BEST of On The Road

May, 2003

Welcome to this edition of "On The Road". There is no better job than one in your home town, working for Sports Illustrated, and the assignment is Bull Riding. This "On The Road" will showcase only one assignment , that being the Professional Bull Riders(PBR) Million Dollar Ride starring Chris Shivers vs. Little Yellow Jacket for a single, 8 second ride for ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

The images were all shot with Nikon's D1X and a variety of lenses, image quality set for RAW NEF files. I strobed the event with 8 Ellinchome 1000R units, configured into 2 sets of 4 using Pocket Wizzard Multi MAX wireless transceivers to trigger each unit. I used the standard Sport Reflector on 4 strobes and used 30 degree long throw High Polished reflectors made by Dyna Light and custom adapted to the Ellinchome collars for the 2nd set of 4 strobes. I set the Multi MAX Wizzards on SPEEDCYCLE and alternated the 2 sets of strobes back and forth for two reasons. First, recycle time. By alternating the 2 sets I could fire a shot every second rather than wait for the recycle time of 2 seconds. Second, the difference in reflectors would give me 2 very different lighting looks that would, of course, also alternate.

	It ain't Rodeo! This is the PBR and I must say the best pre-game introductions in all of sports. Country Rock and plenty of pyrotechnics. A hand held Nikon D1X with a 28mm-70mm zoom set on A (aperture priority) gave me a 1.5 second exposure.
Big belt buckles are required uniform for these cowboys. Nikon D1X with a 300mm f2.8 and a TC14c.
	Bulls Eye, meet Little Yellow Jacket. Difficult to see all the detail in this image size, but there is a beautiful reflection in the eye.
Hung Up, this cowboy had difficulty releasing his hand. His ride lasted much longer than the 8 seconds he had hoped for.
	Just great action. Here the Dyna Light reflectors channel the light from the strobes to light up just the action and leave the crowd three stops under.
Chris Shivers begins his ride for One Million Dollars and the standard Sport reflectors light up the entire arena.
	Here the ride ends at 1.8 seconds, and ZERO DOLLARS! This is my fourth frame of the ride thanks to Pocket Wizzard and the Multi MAX units. As the 2 sets of strobes alternated and each set had 2 different reflectors I was able to produce 4 images in less than 2 seconds with two different lighting styles as can be seen in these 2 images of Chris and Little Yellow Jacket.

Well, I hope you liked this On The Road selection.

Till next time with On The Road.............Adios, Dave

WORKSHOPS and PRESENTATION Schedule

June 27- July 2 ... Sports Photography Workshop, Colorado Springs, Co. www.sportsphotographyworkshop.com

August 1-5 ... Long Island Photo Workshop, Long Island, NY. www.liphotoworkshop.com

August 12-15 ... American PHOTO Mentor Trek to Acadia National Park, Maine. www.mentorseries.com

September 9-12 ... American PHOTO Mentor Series Trek to Tetons, Wyoming. www.mentorseries.com

October 3-8 ... Photography at the Summit, Jackson Hole, Wy. www.photographyatthesummit.com

December, 2008 (click here)
Memory Lane