If you are not a biker yourself, I bet you know somebody that is. They are a unique breed with one thing in common, hardcore bikers love their bikes. There is a special bond between the biker and their machine. Almost cult like, it is difficult to fathom when you’re looking in from the outside world as a non-biker. They all have their eccentricities and brand loyalties that often come from genuine engineering appreciation, bragging rights and a sprinkling of nostalgia but they all want to look the business. Wether you ride a cruiser, chopper, scooter, sports, off-road or touring, you’d always want to be seen as the genuine article so if you are getting your photograph taken with your set of wheels, it’s important to think about the look of the shot in the planning stages – talk to the photographer. It would be very easy indeed to take a photo of a passing vehicle on a public road but we can do so much better with a bit of creative thinking.
Dimitri is definitely in the “enthusiast” category. He’s been riding for over 20 years with an ownership history spanning dozens of different machines. Everything from a 1990s Kawasaki ZZR600 to a 2017 Ducati Panigale.
The bike we were asked to photograph is a little bit special though – a 1980s ex police BMW R80. Over the summer the bike has had it’s frame and engine stripped, bodywork resprayed to a gunmetal grey and has been painstakingly rebuilt to it’s former glory, fully deserving of the Instagram hashtag of #builtnotbought. The bike has some beautiful original markings and engineering highlights that even as a non-biker I immediately locked onto. When in service the main tank would have been police white with black leather cushioning but as part of the overhaul, metalic grey and burgundy were chosen to be it’s new livery. I particularly loved the cast aluminium “BMW” in the main engine block. Something I haven’t seen since an old 1990 E30 Bimmer I had the pleasure of owning many moons ago – cue the nostalgia of my own.
The shoot was split into two on different days. The first was very casual ambient light test shoot one afternoon to capture some detailing, getting to know the bike’s more interesting engineering aspects and of course have a chat about location and atmosphere of the final pictures. The final, early evening session, involved some structured lighting, posed on location near Cambridge. Total timescale probably 3 hours. The client lives near some great Cambridgshire scenery that very often gets overlooked, even by people that have lived here their whole lives so it would have been a wasted opportunity to ignore the Fens. I guess it’s too easy to ignore what’s in plain site every day, but even if they don’t sound very glamorous, Cambridgeshire Fens can can look stunning when used in context. The best motorcycle photography shows off the bike hardware and rider in equal measures and hopefully combines to create something greater than the sum of it’s parts. I think that’s exactly what was accomplished here.