OT early extreme photography

[greg g]

No really, you just lay down about here with the camera, I'll take care of everything else. Really. It be great!!!

Ready????

OK!!!!

[slicknapier]

that's awesome..

[martybose]

Boy, from the looks of the board track in the background, he had to be laying head down on the track when the guy went by at speed less than a foot away.

Big cojones, that one!

Marty

[Joe Flanagan]

I have to wonder if the guy is really in motion and if it's not staged. Wouldn't the lace on his right boot be pinned back if he were speeding around the track? It looks like too much loose string just sticking out to be in motion.

[Niel Hoback]

I think the spokes would be blurred also, if he really was moving.

[Joe Flanagan]

Yeah, that's the obvious sign that I overlooked.

[Joe Flanagan]

But you have to love the hat and goggles. I may get a set like that to wear to work one day.

[Niel Hoback]

You could use the name "Rocky the Flying Squirrel".

[Joe Flanagan]

You beat me to it. It sure would get some looks, though. I could use it as evidence that I am under mental duress and need two weeks emergency medical leave.

[msawdey44]

I think all of the observations about the "motion anomalies" are right on, particularly the boot lace that isn't flying as it should. I'd also point out that the shadow under the front wheel isn't quite right and that the edges of the figure against the sky are a bit crude, and the lighting on the subject is markedly different from that on the background--I'd say it's a composite image. This kind of thing was done from the earliest days of photography (there's a famous example from the Civil War era, where General Grant's head was put on another general's body, against a background that was not, in fact, a Union encampment, but a Confederate POW camp). One doesn't need Photoshop, just scissors, paint, and patience. The background photograph is well done: the depth of field is very shallow, just as it would have been, had a photographer of the period been photographing a "real" rider at speed: wide open aperture (probably an f4.5 Tessar, around 210-250mm focal length) on a Graflex or early Speed Graphic, with its windup focal plane shutter firing off at its 1/1000 second maximum. From this angle, there would not have been much shutter curtain distortion of a fast-moving bike: taken from the side, the vertical-travel shutter would have given the characteristic "leaning forward" distortion that we see in old Grand Prix photos. So, whoever put this one together knew how to do it with as much realism as one could get. Even today, one sees digital attempts at this sort of thing that are not done this well.

[greg g]

Yea, Yea, Yea, but its still a neat picture even if he was standing still, and the side stand was dodged out.................Wonder if it was a shot for a poster advirtising up coming events.

Edited January 6, 2010 by greg g

[Frank Blackstone]

I think MSAWDEY44 work for CSI and wants to be anomoyus as there is no info in the profile. Sounds like they know something about shutterbugging. I know more about jitterbugging than shutterbugging.