Posted by Cleggy on May 8, 2010 in
PR
Back on a freezing cold February day Bushmill’s Man Coyles Wright hired me to take some PR photographs of his Race team for the upcoming 2010 Motorbike racing season. At that time Coyles suggested that we team up again around the time of the North West 200 to do some shots at the Bushmills Inn Hotel who sponsor Coyles.
So this afternoon I set off to meet up with Coyles again. We then travelled over to Coleraine where the sign-writer was adding some new Vinyl graphics to Coyles race bikes. The Bikes were hastily put in to the back of the van and transported across to the Bushmills Inn Hotel where Jonny Beckett a pilot for Aero-Heli was patiently waiting with his Helicopter.
38mm f16 1/250th
After setting up a shot with Coyles, Jonny and Alan the Bushmills Inn manager we then changed to a new location, the main entrance to the Restaurant, to shoot a different image before venturing inside to sample the delicious food. If the food we sampled was anything to go by, then you should definitely stop in for your evening meal some night during race week.
34mm f16 1/250th
Aero-Heli are offering various flights to the public during the North West 200 race week including laps of the circuit, or alternatively drop-off at the Bushmills Inn for lunch and then collection and return back to the race paddock, or they can fly you in from Coleraine and drop you off again at Coleraine so you don’t have to sit bumper-to-bumper in the after Race traffic.
Tags: Aero-Heli, Bushmills, Bushmills Inn, Coleraine, Coyles Wright, Hotel, North West 200, Photographs
Posted by Cleggy on Feb 27, 2010 in
Bike Racing,
PR
Bushmill’s CCTV Engineer Coyles Wright sounded me out a few months ago about doing a few Photographs of the new Race Team that he was putting together to contest the Irish Motorcycle racing championships. All the pieces of the jigsaw fell in to place and a date was set to do the shoot.
The evening before the shoot (last night) Coyles sent me a text message panicking about the heavy Snow that was falling up his part of the Country but we agreed to go ahead with the shoot and luckily the next morning (today) dawned without a major fall of Snow. With the forecast for a bright afternoon I was confident the shoot would go ahead as planned.
Coyles choice of location for the shoot was the famous ‘Dark Trees’ near Armoy which have been Photographed my numerous Photographers over the years. I immediately started thinking about the location and whether to try and shoot it all available ambient light or to introduce some flash light to the Photographs and whether or not everyday traffic would be an issue. If using flash I knew I would need to be able to hide the flashes and light stands so that they did not intrude in to the scene.
Coyles assured me it was a quiet Road with very little traffic, but on the day we were constantly having to push the bikes to one side to allow the free flow of traffic. I initially fired off a few frames using just the available light, but I soon realised that it was not illuminating both race bikes and riders evenly which was then my cue to extend the light stands and power up the Nikon SB800 flashes.
1/250th f5.6 AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED
The addition of some artificial flash light and a tighter composition made for a much stronger image.
Because these images were shot specifically for a press release to be sent to the Biking press I knew that a ‘mugshot’ of each racer would also be required.
Coyles Wright
Michael McKinley
Below is a lighting diagram explaining how these images were created.
Tags: AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED, Armoy, Bushmills, Coleraine, Coyles Wright, Irish, Michael McKinley, Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing, Nikon, Photographs, SB800