Well it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to update the James MacDonald Bicycle Collection project. So much as been going on that I’ve had to put the brakes on this project… until now. I’ve put a lot of work into getting the correct lighting setup for the bike shots and the first round of shooting has cleaned out one room.

The long part of this project is the editing. I’m shooting on-site in a very small area so conditions aren’t ideal but you work with what you have. I use the computer to perfect the items I can’t on location.

On issue is the depth I have to shoot in. I have to squeeze in between hundreds of bicycles to get back far enough to capture the bikes on my backdrop. Ideally I would use a lens around 85mm to give the correct perspective, but sometimes I have to convert to the wide angle just to fit some of the longer bikes.

Another issue is the consistency of the background lighting. Again, due to space, I don’t have the advantage of moving lights further back to give a slow transition and light fall off. A quick colour selection and curves adjustment in Photoshop allows for a seemless white background.

As Jack can run through and clean up bikes, I then come in with all my photography gear and start photographing another batch. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to get everything photographed, but it’s been fun and very interesting.

Hopefully we will get all this together and produce a very cool book. Until next time.

Regards,
Matt Hickey