Research - Touch

I came across, Dan Barham, 'Originally from Manchester, UK, but now living on Vancouver’s North Shore, Dan works as a photographer, cinematographer and film-maker for numerous editorial and commercial clients across the globe.

With a strong background in mountain biking and other outdoor sports yet able to work in all fields of photography, he captures natural, authentic images which blend artistic visuals with astute story-telling.'

After looking through a large amount of his work related to mountain biking I took inspiration for my own photographs from his cinematography rather than his photography.

A lot of the inspiration for my similar photographs have come from his short films related to injured bikers or ones that have taken a sudden change of path within cycling such as going from downhill to road biking.

This is a screen grab from one of Barhams short films. Due to the image being a screen grab from a moving image the quality isn't as high, but the composition of this image is what i like. You can see the raw energy and speed of the rider and bike as they go round the corner. Its framed very tightly which emphasises the points I have made.

The only negative of this shot I think is the colours. I think the picture is fairly dull and maybe a little on the flat side. This may have been the look Barham was going for, trying to give it a moody feel which he has done in my opinion, but I think that an image should be more bold in order to stand out and be unique.

I found a photographer called Daniel Ronnback whilst doing my research and found his approach to shooting downhill biking very interesting and inspiring. He doesn't use really expensive equipment or particularly plan his shoots. He talks about just going to a shoot and shooting what he sees and feels whilst there. Many photographers would say that is extremely bad practice but looking at the shots Daniel gets and his relationship with the riders it clearly works.

He shot this image of one of his close rider friends doing a whip on a dirt jump. I really like the way he has composed this image and used the trees to make a frame within a frame which is something I have been experimenting with a lot recently. It adds aesthetics to the image along with controlling the main focus of the image to the rider. The shot is fairly wide showing lots of surrounding but Daniel has dropped most of this out of focus leaving the rider as the main point of focus.

I am unsure of the photographer that shot this image, my only information on him is that he is local the Falmouth University. He shot this of Ben Moore (my subject) last year at the Falmouth Urban Downhill competition which Ben won.

I like how atmospheric this image is. It has been shot wide and shows the environment, spectators and the rider. I think that images that are shot this wide often have far too much dead space and I believe that every part of an image should add to it in some way whether thats aesthetically or as information. I think that each part of this image does adds to the final piece which is why I have chosen to include it in my research.