Freestyle BMX in the park.

It's gorgeous in Boise right now, clearly fall is in the air and the foliage is about at its peak.  So yesterday morning I went out and chased down a few images of fall.  (Here's a link.)  It was an inspiring start to the day, but I realized what I really wanted to do was shake off the scenics and dig into some gnarly action.

There's a kick-ass skate and bicycle park just up the road from my house and that turned out to be the ticket.  Met some dudes who can really wick it up and we were set!  

Some of the key elements I wanted to accomplish was to set the athletes out from their environment.  There are many ways to put the emphasis on your subject, including depth of focus, careful clean background selection, contrast, etc.  But my goal was to use lights.  I love the look when you overpower mid-day light with strobes to add drama, but that's hard to do with small flash unless the working distance is really close.  It's possible, but not within enough space to allow BMX riders to pull their tricks.  In order to be able to light them and still leave room to move, I waited until the sun was low and the light levels dropped a bit.  The lights themselves make an appearance in some of the images.  Some folks might find that distracting but I left them in there, as I think they add a cool element of style.  

Know what? Enough details, let's get right into the images!

 If you want more specifics on equipment and settings, leave me a comment (hey, you'll be the first!) and I'll write more about it, eh?