8 from ’08 – The Rejects

So a combination of last-minute jobs, a prolonged period of feeling under the weather and no doubt the usual dose of S.A.D. have meant that I’ve neglected to write anything here for a noticeably long time.  Here’s a bumper end-of-year post to hopefully make up for it, filled to the brim with a bunch of reject shots.

Hang on, before you disappear in disgust, hear me out;  these shots aren’t rejects in the out-of-focus, motion blurred or badly composed category (although I’ve got plenty of those too), but images that for one reason or another didn’t work out.  Here’s my eight favourites from the bunch that went nowhere; as normal you can click on ‘em to make ‘em bigger-er…

Steve Peat, Sea Otter 2008

The Dual Slalom course at Sea Otter is a crowded, cluttered place, where photographers, spectators and competitors all vie for position on a tiny patch of land.  Getting clean backgrounds is somewhat of a futile task, so I tried to make the audience part of the picture by including the assembled peanut gallery.

Gee Atherton, Red Bull Rampage

There’s no doubting that each of the riders in this year’s Red Bull Rampage earned their paycheck with their death-defying abilities, but no-one can argue it wouldn’t be nice to have a helper pushing your bike around.

On Top Of The World, Lillooet, BC

When I agreed to do a heli-drop on an unridden mountain on the outskirts of Lillooet, BC, I had no idea the grandeur and scale of the backdrop to our ride.  Brian Earle and Chris Kelly try not to get too distracted.

Last Light On The Okanagan

This was a great day – deep in the heart of wine country, fantastic twisting singletrack and… no decent light.  Undeterred we stuck with it, and were rewarded with a tiny ten minute window of gorgeous golden light, at the most scenic part of the trail.

Evening Reflection

Curtis Robinson and Mike Kinrade skirt the lakeside at the end of long, long Interior BC descent.

Specialized All Over It

Kyle Strait footplants right in front of his sponsor’s giant logo.

Off-road Sidecar Madness

The story behind this shot is arguably more interesting than the image itself – while down in North Carolina shooting a feature for Bike Magazine on the Smoke Bikes crew, we were actually meant to be documenting their unique brand of fixed-gear craziness.  One look at the regular-geared sidecar mountain bikes nestled in their garage was enough to convince me we needed to shoot them regardless.  Fast-forward twenty four hours and I’m precariously perched in the passenger seat of one, facing backwards and desperately trying to focus through the camera’s viewfinder despite the trail whizzing by at an alarming pace.  I’m claiming the first bicycle sidecar-mounted remote flash on this one, too.

Backcountry Alaska

The word “epic” is bandied around far too much these days, but the Upper Russian Lakes trail in Alaska is definitely deserving.  This was the last shot on the last day of a fantastic trip.

So there they are, hope you like ‘em.  I had a great time making them, and a bunch of other shots you’ve seen here and will see soon, despite the grumbling that anyone who’s caught me on a bad day has to endure.  Thanks to everyone who’s followed this blog over the last year, here’s to a great 2009!

Tags: alaska, BC, Bearclaw Invitational, best of, Kyle Strait, lillooet, mountain biking, offroad, Okanagan, red bull rampage, retrospective, sea otter, sidecar, Specialized

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Professional Mountain Bike Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.