Light Contest
Tuesday, February 23rd I headed out to Folsom Lake to meet up with Brady, Erin and Jose to create some slow shutter photos using the Vont Breeze light sets I was sent from Vont. I decided a shirt and shorts would do…. I’ll be honest. It was cold! When we first arrived we got some cool shots using the headlights as a spot light following the subject as well as Jose’s Mavic Air spotlight to look like I was being abducted by aliens. HAHAHA!
Once we got into the slow shutter stuff it was super fun getting everyone together and making the magic happen! The sky was full of stars and it was absolutely amazing!
The idea for this was to get people excited about slow shutter contests. We had everyone shoot Friday the 26th through Sunday the 28th and they submitted their photos Sunday evening on IG tagging Photopace. We then reposted all the content and narrowed it down to two finalists and let the Photopace community decide the winner. The winner will be recieving a set of Vont Breeze lights as well as a Photopace care package delivered to their home. If you are interested in trying these lights…
And now, Let’s get to know our winner.
Mike Rafter
45 yrs
Sacramento
Self described washed up pro skater.
Photo / Video nerd.
Covid era bike noob.
Maaaaaan, I really needed a gentle push like this Photo Pace Slow Shutter activity to get me shooting again. This past year I’ve scaled back to shooting only very rarely. Seeing it as a luxury hobby that might put folks at an unnecessary risk. I know, I know, heard it all before. But that’s where I’m at.
The challenge popped up on Friday with images due for submission by Sunday. That was like no time at all really. I knew I had nothing already in my archives and would have to get busy quickly to get anything at all to share. And honestly, I just started a new job and feeling a bit short on cash, I did need some bike lights!
Since I’m rather new to cycling, I don’t have a bunch of buddies to call on to go shoot at a moment's notice, so I just jumped on the Photo Pace comments asking if anyone wanted to go shoot. A total stranger to me, Priscilla answered quickly and we were able to get something going! We agreed to meet up at the Crocker Art Museum as a backdrop for some fun night shots.
Unknown to me, Priscilla had just wrapped up an unplanned 100 mile ride that covered the turn from Davis to Folsom and then some prior to meeting up. I don’t care who you are. That’s a lot to do before getting your picture taken. I brought with me some cheap LED shop light I got from Harbor Freight and we used some electrical tape to fix it to the back of her bike. The goal was to get some Tron style light streaks going while she would ride by. I also had two tiny flashlights that were a dollar each in my bag. So I taped those to the forks pointing at the ground.
After some small talk and some general descriptions of what we were going for, she started doing some laps around the area. As she approached, I would fire the camera from the tripod at a 5 second exposure and once she was near me, I would manually fire a flash to freeze her in the frame. We did about 20 shots and 3 neat looking ones came out looking interesting. We also took some portraits under some street lights while playing with running lights around her on longer exposures. It often happens that you don’t get the shot you had in mind. While frustrating, if you work through it and experiment, you also often get something you love that you had not imagined. Insert life metaphor. Thanks for your patience Pris!
Probably my favorite part of this photo exercise was seeing what everyone submitted. Most shots I loved were super organic. I enjoyed diving into all those contributors accounts and getting hyped up to ride, make friends and document little moments of our lives.
Cheers!
-Rafter
