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Motorcycles and Photography
Submitted by: John Kirchhoff from North Central Missouri
At 52, my kids think I'm an old fossil but what do you expect from a 19,16 & 12 year old? My youngest is a girl and she's been riding behind me for a very long time. I'd drop her off and pick her up from day care with the bike every day. Her helmet was certainly too big and her legs would just dangle, but she liked it. Even now I drop her off at school in warm weather.
I farm, raising sheep. Years ago, I didn't like sheep but when they're the only thing on the farm making any money, you start liking them more. I also work at our local soil and water conservation district where I do just about everything under the sun. Besides bikes, I also like Studebakers. Got a '60 Hawk I need to get finished up and then get back to my '51. I do all my own mechanical work, hence the reason my Harley buddies near Chicago like for me to come along on bike trips!
I have a digitizer and have used it to digitize some old slides. What's nice is that I'm able to restore the color to faded photos, correct visible damage and so on. Pretty neat but it certainly is a load for my old computer! I've carried cameras for years and have learned a little. Here's a few that might help.
If you have a bike with a high frequency vibration (older inline fours), vibration will unscrew lens retaining rings and loosen screws in the camera body if the camera comes in contact with any solid part of the bike. This includes the insides of saddlebags, trunks and fairings. Wrapping your camera and lenses with articles of clothing prevents this from happening, but makes retrieving your camera an exercise in hide and go seek or having a camera that smells like sweaty socks. I fixed this by taking an ordinary tank bag and cutting a large piece of foam rubber that would fill the bag. I think mine came from an old, cheap, foam mattress. In it I cut holes and openings that fit the lens containers, camera body, flash and filters. Below the camera I cut a number of small holes in which film canisters fit. This setup allows more room in the saddlebags for other items, protects the equipment, allows you to disconnect and carry everything with you and leaves the camera easily accessible for those snap it now or miss it photos. For rain, a plastic bag provides adequate protection while parked.
Digital cameras are getting smaller and better all the time. I keep my older fixed focus digital under the clear map cover on the tank bag. This makes it easy to grab the camera while on the fly and snap action photos of your buddies riding beside you or over your back at the Kenworth bearing down on you. Since I don't want to be looking through the viewfinder and crash and burn, I instead just take lots of them without aiming and I'm bound to get a few that are keepers. The beauty of digital cameras is that you can just delete the embarrassingly poor ones before anyone has a chance to see them.
Digitals don't like rain, especially torrential Texas downpours. We got hit and before we could exit the interstate, the water had puddled under the tank bag's plastic map cover where the camera was. I dried the camera off and it wouldn't even fire up, so I figured I now had an expensive piece of junk. After a few hours of hot sun it would start up, but the LCD display wouldn't work. One night of hanging in front of a motel air conditioner dried it out enough that it returned to life, good as new.
My "new" bike has a trip computer mounted on the tank, which prevents me from using the tank bag. So rather than having a camera hanging around my neck for 5,000 miles, I've bought a small camera bag which I will attach to the fairing. That way, I can simply reach forward, get the digital camera and start firing away while on the move.
I also have a larger, SLR styled digital that has auto as well as manual focus and exposure. After using my film SLRs for over 30 years, I've actually grown rather fond of the digital. Being able to shoot loads of photos and then delete the lousy ones is certainly a money saver compared to film processing fees. However, for some situations it's hard to beat the versatility and photo quality of a film camera. For instance, photographing my friends inside the dilapidated old saloon-dancehall in Gruen, Texas demanded the used of film. The photo quality of a digital was simply too sharp and too contrasty for my tastes. Film lent a softer feel to the photos and was in keeping with the well-used tabletops and thoroughly worn wooden floors.
If using film in the higher altitudes of the western states, a UV (ultraviolet) filter is a must. Even then, photos sometimes still have a distinct, bluish cast when taken in mid-afternoon. On either type of camera, a polarizing filter will make white clouds stand out against bluer skies and will eliminate the mirror effect of water puddles.
At first glance, using the flash during the middle of the day seems like redundancy. However, a flash will fill in the shadows that appear underneath someone's hat bill so that they have an actual face rather than looking like the grim reaper. They should also be used when taking a photo of someone standing under a shade tree or awning. If not, you will have a nice photo of the background but the subjects will be nothing more than black blobs.
The best time to take photos with either type of camera is early in the morning and late in the evening. Although we can't see it, that's when the camera sees things in softer, yellowish or orange tones rather than the harsh blue afternoon cast. In the afternoon, shadows are a photographer's worst enemy but in morning or evening, they can be your best friend. Don't be afraid to have the subject person backlit or sidelit, throwing a shadow on their face. You can use those shadows to accentuate their facial features. Oftentimes, these are the occasions when I like to use the black and white digital camera mode or use a computer program to change a digitized film photo into black and white. Color is of great use to draw one's attention to something, but black and white is great for muting all non-relevant matter and forcing the viewer's attention to the subject.
While not an expert or professional photographer, the mistake I see most often
is the photographers failure to get "up close and personal". A common
example is the stereotypical mountain in the background with a couple of ants
in the foreground,
no wait, those are people! Mountains are great and deserve
to be photographed, but rather than having people's eyes drilling into the
camera, they need to be captured looking at the mountain. That can be from
behind or from the side, but have them looking at what you're taking a photo
of. If it's the people you want captured, then get up close so you can see
their faces. Unless you're into fashion design, most people could really care
less to see which pair of jeans and shirt you've worn over the last quarter
century of vacations. What I'm saying is this: don't waste film on their
clothes, capture their faces!
We all like to take photos when the sun's shining, but don't think lousy weather or dire circumstances prevents you from snapping shots. I have photos of the long skid mark my bike left after we hit the sudden oil streak left by the leaking pickup we later found dead alongside the road. I have the photo showing the bewildered look on my wife's face after the long, spark-laden skid and of the big bandage pasted on my backside. I also have a series of photos taken over the years of every time my friend's bike broke down, something he and I both get a kick out of, him especially now that he has a more dependable bike. So just get out there and take more photos, you'll love the memories they bring later.
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