Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Motorcycles and models
Played the assistant on a magazine photoshoot last night. A buddy of mine does photog work for a few of Primedia's magazines(Super Street Bike, Corvette Fever, etc), primarily focusing on custom sportbikes and choppers. He has shot bikes for Von Dutch Kustom Cycles and did Shaquille O'Neal's Superman Hayabusa last year. From what I've seen, most of his work gets published.
The shoot was originally scheduled to feature one bike and one model, but plans changed when a bike that my photog friend had been chasing all week finally came available. The first bike was a nicely modified, Orange/Silver Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300R with the requisite chrome, a slight stretch in the swing-arm, wider rear tire, etc, and so on. The second motorcycle was a heavily altered Honda CBR1000RR, featuring a LONG, custom swing-arm and custom paint/bodywork centered around a psychotic clowns theme. I prefer the paint on the clown bike, but would rather have seen it with the conservative swing-arm of the Hayabusa. Both bikes would do shoots with a model, the 'Busa with a deep-tanned, very pretty, 21-year old from Tampa, the Honda with a friend of its owner, a beautiful woman in her 30s from Orlando.
Personally, I'm not too excited by most Japanese sportbikes, but the 'Busa is probably my least favorite of all. Suzuki's "fastest production bike on the planet" is a supertourer class sportbike, so it's stupid fast in a straight line, but the general consensus seems to be that the bike is a pig through the corners. I haven't ever ridden one and lack the skills to discern the difference, so I have no opinion on the bike's performance. All that really mattered is how the bike would look in digital and print. As motorcycles go, it is not an ugly bike per se, I am just not into its proportions and stance. Regardless, Suzuki's 196mph monster has a huge following in the crotch rocket world and the customizing crowd seems to be obsessed with them.
The first shoot went smoothly. The bike looked good, the girl looked gorgeous, and the whole set took around 2 hours to work through. I have to admit that I was a big fan of outfit number one...an orange bikini with just(and I mean just) enough material to cover the R-rated areas. :) The second bike/girl combination was placed in a different spot, and again, things went well. Word to the wise, string bikinis seem to be the thing, if you're modeling for these kinds of magazines. lol
It was all typical car/bike magazine stuff, but everyone seemed to have fun with it and everything wrapped up in about 4 hours. Unfortunately, the work didn't really start until 8:30, so we left Ybor at around half past midnight, which means I didn’t get home until 1:30 in the AM. It was a late night and it has been a long morning, but it was a learning experience and I genuinely had a good time. By observing the entire process, I learned some things about lighting scenes for photography that I had not previously given much thought to, and made some mental notes about positioning, angles, and creating dynamic imagery for a camera. I saw that most of what I have learned during my years of drawing transfers over to the world of lenses very nicely. Moral of the story is that I may be in the early stages of taking on yet another hobby, as if I needed another interest to consume what little remains of my spare time.
My thinking is that it is becoming paramount that I find a way to combine my interests, so a removable tour pack that I can strap onto the bike would seem to be in order. How cool would it be to take a long ride out to some remote location, do a little drawing, shoot a few digital photos, and enjoy a long ride back to "civilization"? The word "very" comes to mind. :)
Labels: motorcycles
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