Commuting - bicycling photographer blog :)

hey fellow commuters....i'm a photographer in Long Beach, CA and I'm carfree and get to all my assignments by bike...anyway, I'm going to start blogging about it and thought it might be of some interest...posting routes I take around the city for each assignment as well....so if you like bikes and or photography, check it out :)

http://russroca.blogspot.com/

I hope you'll also list your blog in our Blogger's Forum (http://www.bikeforums.net/forumdisplay.php?f=255).

sweet..will post there..didn't even realize there was a blogger's forum :)

me neither!

I'll check out your blog, xcapekey :) (had a look - nice job!! good photography too)

Russ, I remember your posts & photos over at RFF. IIRC, didn't you set up an xtracycle to carry your portable lighting gear? If so, I'd love to hear your experiences with that machine.

I have a friend who lives in Belmont Shores. Nice area to live and ride.

So, maybe you have some advice for photographing what I find to be a very difficult subject: bikes.

I find that I can take pretty good pictures of a lot of things, but bikes aren't one of them. It's frustrating because I love bikes, and I love photography, but I haven't really gotten it right yet.

Some more appealing shots have isolated parts of the bike and used lower f stop, but shooting the whole bike has been more difficult.

Keaton

I agree...bikes are tough to photograph since they are quite large but dont have that much visible surface area (esp. skinny steel bikes)...

like you said, you can shoot it with a portrait length lens wide open and use it to isolate the bike from the background....another technique is to combine that with a clean background...say set the bike up at the ocean, shoot from a low angle, so you have mostly the sky and clouds or the ocean in the back rather than some buildings.....

likewise you could bring the bike to the top of a big hill overlooking the city and getting an angle so that you can get a nice faded city background....

or, you can always shoot it macro or with a wide angle lens to really distort and emphasize elements of the bike (the wheel, the handlebar, etc.,)

Some pages to check for ideas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bicycle/interesting/

http://www.bikereader.com/images/photography.html

http://bestbld.blogspot.com/

Keaton

I agree...bikes are tough to photograph since they are quite large but dont have that much visible surface area (esp. skinny steel bikes)...

like you said, you can shoot it with a portrait length lens wide open and use it to isolate the bike from the background....another technique is to combine that with a clean background...say set the bike up at the ocean, shoot from a low angle, so you have mostly the sky and clouds or the ocean in the back rather than some buildings.....

likewise you could bring the bike to the top of a big hill overlooking the city and getting an angle so that you can get a nice faded city background....

or, you can always shoot it macro or with a wide angle lens to really distort and emphasize elements of the bike (the wheel, the handlebar, etc.,)

Good tips, thanks. Background can definitely be a challenge. Assuming no kickstand (although I plan to add one to my commuter bike), you have to lean it against something (anything but the overdone garage door shot!) or prop it up (usually done awkwardly with something that looks dumb in the pic). So we'll see. Maybe I'll use the repair stand.

Some pages to check for ideas:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bicycle/interesting/

http://www.bikereader.com/images/photography.html

http://bestbld.blogspot.com/

Will definitely check these out, thanks!

Nice site. I like the pics too!