Shaw Harley Davidson

This is one for all those motorbike fans as well as my photographer followers as I had the privilege of spending the day at Shaw Harley Davidson in Golden Cross, Sussex courtesy of the dealer principle Steven Willis.
A big thank you to Steven for allowing me to come along with all my equipment and a big thank you to all your amazing staff who made me feel welcome and helped by moving bikes around and letting me take pictures of them.

My first port of call was the front of the showroom to get some pictures of the outside with the famous Harley Davidson logo with it's iconic shape and orangey colour.
I took some long exposures to make the use of the cloudy sky streaming past the showroom, I then converted to mono to add drama but wanted to keep the orange of that cool sign so colour popped it back in.

Shaw Harley Davidson

Another few pictures from the front before moving on.

Next I moved around the sides of the building looking for new angles and bikes and even though the sky was a bit bland I managed to get a few shots to add to my list of pictures.

Next on my list was the custom workshop so took some shots inside and out using various lenses capturing not only the bikes but the guys inside working their magic on these amazing machines.

Outside The Custom Workshop

Inside The Custom Workshop

After chatting with the guys and watching them work I decided to head into the warehouse where the bikes were stored.

The warehouse was a great opportunity to try out some strobist stuff  due to the choice of fantastic custom bikes and the available space to set up.

After checking out Harley Davidson's website I noticed a lot of their bike shots were on white backdrops which is great for product shots and advertising giving a nice clean finish,  I like to do things different and experiment so mixed it up a bit with some creativity on the fly.

I set up my black velvet backdrop using my background support then asked the warehouse guys to place a motorbike in front of it.

I didn't move the bikes myself as they were huge and I felt like I would have dropped them.

In fact they were so big my backdrop was 6ft wide and still wasn't wide enough so had to use photographic skills to combat this.

I used all my flashguns creatively to get some cool and fun shots to get pictures like this.

Shane 'Shakey' Byrne

This bike actually belongs to Shane 'Shakey' Byrne who is the 2003, 2008 and 2012 British superbike champion.

This shot combined the use of four flashguns.
Left and right of the bike just out of shot where 2 x Jessops 360 AFD's on stands, 1/2 power.
In front of the camera on a floor stand was a yongnuo 560 II, 128th power.
In the motorcycle helmet was a Nikon SB600 with a green gel, 1/4 power.
All flashguns where fired via my yongnuo RF602 trigger and receivers.

As you can see the black backdrop and selective lighting has given this a nice dynamic and dark feel to it.

Here is the same bike with a slightly different lighting set up.

I placed two flashguns on the floor behind the wheels illuminating them from the back which has created some nice floor shadows.

Another cool Harley which I chose as I loved the colour.

I placed a flashgun on the floor behind the front wheel with a yellow gel in keeping with the bike colour.

I ran out of time at this point and had to pack up my gear but enjoyed every moment of it.

Check out Shaw Harley Davidson's website and make sure you stop by their showroom to be amazed with some amazing pieces of machinery.

Their address can be found on their website.

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