Most of my motorbike photography shoots at the moment use flash, normally Bowens strobes often augmented by some Nikon speedlights. Even the ‘outdoor’ shots have a bit of help as can be seen here.
So for this Ducati motorbike photograph I had envisaged a lit shot; the Saab was full of strobes, battery packs, hefty stands and strip softboxes. But in the back of my mind was a potential for either a strong side-lit shot or a back-lit assisted by strobe photograph. Devon weather is reliably fickle but when we turned up it looked like the big reflector was all we would need and in truth all that was doing was throwing some light back at those lovely Termignonis to lift the shadows a little. There is no question this was the easier option.
The main barriers to this kind of motorbike photography are issues such as the man landing his drone just where I needed to lie down and the afternoon promenaders. Oh and that rain-cloud coming over, and the breeze threatening to take the reflector panel into the Exe. Most of all that low level Manfrotto tripod, too clever for its own good by far.