Mountain Biking I, Middlebury, Vermont   View Larger Image

Purchase This Week's Print Mountain Biking I, Middlebury, Vermont is available as an 7"x14" Print, matted to fit an 16"x20" frame. Each print is signed and numbered by the photographer. Only 100 prints will be made, so order early to secure your piece.

Image of the Week Fine Art Print Offer Each week, I post an image from my recent or historical work and talk a little bit about it; the process, creative thought, and technical details that contributed to its creation. During the week an image is featured, I offer it as a Limited Edition Fine Art Print at a special price. Each image is printed personally by me on the latest Epson printers using archival pigment inks on acid-free archival paper. The prints are shipped matted and signed and can be framed using a standard size, off-the-shelf frame from your local frame shop. Learn more about my fine art printing process.

Other Images of the Week Beulah in the Carrizo Badlands, Anza-Borrego Desert, California Chapel of the Transfiguration, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Cross-Country Runner Alexandra Krieg, Middlebury, Vermont Horse Bath, Morgan Horse Farm, Weybridge, Vermont Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama The North Window from Turret Arch, Arches National Park, Utah Jeff, Middlebury College, Vermont Hostas II, Middlebury, Vermont Hikers in Coyote Gulch I, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah Ocotillo Shadow, Abandoned Cabin, Anza-Borrego State Park, California Moonlit Palms, Anza-Borrego State Park, California Park Avenue, Arches National Park, Utah Ashton and Whitney, Citronelle, Alabama Steven Halladay Road III Fall colors and ivy-covered wall, Middlebury College, Vermont Maple Tree, Middlebury, Vermont Jesse Hamner at Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone NP Aon Center from Millenium Park, Chicago Mountain Biking I Boulders II, Canyonlands National Park, Utah Hosta Leaves Joe The Pour Skylar

Image of the Week

What do you do when you can't plunk down a tripod before your subject to get the shot? Use a little magic.

A Bogen/Manfrotto Magic Arm, that is. The Magic Arm is an articulated support that attaches to a number of photo accessories. Using a Super Clamp on one end and a camera platform on the other, one can mount a camera in the most unlikely places, such as the handlebars of a bike.

The Magic Arm is fairly sturdy, but even it was tested after I mounted a Nikon D200, flash, and a bouncer to it. After only a couple-hundred feet down a gravel road, the arm had vibrated itself almost to the ground. A bungie cable helped to absorb a lot of that shock and kept the arm from bottoming out, but you have to be careful or you'll end up with a camera covered in road rash.

To trigger the camera, I set the D200's built-in Interval Timer function to fire a frame every 2 seconds. With the bright, overcast sky filtering through the forest canopy, I used the SB600 Speedlight to fill in the shadows on my face and chest, adding a little punch to the exposure. To soften the flash a bit, and to elevate the source to mitigate that direct on-camera flash look, I added a Lumiquest ProMax Ultrasoft diffuser.

Have questions, comments? Let me know what you think.

Technical Data

Mountain Biking I, Middlebury, Vermont was captured with a Nikon D200 fitted with a Nikkor 10.5mm ƒ/2.8 fisheye lens. Fill light was provided by a shoe-mounted Nikon SB600 Speedlight with Lumiquest Soft Bounce modifier. The exposure was 1/4 sec at ƒ/11.