Conclusion

My project has developed from peoples aspirations to be my personal aspiration in my teenage years. I began to look into bicycle culture and the idea as the bike as a fashion accessory. I researched in depth into portraiture and visit the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize which directed my to focus on the riders. During a conversion with my hairdresser I realised that all cyclists have one thing in common, hoarding. All cyclists keep everything they buy, even a piece of broken kit will be kept as a memory or even to show you bravery. I decided I wanted to show this hoarding in the final images yet the cluttered style it would create was not particularly aesthetic. So for my final images I have 5; I have a self portrait of myself with all my hoarded equipment and then selected the 4 main disciplines of the sport which are; BMX, Downhill, fixed gear and road. I developed a style over this project, I used low depth of field on a prime lens and used softbox lighting. I underexposed the background by 2 stops to make the subject pop out of the image.

Overall I am pleased with this project, to pursue this project further I would potentially make a book of more images of cyclists. In an exhibition I would display the images as shown in a previous post and have them printed A1

Images Printed

I have been advised by Su to print the final images at A4 which I have done. For an exhibition I would print the shots much bigger, ideally A1 and printed onto Aluminium for stylish effect.

Final Tutorial

All went well, I need to reshoot or edit jacks shot to bring it up to the standard of the others.

gallery

display

Bikers are into Blogging

http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/features/top-50-cycling-blogs-2010/comment-page-1/#comment-5173

How My Project has developed

My Project started as dreams and aspirations of people I would talk to, I had 4 main themed ideas and aimed to show them in a portraiture method. As the project developed I began to focus on my own dream, cycling. It is my main hobby so not a dream as such but I decided to look into bicycle culture as it does relate to aspirations but changed the title to bicycle culture. I found lots of imagery of the riders in motion but wanted to pick the riders out. I set up location shoots using lighting and a technique which Nick Lockett taught me of underexposing the backdrop to make the model pop out which I found very effective. I used my canon 400D with a prime 50mm lens to achieve low depth of field and a 430ex flash gun for my lighting.

Final Images

The images have now been edited and selected, as suggested previously I am using 5 images, 4 portrait and 1 landscape of a self portrait in the centre. I photographed a BMXer, a Downhill rider, a Fixie Rider, and a Road Rider. I got from my models what I wanted, They all had individual looks and fitted into the stereotype of each of the riders. As for relating my work to the hoarding culture I made sure each rider was on a modified bike, ie not factory standard, and for the central self portrait I am surround by my hoarded stack of bike parts.

Me Hoarding

Alex | Downhill Rider

Photoshoot of a Road Cyclist

Addition to Kit

Canon 430EX Mark II

Blog post
My haircut
How much is an inch?
Speaking with my hairdresser we got onto the topicof cycling, she had two sons and a husband fascinated with it, never have I met a middle aged woman who knew the word deraileur and the difference between a gear and brake cable. This lady hugely inspired my current direction for this project. She calls it hoarding, I know exactly what she means, every cyclist needs the up to date equipment and style always matters. As I have been saying throughout this project fashion over function is often the case so inevitably any cyclist really into their sport will have at least two of everything and joke about building their "rat bike" which is basically a build of your left over bits. Because of this I intend to photograph cyclists with their leftovers.

From Fixie Blog

Man with lots of tyres

similar to this i will show cyclists with their kit

Cyclists don't throw anything away

Personally I own 5 sets of handlebars, 4 sets of forks, 6 brakes and at least 10 tyres. All of this stuff I will never need yet i can't throw it away. Speaking with my new favourite hairdresser she has spent her whole married life competing for space with a bike mad husband and now children. It is a fact that cyclists need all their spare pieces of kit.

So my next stage of the project is to photograph cyclists with their many similar items.

WEBSITE TOP OF GOOGLE!!!!

Typing in 'Richard Westlake' and 'Richard Westlake Photography'

my site

Johnathon Winstone

Portrait Photographer produced a portrait project on riders and had bikes in the exhibition

site

My Portrait Photos

As I have outlined my portraits won't be over produced and I will try to use natural lighting where possible and this will be my approach to the project and the portraiture. These shots are not for the project but experimental portraits.

Photos of parked bikes

Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson is a street photographer. He has produced a number of great protraits from his project, subway. The underground in New York was known for being a dangerous place in the era which he took these photos. In the book he writes about his approach where he would wear layers of clothes to look bulky. He carried a lot of equipment also. He would carry a portfolio with him to show members of the public what he was doing should they question him and offer to send them a print, although sometimes he would not even mention it to his subject even though from looking at some of the shots he has used flash.

Andrew Shaylor

This photographer produced a book on the hells angels named 'Hells Angels Motorcycle Club'. The book includes a series of portraits shot on white backgrounds, some head and shoulder shots and some full body. The portraits are broken up by some more candid shots of the group socialising. This book is similar to how I aim to present my work.

Posh Fixie Spotted

IDEAL DIAGRAM!!!!

BMX with green tape?

Paul Strand Tailor's Apprentice

Paul Strand's image here shows the style of portrait I intend to take. Without the Tailor title you would not obviously realise the model is a tailor's apprentice. I want to take the riders away from their bikes. Maybe just a helmet if they wear one? Maybe gloves hanging out of the pocket?

New Lens

Having shot with my canon AE-1 with the 50mm Lens i found fantastic results from the speed of it which generates the small depth of field, it requires my to ensure my focus is very precise especially shooting on f1.8. Because of the joys I have recieved from this lens I have decided buy the same lens to fit my canon 400d SLR. When shooting on film I was finding it frustrating to wait for the film process and also the cost. The digital images don't return damaged like the negatives have done and they're obviously easier to put onto my blog from digital. The lens is 50mm f1.8-22. I will use this for the portraiture approach in this project.

Lets Gets

Situated in the alps Les Gets is one of the locations on the world cup Down Hill Biking tour. In summer lots of keen amateurs along with professionals and teams come out to this area to ride the trails. The portes du soleil is the region and similar to most other ski towns where in winter it is full of skiing and boarding and in summer full of cyclists. I took a day off cycling when I was there last summer and took some photos around Les Gets, wandering around town I noticed many expensive bikes with even young teenagers having bikes worth over £3000.

DH Shoot

5 suggested photographers

Victor Lucas
Harookz
Sterling Lorence
Grant Robinson
Sven Martin

Riders

from the eastpak website

BMX Culture -Not My Words

"I’ve written about the bmx perspective before, and I realize that it is not only unique to those on 20″ (24, 26) wheels. Skateboarding, mountain-biking, and other, more “traditional” outdoor activities (hiking, rock-climbing), also come from the idea of taking your environment and finding a way to adapt it to your activity.

What’s interesting about bmx and skateboarding is that so often, we’re looking at man-made objects to adapt in our quest for the perfect spot, be it a 3 foot bank to wall, or an abandoned building with an olympic-size pool - more on that one for another time… So often, the exploration is as good as the session. It was true when I was 16, and could throw my bike in my truck to venture to far-away spots, and it is still true today, when I see footage or photos of unique set-ups or abandoned junkyards full of vintage autos. Not always bicycle-related, but still conjure the same feelings of finding or creating something unexpected.

And that’s what I’m getting at - I think that so many of us who were (are) riders have that exploration built-into us, and it continues to permeate what we do. Be it as literal as my friend Scott, who shoots photos of his own “urban exploration” to beautiful results, or my friend Kevin, searching for the next perfect part for the hot-rod he’s building, or Phil and I talking about crazy boat trips up the Missouri or Kaw rivers. For me, it all revolves around some kind of creative outlet; building, photography, bikes, art, collecting, etc., and I know I’m not unique in this.

Funny that little bikes can open so many opportunities and perspectives for a lifetime."

I found this write up here

Research on Fixie

From my research thus far into fixie riders and the culture they seem to have created their own generic trend. Tattoos, check shirts and hats. From a riding point of view their tricks are hugely limited by having a fixed wheel bike. I compare this to using my old canon camera, within a day of getting the film processed and scanned in to the computer hairline scratches have already appeared and i have so much more flexability and control on my SLR. So now I will look into having the right tools for the job. Fixie riders often ride in skate parks now along with the streets and BMX bikes are much better suited to this environment.

Canon AE-1 Fixie Photos

The Prime Lens I was shooting with gave me a really nice low depth of field. I will keep shooting with this along with my SLR

Bike Photographer

This site is quite recognisable as Southbank in London. A BMXer is riding in the park with the photographer lined up to take a shot. I have left out the BMX to keep the shot simple which is my approach to this project. My Art direction is one of simplicity.

Bristol Film Trailer

Fashionable looking fixie riders in bristol

Trailer

Advertising

Exhibition

Link

ridiculous bike

Canon AE-1

This week I will take some portraits on a canon AE-1. I found a 50mm f1.8 lens for this camera and have loaded it with a colour film so aim to take a few shots of people experimenting with composition. I will not shoot in a studio with minimalistic set up in the images. I aim to have the results up on this blog next week.

Bicycles as an accessory | Fashion over Function

Having been involved with bicycled my whole teenage life I found it was certainly important to have the right kit on my bike. Luckily the fashionable kit tended to be the most expensive and best performing so it wasn't comparible to having pink fluffy dice hanging from your rear view mirror in your car to impress folk. My worst fail was spending £40 on gold quick releases for my wheels yet looking at my bike now it is certainly very fashionable with an obvious pink front tyre. The bicycle culture, aswell and cycling, is about a social group. I feel there is a heirarchy although each genre of rider claims they are the better group. Fixie riders being currently at the top with racing road bike riders at the bottom yet on very similar bikes. Through this project I am looking into the social aspects of bicycles i.e tattoos and having the right kit on your bike. Should you wear a helmet?

David Stewart

Website

Great website, very entertaining

Philip Lorca DiCorcia

I have always enjoyed looking at the work of Lorca DiCorcia, I think it's the way which he uses light and the people he uses as models which I find entertaining. I took interest in this photographer when I was told that when he granted money from the Guggenheim foundation to take images he used it to pay prostitutes and drug users to pose for him and then titled the images by the amount he paid them for the image. I find this facinating.