Every photographer faces it, we do so much work photographing other people as part of our job and we lose touch with the reason we got started. Maybe you started photographing kids and then transitioned to weddings and haven’t photographed many kids in years. Maybe it was wildlife photography and because it didn’t bring you in any money you haven’t done anything with it lately. For me, it was action sports. It was 2002 and I bought a 35mm Minolta camera with an awesome zoom, I can’t remember the length now but I want to say it went to 200mm. It was around this time that I attended 2 different freestyle motocross events. I fell in love with photographing these events. A new trick had just been invented called the rock solid where the rider would do a superman seat grab and then completely let go of the bike. Now capturing a full extended rock solid was not easy as you only had a second and keep in mind I had a film camera, no burst, one shot and that was it. I’ll have to get these pictures out sometime and scan them into the blog, but I remember taking that roll to get developed and when I received my prints days later (who didn’t loved the days of film?) I scanned through them and saw that a couple of times I caught a fully extended rock solid. I was hooked. One chance to capture a moment? What a rush!
It was around this time that it was my dream to photograph the X Games. I kind of talked about this in one of my other roots blogs, but this dream kind of faded away as I entered college and got into the workforce. Even when I entered into the field of wedding photography this dream was still in the back of my mind but I didn’t do anything to pursue it. And now, I figure I have made enough excuses as to why I will never make it that it became enough. I actually annoyed myself by making so many excuses: I don’t have the right connections, I don’t have the experience, I don’t have the time, I can’t risk doing it… enough is enough. I may never make it, and you know what? That’s fine. But I can’t go through life and not try, you know? I would rather fail trying than fail because I didn’t try at all. Life is too short to not pursue your dreams.
Getting back at what I was saying earlier, we lose touch with our roots and I think it’s important to revisit them to remind yourself why you got into photography or why this passion came about. For me it was motocross and action sports. So I attended what ended up being a massive motocross event this past weekend. 370 riders were present! Insane! But what an environment. Pits full of riders resting, stretching, crews working on bikes, preparations taking place, it was SO cool to see the behind the scenes of what goes on. At the same time though, it was like one huge family. Granted there are sticky situations at times, its a competition, but at the same time you see competitors hanging out, helping one another out, laughing and joking around, cheering each other on, actions sports is unlike any other sport. You are there to win, but you are also there to push your competitor to do better as well. I love the action sports environment and one day I hope to call it my profession. Obviously with all this said I did spend this time to photograph some of the events, and that rush of capturing a single moment came back. Sure cameras have burst now and I used it a few times, but honestly, I love the rush of having one chance to capture the moment and not relying on burst and so here’s a preview of what I got:
