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.