Riding in Shell with Roman

Roman and I rode Shell Ridge last week after work and I shot a roll of FP4 through my Rollei 35, mostly at 1/15 and 1/30 of a second. Roman rode his 650b converted Sam and I was on my 2 speed Susie Longbolts.

Most of the roll is too blurry for my tastes, but every once in awhile there's just the right amount.  I've taken thousands of perfectly still bike-ridey shots, so it's fun to mix it up.

I sat down and propped my elbows on my thighs to make sure this one came out sharp. Roman is a little too far away for this to be a photo I really like, but I dig the tree coming out of the hillside, and the dark tones of the bark.

He put his inside foot out to balance while taking the corner, but you can't really tell.

This one would be better shot fast I think. At 1/15 if the rider is coming towards you, it just looks out of focus, rather than sharp but with good blur.

 

We experimented with holding the camera out at arms length and then pulling it back while tripping the shutter, but the results don't look great.

 I took this from the hip, I think. I included it because it reminds me of a picture of Vaughn we have at Riv, shot by Jay Ritchey, that I absolutely love.

I sped the camera up to 1/125 for this one.

Eh... I don't know about this one - it's a little too high contrast and the movement of the grass makes the whole pic seem frenetic.

It was sunny and too hot on the first part of the ride, but storm clouds moved in and blocked the sun and after that it felt perfect.

I've shot pics in this spot before - too bad about Roman's hat and hair framed by the equally dark tree, but whatever.

Roman and I have done this exact ride probably 50 times, but bringing a camera always adds another element of fun to the whole thing.

I like riding with Roman because we're both film-nerdy enough that we can talk about what to shoot and how while we're out there. We never hang out in one spot for long trying to get the perfect shot - I'll just tell him (or vice versa), give me 30 seconds and I'll go ahead and catch him coming up behind me. Fun stuff.

-will