Monday, May 18, 2009

B-b-b-bad to the bone

Fat Boyz

Here's a photo that has all the things that people who dislike HDR dislike about HDR. Halos. Screaming color of an unnatural bent. From-here-to-infinity focus.

But a bad bike in front of a bad biker bar seemed to call for some rad, mad and bad post processing.

Fat Boyz is located in downtown Sycamore, Illinois. I noticed several bikes parked out front on a visit to the town a couple of weeks ago and took some worm's eye view shots. This one captured most of the front of the pub as well as a nice imposing view of the bike. Nice.

One of the establishment's employees, who was taking a break out front, noticed me taking photos and mentioned that I should beat it take a look at the owner's bike, which was parked out back. I said sure (with some relief), and was escorted through the bar and out the back door into the alley behind the building where I was beat senseless a bright red Harley was parked, nose-in, at the building's back porch.

I took a few snaps, but the nose-in orientation didn't do much for composition and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't bring myself to ask to have the bike turned around.

I thought that maybe someone might be interested in the above photo as a memento of their ride, or even as a promo pic for the pub's web site. But alas, the pub has no internet presence outside of a local business directory or two. Not even an e-mail address.

One of these days I might call up the owner (the place does have a phone -- or I could write a letter or maybe send smoke signals) and see if she (yes, she) might be interested in having me stop by to shoot her fire engine red Harley (which I was told was designed by her) in front of the place.

It'll be interesting, if nothing else.

UPDATE: I've posted a photo of the back alley red Harley on Flickr.

Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

3 comments:

Ron said...

Play your cards right, and this could turn into a great new business opportunity. While HDR is not for everything, this is a great look for the subject. Given that these bikes don't come cheap, owners might be willing to part with some money for portraits of their bike. Also, Fat Boyz seems to be a new establishment, Google Street view show stills shows "The Uptown" in that location. A few prints (something they could put on the wall) and an offer to do the owners bike could turn into a whole new avenue of sales.

Stephen Van Tuyl said...

Nicely done. The HDR works well in this.

mike said...

very cool