Author’s note:  The young man in the photos (Cristof) did NOT ride with his father Brad on the Harley.  He rode in the safety of his own car seat with his mom G in her Mini Cooper S.  I do not in any way condone children riding on motorcycles before they are physically ready.)

That being said, let’s get on to the fun!  Brad and I are good friends, and we share a  similar like for a lot of things – Longhorns Football, good beer (none of that silly Miller Lite or Budweiser crap), motorcycles, and both of us live in close proximity in the town of Manor, TX.   We’ve been talking (over a few pints of Guiness) about possibly doing this kind of photoshoot for Brad, as I’ve been wanting to test out a different way of lighting high contrast and highly reflective surfaces – like the Harley.

First, there are a couple of challenges here.  The chrome and the metal on the Harley pose a challenge in terms of lighting – trying to get a reflective surface to not overexpose too much while still keeping the quality of the light is difficult.  I’ve tried several times to attempt this, but I saw an idea using a scrim of sorts in a studio to work with highly reflective stuff, and it hit me – just make a scrim the size of a motorcycle, and place a light to light directly behind it!  This will diffuse the light enough so that it doesn’t create big highlights, while still providing a way to illuminate the motorcycle’s engine, pipes, and crash bars.

Here’s the setup shot!

This is the result from the shot :

While I like the image, I felt it needed some work.  First of all, the power lines, towers, and sky ALL have to go.  I set about doing the edits, and removing all of these things.  The spokes on the tires did prove a bit bothersome, but I got it all done masking it out and replacing the sky with one I shot this morning.

Here’s the edit results!

HMM.  A bit better.  It’s really amazing what masking can do, as well as some well placed clone stamps and healing tools.  I still think it’s missing something, so I change it to black and white, and make the whole thing look like a scene out of the “Watchmen.” Black and white, yo!

Enjoy! I had a blast photographing these – and this was a lot of fun in a technical exercise, as well as photoshop work.