Caption:

ShaFF Biker: Ex-champion mountain bike trials rider Dan Butler taking some big (night) air at a ShaFF 2009 demo.

 

Commentary:

ShaFF, or Sheffield Adventure Film Festival to give it its full name, deals in adrenaline for adrenaline junkies. ShaFF 2009, happened 27th Feb thru’ the 1st March 2009 and featured films from climbing to BASE jumping, mountain biking to sea kayaking as well as a series of lectures from a variety of climbing/mountaineering legends and some amazing bike demos from two ex-champion mountain bike trails riders Ben Slinger and Danny Butler.

 

Pulling two-wheeled, mad-cap stunts are (literally) bread and butter to Ben and Danny and what those guys can’t do with a bike doesn’t bare thinking about. As official event photographer, I was looking to get some striking images. I figured that the evening rush-hour outside Sheffield rail station would be the perfect time/venue. Ben and Danny were real pros doing stunt after stunt for the evening commuters whilst doing their own commentary! They dispatched a series of jumps and aerial tricks with consummate easy and like all great pros they were totally unfazed by having a camera and flashguns blasting away at them.

 

I wanted to get a dramatic look to the images so I shot as low as possible against the dark winter sky and used a pair of strobes and fill light from the on-board D300 flash to illuminate the action. To accentuate the movement I deliberately kept the shutter speed down to create a hint of motion blur. Their demo was all over in a few minutes or so with no opportunity to influence the action; what I saw I had to capture live – just how I like to work. Thanks Ben and Dan; I’ll be adding those images to the stock library for sure!

 

Capture Notes:

Nikon D300, 18-200mmAFS f3.5-5.6G, 1/60ses @ f4.2 with -0.3EV compensation, ISO 200, 2 remote SB800s strobes triggered from D300 in Commander mode.

 

Keywords:

ShaFF, Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, mountain bike trials riders, Ben Slinger, Danny Butler, action photography, event photography