The Art of MTB #2 | SHIMANO
I've been in Lyon for a few days now,
at Nicolas Terrier and Louis Reboul's place. And it wasn't planned at all but Thomas just arrived. We're going to try and find a good
idea for a photo tonight at dusk. Jules Langeard is also here and he is going to help us film… …so let's see what we can do. We did a lot of images with smoke in
the last days with Nico and Louis. And everytime we were trying different colors. I'd like to try the orange color with Thomas tonight… …to have something that looks a bit like fire. I'm zooming 10 times in the image. This way I can have a really precise focus… …right in the middle of the jump I'm going to put my flashes behind the trees over there…
…so they will be hidden by the trees… …and everything will appear as
silhouette in front of the smoke. Here I adjust my flashes so they point toward the action. I choose the zoom… …quite wide so it lights up the whole scene. -We have such a big team today. No but seriously. I can't see anything! -Thomas is probably going to be a bit
higher when he will do the tailwhip… ..so I'm gonna move a bit to the
left to have more details here. And I will zoom out a bit to have a better framing. Can we try to have some smoke again guys? It would be great if you could do a really
small fire just next to the big one. So some smoke can be closer to the ground. With less heat it's gonna be skimming the ground…
…because for now it goes a bit too high. Can you do a tailwhip again please? Just so I can see where you are on the frame. This is the last try. -Oh, yeah. -But it's gonna look like this. I did something wrong here but… …I'm gonna use a wider framing. Basically like this. -Seeing what it looks like is actually way more motivating. Woah it looks like fire. -Yeah. This is the before last try,
but I think it's the best one -Yeah the position is the one we were talking about. -Yeah, it's perfect. For this photo I'm going to use
an unusual lighting technique.
I'm going to strap a flash to a drone. To have a kind of light shower coming from the sky… …which is gonna light up a small zone where Thomas will jump. I'd like the other parts of the image to be quite dark… …so once again we will have to shoot at dusk. I hope the drone will be strong
enough to carry the flash's weight. But I did it a few times
already and it should be good. I think we can park around here, or here. -The zone is over there? We found a spot in Ardèche… …which is halfway between Thomas's place and mine It's a desertic zone with ridges
which seems to be what we're looking for.
-Hello Jb. -Here we are on a freeride spot, but we've never been there. We just arrived so we'll take a look first. We can see some people riding bikes over there… …so we'll see and maybe there are some jumps too. We'll try to find a good ridge for tonight's photo. -So you want a blue sky? -Not exactly, almost…
after sunset Well it will be really dark but you should still be able to see.
Here we go, lightly equipped! What I like here is the rock's texture. I think it will look great with drone light. Now we're ready to shoot. Thomas will try to jump on the ridge behind me. There's like a small step and he'll jump over it… …and I'm gonna try lighting up the
scene from above with my drone. So I'll strap my flash to the drone. …and I'll try to light up just the small rocky part… …from above. So let's see how it goes. Wait, wait. Since I started photography… …I've noticed this bridge which is really close to my place. I've always wanted to do an action sport photo there. So this is what the bridge looks like. I'd like to shoot at night. -Yeah. -And I'd like you to do… …see this square in the middle? The idea would be to do a bunny hop tailwhip… …with your dirt jump bike right in the middle.
I should be able to put a headlamp with the flashes… …so you can see something -Yeah, right, at least the pedals. -You won't be totally blind. We just parked… …but we still have quite a long way to walk to the bridge. And we have a lot of stuff to carry… …so we arrived well in advance to have more
time to set up once we arrive there.
We just arrived at the bridge I've never seen it before -but with the photos Jb showed me,
it's exactly how I pictured it. -Thomas, I think where you are
sitting would a good for a portrait… …with the bike if you go just a bit further. -Bunny hop tailwhip was something
quite easy for me before… …but in the end it was way more
complicated than what I thought. After dislocating my shoulder 2 years ago I lost a lot of pop. And now it's way harder. -Right now I'm setting up my flashes. I'm gonna place them on the other side of the bridge… …and the goal is to backlit the whole structure… …with Thomas doing his bunny hop tailwhip in the middle. Now I'm installing my tripod, I'll put my 3 flashes on it. This is why I used this to put the 3 flashes on top of it. I'm gonna put them together to really
have this big light coming from the back. -I've seen your flash really far away. -Yeah. -It's going to light up the whole bridge. So it's gonna look a bit like a tunnel around you.
-Okay yeah. And you only need this one? -Well there are 3 but for now we'll just do that yes. Keep going. I'm focusing on Thomas… -Good? -Yes! Can you try to ride a bit more to your right? I triggered too late! What I really like on this one is that your position is perfect… -Yeah the attitude is great. -You're exactly in the middle. The flash is firing right behind you. -I thought the frame would have been totally
backwards and we couldn't really see the action. -No yeah, in the end it's perfect like this. We are on the digging spot for Thomas. And it's really hot today. Right now we are… …let's say renovating an old jump
which was already here before. The idea was to do it according to
the local heritage here in Ardèche… …by using abandoned and hidden rocks…
…to build a wall. Just to make the jump look good for the photos. Tonight we're in Ardèche at Antoine
and Mathieu Dubourgnon's place… …near Vogüe. We are on their riding spot just next to their house. Thomas took his slopestyle bike. So we'll try to do a couple of photos with natural light tonight. With the beautiful sunset light and we will see what we can do. We don't have just one precise idea in mind… …but we'll try to make the most out of the evening… …with the great light. -I thought I could avoid this one but it seems like I can't. I just did 2 jumps. I just built my slopestyle bike today before the session. I will need a couple of tries to get used to the jump.
-So here I'm trying different
lenses and I walk around the jump. To see which angles are the best… …and what we can have with the very best light. Here I found a nice angle from the back. -It's quite scary! Good Jb? -I like this one, the first one is cool too. -The first 360 was not the best… -…but from here it looks great -This photo is probably my favorite. …because it's the only one where I
had to go out of my comfort zone… …concerning the tricks compared to the other photos. Where it was a lot of work… …but not too hard to do on my side. It was more a thing between Jb and me… …but this time it was really something… …more personal where I had to put myself in a bubble… …to do something good. And it's exactly the picture we imagined with Jb… …before even building the jump so I think we're happy. The sun just disappeared. And for this last photo I'm going to use a mirror. I'll try to do a sequence of Thomas as a silhouette… …in front of the sunset, and also
have his reflection in the mirror.
It sucks…..that I can't have a wider lens. We're on the same jump, but Thomas will do a
"motocross one foot"…..and I'm shooting from a totally different angle. It can be a bit better. If you're up for another one. Yeah I need something a bit better. Like, you're not really at the perfect place in the image. I like the position here it's a bit unusual. From here it's almost better yes…..better than from the back. Watch out! -What?.
