70 IN LATE DECEMBER?

December 29, 2008 @ 9:42 PM - Mike O

It’s crazy that just a week and a half ago it was four degrees in Pittsburgh.  I’ve seen these temperature changes in the past, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it was 70 degrees this weekend.  We made the most of it by riding the whole day.  I met up with Josh Pekich in downtown with his friend Jesse, then we met up with another guy named Bob (I think?).  We cruised downtown Pittsburgh and the North Shore, nibbling at the usual spots and really just having a relaxed session.  We ran into a good 10 other riders during our cruise, they must have all had the same idea that we had regarding the weather. As the sun fell and the temps started to drop again, we decided to hit up Imperial to check it out.  There, we came across only a small portion of the park lit, and an insane amount of riders (more than the typical summer session.....).  It was claustrophobic, so I stopped riding and broke out the camera on a quarter I typically would never want to shoot photos on. 

Josh with a flattie

Mike Potoczny with the whip.

I’m finally about to dive into a third flash, and I think Mike’s photo is a perfect reason why I am getting it.  By no means do you need three flashes to take a good photo, but at this point I’m pretty well convinced that in most situations when shooting at night, three flashes are best.  If I had the third, I would have used it as the fill (positioned to my right, on the deck), to fill in the shadows you see (his face, shoulder and legs, rear tire).  I had two options with my two flashes, I had my key flash (main flash to light the subject and freeze him) set up to my left, which lit him up pretty well; then the second flash I could have used as the fill, but I felt it was better served as the back light (or ‘rim’ flash as I’ve heard it called).  By positioning it where I did, I was able to add more light to him from behind to better separate him from the dark background, but I was also able to light up the ramp to give you an idea of what he was riding.  If I had used that second flash as the fill, without the backlight, the ramp would have most likely been pitch black, and he would have been completely flat in the image, giving you no depth of field.  So, given what I had this weekend, I like how it turned out, though as I’m on the foot of getting my third flash, I think the photo would have been a lot better if it was there to fill in the shadows. 

Note:  I have no formal education in photography, so if I sound like I’m talking out me arse, it’s because I am