February 9th, 2010

Seb Rogers photo course
neil posted in Photos, bikes, Travel, Neil, Trails on October 6th, 2008

Jeff coming up the stream
For the third time this year, my kit is soaked through. I’m pretty sure I’m smuggling more than the allowed 100ml of water through airport security in the fabric of my camelback. For the third time this year, I’m looking forward to looking at some photographs I have made in distinctly inclement (diffuse was the word of the workshop) weather with an enthusiastic group of people. Chase Jarvis talks about the “energy” of a shoot and how important it is to have “positive energy” and that made this workshop work and the weather a boon rather than a horror. Seb Rogers’ mountainbike photography workshop brought together a group of people with this energy and Seb’s coaching had us all working a little outside our comfort zone and thus learning. This is my first ever photography workshop and the first time I have seen my full take from a shoot for the first time in front of other people (excluding Alicia). This left me feeling surprisingly exposed, even though I consider myself a confident photographer. It made me want to tighten up my technical game even more and left me discussing how strong technical ability is key in good creative photography.

Mike the Rent a Whippet Quantock hills

Seb coped well with a group of mixed ability and did’nt have to say much negative in a critique to make you see what you were fouling and how you could fix it. Several of the people at the workshop had’nt touched manual exposure mode and had’nt used a histogram in anger before and left the workshop with a brace of confidence enhancing manually exposed images in difficult circumstances. I would consider myself happy with those elements, but Seb pulled me up on an over-reliance of autofocus and thus the dull composition and loss of sharpness generated by using AF on a fast moving subject. I’d rate my Canons AF as awesome, but when pushing the limits the cracks begin to appear. In a motor driven burst, it will find focus for some shots, but sometimes that meant I was making do with a shot where it locked in, but the rider was’nt quite where I wanted them. It also gave me a better peg of ‘where I am at’ and an idea of where the next level is. That’s the most precious of information to any photographer.

Mike discusses histograms with Andy
Teaching sensor cleaning
The workshop was taught with discussions of technique over tea and flipchart, shoots out in the Quantock hills and nightly reviews of that days haul. The shoots were all conducted on local singletrack at locations within riding distance. For that purpose I had rented an Iron Horse mkIII comp mountainbike, a capable steed that lacked the spark of a mountainbike I’d buy. The riding was good natural singletrack with steep loose climbs and entertaining, varied descents. There were sufficient root and roll kickers to pop into the air at will along with technical low speed root work. Being a photo workshop there was also an inordinate amount of time spent at water splashes. Tame “Rent-a-Whippet” Mike Davis (of Bike Magic fame) tested his foot waterproofing to its limits with endless ride-thrus. When he was’nt modelling he was guiding the riding using suspiciously climbing language. I’ve never ridden up a “steep pitch” before. Jeff (Jethro) also pitched in on one watersplash, demonstrating his ability to perform endless manuals on his prototype Sanderson singlespeed. I got a few shots on the Sanderson, a bike that continually whispered “Play with me!” in my ear.

Mike encornerises a watersplash Andy demonstrates the robot...perhaps
Jeff manualling through
The weather worsened over the weekend and almost stopped play on Sunday. We did make it out in truly horrid conditions and that is where this positive energy made the shoot. All of the factors were combining to make it miserable, people were carrying wounds, dog tired in ceaseless torrential rain. Despite this everyone was grinning and calling tough shoots in the low light. For some this was a first shoot with remote flash. We worked in pairs to prevent the onset of cold and were soon riding under trees and up rivers. Jeff was a kick ass subject and his bright red waterproof on a white bike was perfect for the saturated green of the forest.

Jeff rides the Sanderson under a branch
Seb runs a good course and good folks go on it. Does the idea of a weekend of mountainbiking, photography and chatting over a beer appeal to you? More photos from me here. Seb’s blog here. Email him to get workshop info.

7 Responses to 'Seb Rogers photo course'

  1. 1Andy
    October 7th, 2008 at 6:33 pm

    Looks like great fun! Some great images there too.


  2. 2Adam
    October 29th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

    Awesome photos mate. Maybe you can even make ME look good!


  3. 3neil
    October 30th, 2008 at 9:44 am

    If you’re willing to get your stunt on, sure!


  4. 4Jethro (Jeff)
    January 7th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

    This was an awesome weekeend, would do it again for sure.

    I did get through a brand new set of brake pads on the Soloist though!


  5. 5neil
    January 7th, 2009 at 2:25 pm

    You thinking of coming to the “advanced course” this year?


  6. 6Wendy
    February 27th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Wow, that second to last photo is intense. Props to the Sanderson fellow and his photographer alike! ;)


  7. 7Firemonkeyphoto - Seb Rogers photo course | bikes and things
    March 11th, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    […] Think I might have my 365 images sorted for the next few days. A few more details and some very impressive images from last year here. Posted in Cycling, Photography […]


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