I was commissioned to shoot a series of motorbike shots for a calendar, Superbikes is the title but as a grouping the title is reasonably open to debate. Speaking with the dealers we agreed that the power to weight ratio was the defining aspect of this monicker. To this end I collected an interesting selection of bikes ranging from 600cc to 1400cc to photograph.

 

As a bike rider I know that we all hold opinions and as I have previously mentioned we all have buttons that get pushed in different ways. Hopefully the wide range of bikes here will appeal to many.

 

My personal self-set brief was to improve on last year's photography and to offer a range of locations, bikes styles and (without sounding trite) colours. This wasn't a high budget job so we didn't have open wallets for travel to warm climates. In addition, due to scheduling, the majority of the shots had to be taken in January.

 

All of the photographs were taken with the Nikon D800e mostly with the 70-200 ƒ/2.8. These shots are about the bikes, not me and in this context it is imporatant to be able to understand the machines from a single image. 

 

 

Many of these bikes will have close relations that appear on a race-track. The 'knowing' will look at the Ducati Panigale and mutter Chaz Davies, recognising the paintwork as that which is associated with the rider. These bikes sit comfortably on their paddock stands waiting for the moment. That said the Ducati was originally shot on the stand but somehow it didn't look quite right, too high at the back.

 

The Ducati has a fair amount of 'studio' lighting; strip softboxes above and below; strobes to the side. The scene was as found though, delightfully incongruous but real all the same.

 

The Tyco by comparison has no added lighting but I was helped by the earlier rain; I had intended to wet the ground so nature helped out.

 

Somewhere in between sits the Aprilia shot with a bit of help from a Bowens Gemini with the Travel Pack battery. We built the tyre wall for the shot and then of course took it down again. Two Aprillias were photographed, mechanically identical but different paint-jobs, this one is my favourite though the other has been selected for the print run. Buttons see? 

The Suzuki is in the 750 class whereas the Kawasaki is the top capacity here at 1400cc so not quite two into one but almost.

 

The day started well; 7:30 emailed Lee at Bridge Motorcycles to say the weather looked good; 7:45 wiped falling snow off my car. By 9:30 I'd done my morning swim and the weather had cleared. 10:00 the bikes arrived to be photographed outside Exeter Chiefs' Sandy Park ground. 

 

The Kawasaki suits the rear shot, I guess it's the view most people will see. One wall, two different angles. Again no added lighting and I had a car full of equipment but after running the Kawasaki shot throughthe Mac and Lightroom on site there seemed no reason to complicate things..

Let's be honest, I am 'well covered' as they say in the north. So an unheated workshop isn't the end of the world for me but my it was cold. A Yamaha R1 was difficult to locate, all of the dealers in the south west had sold the last ones in October and were waiting for this year's new model. When one turned up it was the finish I had hoped for, the satin grey is a dream to photograph so I was a happy boy.

 

A pair of Bowens Geminis both with 200cm strip softboxes and two strobes (SB-910s) to light the bike. The most difficult task was to get the bike sitting across the MOT bay. Interestingly (to me) I had previously seen the bay, visualised the setup and knew that the MOT rollers were going to be a total pain. They were.

This is a bike that will divide attention, hands up though, I think it is fantastic. Shot at R-To-RSR a Porsche restoration company I liked the almost naive colour palette amongst the cars. This bike isn't subtle but why should it be? Amongst the illustrious company of the cars it certainly holds it's own though.

 

Cheifly natural lighting with a little help from some SB-910s

  

I guess if you park this one up not many people will know what it is but the EBR 1190RX looks fine and dandy to me. Erik with a K Buell has done very well here.

 

I wanted to shoot the yellow one because it's err... yellow and I like the look. We had intended to take it out and about in the surrounding countryside to shoot. The weekend before we had travelled to Wiltshire to recce the area; well in truth we thought we had travelled to Dorset but the road-signs subsequently told a different story.

 

The yellow bike was shot first. The morning's outdoor light was transient but there was an opportunity for a simple 'colour wheel contrast' shot with the nearby unit's door. The darker bike was shot almost exactly as per the Yamaha above, as a test really to see how shooting the gloss paintwork compared to the R1's satin finish. We were given a large shed full of boats to use so it was a case of out with the Autopoles and let's make a studio. Unlike the R1 shoot we weren't able to control the ambient light so the flash had to be ramped up a lot; the shed was too well lit really.

 

We ended up with two very different results though and I was pleased that we had taken the time to attempt both shooting styles.

The longer view can make for an interesting photo. The Honda was shot from a distance but also a much tighter crop was taken and delivered to the client. Another surprising result, the bike was effectively backlit on a pretty overcast January day, nature's own soft-box. I didn't expect the image to work as well and had imagined extra lighting would be needed.

 

The MV's location was a result. The bike's owner Mark Zanker managed to gain access to the Brabazon Hangar at Filton. It would be good to re-visit this location, a few hours was almost too little time to acclimatise to the massive enclosed space.

Even if one knows nothing about bikes one will gather that one of these bikes really doesn't belong in this group. The top one is a Daytona 675. As with the MV it is a triple though slightly smaller. Total Triumph of Taunton had two bikes with bespoke paint finishes and they were happy for both to come in the van.

 

The Lower bike is a modern Triumph twin, a Thruxton 900 clearly doing a good job of looking comfortably un-modern. I've recently posted some words about this on Linkedin and as mentioned it pushes very different buttons to the other bikes in the set and of course this bike isn't actually part of the set.

 

It's difficult to get good figures for bike sales, BMW regularly claim that the R1200GS (the bike I ride) is the top selling bike over 125cc. Triumph claim to be selling the most bikes in the UK and state that they have recently doubled their market share in other countries. What is clear from my admittedly un-scientific analysis is that bikes such as this Thruxton  garner a lot of interest. The two images of the Thruxton seen below have generated more online interest than any other image that I have shown on social media,  by some degree too.

 

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