph him (well the bike really because when Mum and Dad were handing out the good looks lets just say I got first dibs!). Its one of his pride and joys so I wanted to do it real justice.

I've had this lighting idea in mind for a long time and have been keen to give it a whirl. Basically I want to get John to appear out of the blackness behind the bike which is strongly (but softly) lit with a nice cool light. To get the effect of him appearing out of the darkness I really only want to highlight two features - his face (one that only his Mother could love - just kidding) and his helmet, 'cause it matches the colour of the bike.


Well lets just say that at the first attempt this didn't work out quite as I wanted it to. Trying to do this indoors with limited space meant I couldn't get the light to drop off as I wanted. No matter we took the time to get some really cool specular highlights on the silver and black of the bike.


To do this we had two shoot through umbrellas at each end of the bike both gelled with CTB (colour temperature blue) gels. To give the bike separation from the background we put two strobes behind, again with CTBs on them. This made the bike stand out nicely.


Things we could do to improve the shot? For a start if the floor were painted black we could have had a more seamless look but we couldn't wait around for the paint to dry on this occasion. Shoot it out doors with a long lens so that we could get the light on the bike and John lit as we wanted. We will come back again and have a go with more time.