As promised way back in silhouette-o-matic part 1, here’s a pick of the shots from the skate shoot that followed ‘pissing about with some flashes and a sheet’. (aka the silhouette shoot)

As I’ve discussed in earlier posts shooting a new sport is really interesting. Coupled with a new location and new ‘talent’ the challenge was on. An evening discussing weather, locations and moves was time well spent as the morning dawned in flat cloudy drizzle.  First up then undercover at the county court building:

This was literally the only dry spot in town that wouldn’t result in a bust the moment we showed up. As ever, my eye turned to the ‘lifestyle’ arty shots…

Despite rider focus being on getting the job done:

As conditions dried we hit up a couple of skateparks to nail a couple of specific moves and a bowl ride shot. The passing storm clouds made for some great lighting:

As the sun sank and the late afternoon sun promised some epic light we hit our final spot. Not much to skate but we had planned for some open, chilled work…

Which paid off. 8 hour shoot, 12GB of images but ultimately, well worth it…

Ultimately this shoot reinforced the importance of knowing your sport and talking with your talent. On a number of occasions I framed up a great angle and captured what, to my mind, was an awesome shot, only to find during the important back-of-screen-shoot-and-show’ that I’d completely missed the ‘hard’ bit.

An example… on the right, the shot I took looking to catch the moment the rider is coming off the rail. But, turns out THE shot is the one on the left, as the truck goes over the coping, meaning he’s committed and has to recover in order to make. Only by checking and discussing did we establish the moments that are meaningful. Interesting stuff.