Which came first: leather or chrome?

I got so many great shots of just the motorcycle(s) that I knew I'd need a separate post just for them. While the Indiana Jones theme shoot was a lot of fun, I loved getting to really capture these machines as well. It was fun and different, as well as challenging.

Chrome is difficult to photograph. I didn't realize it fully until I loaded these onto the computer, and noticed unintended reflections in many of the chrome surfaces. Some of them bothered me, but others added character to the shots. I also had to be careful from what angles I shot, because there is such a thing as too much sun flare. When much of your subject is reflective and it's sundown, you're going to get a lot of bounce-back.


I love these black and whites.

A self-portrait of sorts. This one I like.

Harley Davidson: nothing but the best.



Gorgeous sun flare.

This is the first motorcycle, the smaller one.

This is where this shoot became really challenging for me, in a good way. I definitely had to go outside my comfort zone for the rest of these pictures. Admittedly they're not professional quality, but I feel good about them. At the end of this shoot, I was very satisfied, and pleased with what I had accomplished.

See, the new bike not only looks amazing in the daylight, but it has blue lights reflecting off all of the chrome surfaces when you turn on the lights at night. My father-in-law really wanted to capture the blue light. I've never shot in the dark before (not effectively, anyway), and trying to capture specific light in the dark is difficult. Add to it that I didn't use a tripod. These shots are all hand-held and experimental. We parked the bikes out under a streetlamp, which added a little bit of ambient light, without distracting from the blue. You can see in some of the photos that the light colors play off each other interestingly, actually -- the blue from the motorcycle and the orange from the street lamp.







This was one where the reflections in the chrome bothered me a little bit. Not only can you see me, but you can see my husband and father-in-law as well, if you look at the reflections on the pipe at the left.

Both the Harleys together.

All in all, this whole shoot was a lot of fun to do, and I feel like I grew a lot and pushed myself with it. That is a bigger sign of success to me than whether all my nighttime shots are sharp or blurry. (Though for photographers interested, the slowest shutter speed I used on any of these nighttime shots posted was 1/5 second, and remember that I was working handheld -- sitting on the ground, 8 months pregnant no less -- not with a tripod.)

Why did it have to be snakes?

Once upon a time there was a family. This family was into both sci-fi and adventure, and sometimes a meshing of the two. One year, this family went to Walt Disney World for Thanksgiving. They ate huge turkey drumsticks and wore matching pirate t-shirts that said, "Beatings will continue until morale improves" on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Two of the sons in this family decided to buy their father a gift while at Disney World. They bought him an Indiana Jones hat. It fit his interests and personality perfectly.

Years later, the father, who had been saving much of his life to buy a Corvette (he'd once owned a red Camaro) bought a Harley with his 'Vette savings. Well, his wife bought for him, for Mother's Day (odd, yes, but that's how this family is). He bought a smaller one, uncertain yet of his ability to comfortably control a larger bike. Many adventures ensued. A few years later, he came into a small sum of new money, and found another --bigger -- Harley, gently used, right in his price range. After thinking about this particular bike for a whole 24 hours, he bought it.

When he took pictures to send to his family (now spread across the country), his oldest son, one who had bought the hat for him, pointed out that the bike looked like the style Indiana Jones rode in the last (fourth) movie. Though the colors aren't the same, the style is quite similar.

A week after buying the newer bike, the man's (third) son and daughter-in-law came to visit. The daughter-in-law is a photographer, and the man has a sense of humor. He dressed up in his Indiana Jones hat and rustic brown leather jacket, put on his toughest face, and asked her if she would do a shoot with him and the bike, inspired by the snark of his oldest son.

Sneak peak

This was a really fun shoot. I'm excited to edit more of it and post here. Let's just say it involved this beauty: