Andre Magarao
July 2026 - Local Trails
About the Image(s)
Title: Local Trails
This is my local trail. I ride here almost every day. It doesn't have the biggest jumps or the most spectacular features, and it's probably not somewhere I'd choose for a commercial shoot. But I've always wanted to make a few images of the place where I spend so much time riding.
Every year, artichokes pop up along the trail, but this season there are more than I've ever seen. They still look strange to me because we never really had them where I grew up in Brazil, so I thought they'd make for an interesting foreground. I called up a friend and headed out to see what we could create.
Once I stopped and started looking through the camera, I realized none of the patches of artichokes actually lined up with the best sections of trail. It's funny how different a trail looks when you're standing still instead of flying down it at 40 mph.
This was the best composition we could find. Lit with a single flash placed off to the right, tucked just behind the artichokes.
2 comments posted
Another suggestion maybe to take the photo when the rider is more to the left side giving you the option of having no large purple flowers at all. This of course presumes that you have good access to the location and out in the natural world this may not be possible as happens in sports arenas.
I remember trying to take baseball batter photos from straight on, I had to leave the ground position myself behind a cyclone wire fence, contend with the wire being in photos at the edges of the sensor and standing amoungst some blackberry plants. I should have been looking for nature photos and forget baseball photos. Posted: 07/10/2026 06:49:14