This week I thought I’d share a little bit about a photo shoot I did last week with Kevin Lepp. I’ve been slowly accumulating photos of Kevin for a future feature on him – he’s got a unique story and he’s a nice kid but I needed a few lead in photos for the story so I wanted to make sure to meet up with him before he headed back down to California to get in his final training before the summer nationals start.
Since Kevin lives only 10 minutes away from me, he picked me
up and we drove out to a spot in Richmond that a lot of guys practice at. It’s
not really much of a track but it’s sandy and it gets rough so it’s pretty good
practice for pounding out hard, 30 minute motos. Knowing that, from a scenic standpoint,
it wasn’t the most picturesque, I knew that flash would be a good choice to
make the photos pop. Especially with sand, you can use the flash to freeze the
sand as it blows everywhere and it doesn’t take much more than a nice bermed up
corner to make a dynamic image.
I also needed a lead portrait and I wanted to incorporate
Kevin’s truck into the photo somehow. He’s been using that old green Dodge
pickup as long as he’s been travelling the nationals, towing his old travel
trailer and it’s really become a symbol for him. So I lined up the shot with
his truck and practice bike in the background, to try and show as much about
him as possible. With the overcast skies I decided to bust out a technique that
I’d be thinking about trying for a while. I’ll explain more below but basically
I wanted to shoot several different exposures, using a tripod to keep
everything lined up, so I could layer in different brightness’s later in
Photoshop.
With the portrait finished, we moved on to the action shots.
We had scouted a suitable corner and I’d lugged my generator and flash over
there so Kevin hit it a few times. It looked good right away and after about 10
tries, the corner was blown out, my camera was full of sand, and I had my shot.
Knowing that I had something that would work and not wanting to drive the sand
any deeper into the various crevices of my camera, I decided to call it a day
while Kevin did a few practice laps. All in all, for a quick shoot I was quite
happy with what we walked away with. Now that the summer weather is finally
starting to show itself here, I’m excited to get the photo shoot season
underway before the Nationals start!
The first thing I do when I'm setting up a portrait is take a straight ambient photo to see how the light looks without any flash.
I then used myself as an incredibly handsome model to tweak the flash and ambient light levels while Kevin got dressed.
Once Kevin was ready I had him try a few poses, with and without his helmet. That new Fox gear really pops in the photos. Biggest advice I can give anyone: wear bright colors for a photo shoot - it will make or break a photo.
The final select from the portrait shoot, after retouching. I used an "HDR" like technique to layer various different exposures into the background, to brighten and darken the areas I wanted, adding contrast and depth to the image. Since everything was shot on a tripod, it's a matter of layering it all in Photoshop and masking in the parts you want. I lit Kevin independently with a Nikon SB900 flash with a Lumiquest Softbox LTP, on a stand on camera right.
Since I helped Kevin get hooked up with X-Brand goggles(thanks Steve and Rich) I wanted to shoot a couple shots with them. Moved the same SB900 with small softbox over to camera left and got in close with a wide angle to exagerate the perspective.
First action shot with the flash and it looked good right away, bringing the stress level down. Sand + Flash is a good combo.
I settled on this as my favorite select of the day. I love the
angle and the way the sand is flying. Added some contrast but otherwise
didn't need to tweak the image much. Flash really helps the colors pop
on a drab, overcast day.




































