Mountain Bike Project part 3

So another catch up with the mountain bike project I'm doing to go towards my degree in Adventure and Media.  I was ecstatic as I saw the sun shining through my bedroom window and it made me motivated to get out onto the moors to shoot much needed B-Roll footage.  It was incredibly mild and it was nice to be able to enjoy setting up the shots without having to wear gloves!  I also came home to get interview footage with my parents so just waiting on my dad to get in from running. Should be good.

Anyway I came across this video on snowboard Canada's website and thought, I know exactly how these guys feel.  Waiting for the weather, dealing with the riders getting it wrong and all the banter that goes with it.  It just made me feel happy that all film makers have to deal with the same problems and that the pro's aren't super heroes.  Anyway, enjoy!

Old times (behind it all)

I had a bit of a surprise in that I bumped into an old friend the other day, and it got me thinking about all those people I knew in first year.  I have some old photos of some of these guys kayaking, so thought I thought why not dedicate a post to these super guys!

George on Aira Beck

Lessons Learnt

We were blessed with another lovely day in the Lakes and I took it upon myself to get out and photograph anything and everything! I'm trying to work my head around my new Canon 7D and learn how to move around with it quickly. However, after the day I had, If I'd have moved at a slower pace things wouldn't have gone half as bad.

Lesson no.1: In terms of photos, I need to learn to take time with composing shots and as mentioned before learn my way around the camera. There were so many spur of the moment opportunities, that I simply could not keep up with. I missed out due to not knowing which buttons to press and which switches to flick.

Lesson no.2: In terms of footwear, it's pretty much essential to go out with a pair of shoes that have good grip if you have no idea where you may end up! Even if they are trail shoes, they are by far superior to skate shoes. I ended up falling over 4 times in total onto soggy wet grass. Let's say it wasn't my brightest moment.

Lesson no.3: Always ensure bags/equipment are securely placed on the ground and aren't likely to end up falling in streams or off cliffs. My bag was subject to such abuse and my phone ended up drowning with no way of escape.

Other than a number of lessons presenting themselves to me, I had a fantastic day. The sun was shining and spring is well and truly on it's way. I was almost tempted to go for a dip in the stream but was then reminded it's melt water. It's days like these where I am truly happy to be able to document the Lakes.

Behind it all post 2

With the amount of work I've had on lately, it's been near impossible to justify taking my camera in to uni or wherever I am because of the amount of books I have in my bag. I do try though.

An opportunity presented itself yesterday and in my ill state I took it. Fresh air is definitely the way forwards when you have a cold!

Thanks to Jon who let me drive his freelander and dragged me out on this miserable yet awesome day!

Mountain Bike Project

Yep, you guessed it. I'm doing another mountain bike film project for my major media project in my final and third year at the University of Cumbria. It makes sense, in that I enjoy shooting mountain bike footage and the majority of inspiration has been collected from mountain bike films. Lately this has been follow me, great music great mountain biking.

Anyway, below are a few quick snaps I managed to take whilst shooting the first part of this project. The weather was extremely against me with lots of fog and damp drizzle.

Expedition Film from Easter 2010

Whilst taking a break from uni work, I stumbled upon our video from our Finland expedition. It made me reminisce about how awesome this experience was even though whilst there I didn't really think this. Beautiful country, cool people. Enjoy!

Finland 2010 from Dom Bush on Vimeo.

Inspiration

This year, I have quite a lot of opportunity, within my university work, to do pretty much anything I want in terms of a dissertation and, the cream on the cake, my main media project. I'm really excited about this as it really reminds me of the times I was in school studying art and photography at a-level, where I also got free reign over my projects. I know this is hard in terms of time management but I know I enjoy the process once the ball starts rolling. When the creativity flows and I'm trying something new.

Over the past few weeks, I've been collecting some inspiration for my main media project. It's about mountain biking and how it allows us to explore and have freedom.

Here are a few of those inspirations:

[scattered flurries] from felt soul media on Vimeo.

FREE RANGE TURKEY_dispatch #2 from camp4 collective on Vimeo.

Way Back Home from hyungseuck JUNG on Vimeo.

Even though these aren't all to do with mountain biking, I feel they're shot beautifully and that's something I'd like to take forwards in my own work.