In the summer of 2015, I had the opportunity to work with Sweetgrass Productions on 'Darklight', which was a short film on riding at night. They hired me to help co-produce and photograph the shoot which involved scouting out the best accessible terrain that would illuminate well with our lighting in dramatic ways, be accessible for the crew and most importantly be amazing for the riders to shred.
We spent countless days scouting out the best terrain features in this Utah basin and a steep ridge of spines that led into a perfect hip lip caught our eye. We thought it would be amazing to shred down then blast off this lower spine. It offered a great scenario where we could cross light the spines then contrast that with the landing bowl in the foreground.
Photographically, this entire shoot was challenging for me because I had to shoot in a cinematic lighting scenario. It is not as bright as using strobes and it can make it hard to stop the riders. Fortunately, today’s cameras can handle low light better and I resorted to always being on tripod and having a set of fast prime lenses on set that offered better access to shutter speed while keeping ISO lower. The lighting crew were always checking in with me and trying to pump in as much light as possible. To the naked eye, it appeared amazingly bright, but once you combine the fast paced action of mountain biking, it was a constant challenge to stop the action.