Mountain Bike Photography :: Dan Barham :: Blog

Sweet new ride!

Dan — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:48:27 +0000

A few weeks ago I found myself the proud owner of a new bike, this time a longer travel model for ‘riding for fun’ rather than ‘riding for work’. Not that work isn’t fun, of course, but hopefully you get the idea. It’s a Trek Session 88 FR with 8″ of the plushest, nicest travel I’ve ever had the good fortune to sit on. I’ve just finished tweaking it just how I wanted it, and figured this’d be a good time to snap a quick shot of it and say ‘thanks’ to everyone who made it possible. In no particular order:

Michael at Trek Bicycles
Dee at Cycles Lambert
Elayna at Fox Racing Shox
John at Race Face
Julian at Chromag
Lou at Obsession: Bikes

Without the help and support of all these people, I wouldn’t be able to ride such a downright amazing bike. You guys rock!

Now all I have to do is wait for my broken hand to fix so I can ride it.

“Deep Summer”? “Deep Stress” more like…

Dan — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:09:25 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I won my first ever comedy-oversize foam cheque, thanks to a 2nd place finish in the first ever Deep Summer photo challenge – a great event put on as part of Crankworx this year.

The basic formula of six invited pros shooting for three solid days made for some stiff competition, not to mention a huge amount of stress on everyone’s part – we all gave it our all, and put together a great show for everyone at the following gala event. Plenty of the shots (as well as a full description of the weekend) are already slated for mags and commercial usage, so unfortunately I can’t include them here, but here’s a few that didn’t make the final cut.

Keep your eyes peeled on the web for the slideshow itself – hopefully it’ll be online soon – and check out MTBVille’s writeup of how Harookz’ team got on; sounds like they had pretty similar experiences to mine!

Wish you were here?

Dan — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:36:09 +0000

Ever since I picked up a Canon 5D Mark 2 camera I’ve been thinking of putting together little videos on shoots as a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at a shoot. Of course I almost always forget while it’s going on, so this is probably the first of what I’ll from now-on term the oh-shit-I-forgot-the-video-here’s-a-shot-of-empty-trail style of documentary – a fantastic singletrack view of Mount Hood in the Oregon backcountry:

In lieu of any real action here’s some numbers to crunch:

2 – hours we waited for golden light
1 – trailside beer consumed while doing so
1 – wood tick removed from my leg, luckily before it bit me. I hate ticks.
5 – cotton buds required to clean my ears of all the dust

Jerry Blog

Dan — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:46:51 +0000

Jerry Willows hucks over a rock step down

Check out NSMB.com’s Jerry Willows’ blog about our shoot with legendary North Shore builder / filmer Digger last week:

North Shore Photo / Vid Jam

Kranked – Revolution & Evolution

Dan — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:30:00 +0000

The next installment of the always awesome Kranked series is a mere two weeks away – Kranked 8: Revolve is slated for a June 1st release and from what I’ve seen already it’s destined to be the best yet. Here’s the trailer for those of you who haven’t seen it yet – be sure to set your underpants to ’stun’:

For the second year running I’ve been lucky enough to work on stills for a section of the movie, and was yet again blown away by the level of riding, creativeness and craftsmanship that have been captured on film. It’s truly awe-inspiring, and as usual the Coastal Crew were fantastic to work with; if any aspiring pros out there want pointers in work ethic they need look no further than Dylan, Curtis and the Kyles for how it should be done – relentless optimism, professionalism and just general awesomeness is all these guys know.

In lieu of the magazine-bound action shots, here’s a sneak peak taster of some of the behind-the-scenes images from my time with the crew:

Every single bit of trail needs to be picture-perfect

Kyle's always stoked to drop in one more time

A sneaky teaser shot of one of the most insane structures I've ever seen. You won't believe your eyes when you see what we got.

Not only can Dylan shred at a pro level, he's an amazing VT editor as well.

It's often difficult to appreciate the size of some of these features without a sense of scale

Thank God for waterproof boots. I spend a lot of time in rivers.

A lot of my shots wouldn't be possible without help - Laura and Dan are killer assistants.

Wait till you see what they saw...

A Night’s Entertainment

Dan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:59:58 +0000

Ever seen a grown man freak out before a few hundred people, stammer wildly then run off stage in tears? Well your lucky night could well be February 26th, when I present a slideshow of my images as part of the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival.

Based loosely on the notion of me actually thinking most aspects of mountain biking are kinda cool, it’s a 4 minute slideshow with music followed by 5 minutes Q&A, where I desperately try to pretend I know what I’m talking about. Chance of looking foolish I’m putting at a conservative 95%.

Details are here, if you’re in the area and can make it down, it’d be great to see you!

Hold the back page!

Dan — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:54:33 +0000

Following up from my previous post about the Todmorden Cyclocross, here’s a couple of shots that race organiser, Singletrack magazine editor and all-round nice chap Chipps Chippendale sent of today’s local paper:

Back page

The heady heights of page 17

I don’t often see my shots in newspapers, so this one’s got quite a novelty right now.

Ah Yes, I Remember Now…

Dan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:23:57 +0000

Nothing says “welcome back to the UK” quite like standing in a field on a grey, overcast day, fingers and toes growing steadily more numb as the cold slowly takes over, waiting for a race to start and wondering if actually it would’ve been wiser to stay inside that day.

Yep, the Todmorden cyclocross race this past weekend was a perfect way to round off my two week vacation back in the old country. Nice to shoot something “gritty” for a change; here’s a few from the B-roll…

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Dan — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:37:22 +0000

It’s as close to a New Year’s resolution that I’m going to make – a decision to work out what all the fuss around Twitter is by giving it a go (again). I can’t promise it’ll be any more riveting than anyone else’s, but for those that are interested my profile’s here:

http://twitter.com/danbarham/

8 from ‘08 – The Rejects

Dan — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:57:51 +0000

So a combination of last-minute jobs, a prolonged period of feeling under the weather and no doubt the usual dose of S.A.D. have meant that I’ve neglected to write anything here for a noticeably long time. Here’s a bumper end-of-year post to hopefully make up for it, filled to the brim with a bunch of reject shots.

Hang on, before you disappear in disgust, hear me out; these shots aren’t rejects in the out-of-focus, motion blurred or badly composed category (although I’ve got plenty of those too), but images that for one reason or another didn’t work out. Here’s my eight favourites from the bunch that went nowhere; as normal you can click on ‘em to make ‘em bigger-er…

Steve Peat, Sea Otter 2008

The Dual Slalom course at Sea Otter is a crowded, cluttered place, where photographers, spectators and competitors all vie for position on a tiny patch of land. Getting clean backgrounds is somewhat of a futile task, so I tried to make the audience part of the picture by including the assembled peanut gallery.

Gee Atherton, Red Bull Rampage

There’s no doubting that each of the riders in this year’s Red Bull Rampage earned their paycheck with their death-defying abilities, but no-one can argue it wouldn’t be nice to have a helper pushing your bike around.

On Top Of The World, Lillooet, BC

When I agreed to do a heli-drop on an unridden mountain on the outskirts of Lillooet, BC, I had no idea the grandeur and scale of the backdrop to our ride. Brian Earle and Chris Kelly try not to get too distracted.

Last Light On The Okanagan

This was a great day – deep in the heart of wine country, fantastic twisting singletrack and… no decent light. Undeterred we stuck with it, and were rewarded with a tiny ten minute window of gorgeous golden light, at the most scenic part of the trail.

Evening Reflection

Curtis Robinson and Mike Kinrade skirt the lakeside at the end of long, long Interior BC descent.

Specialized All Over It

Kyle Strait footplants right in front of his sponsor’s giant logo.

Off-road Sidecar Madness

The story behind this shot is arguably more interesting than the image itself – while down in North Carolina shooting a feature for Bike Magazine on the Smoke Bikes crew, we were actually meant to be documenting their unique brand of fixed-gear craziness. One look at the regular-geared sidecar mountain bikes nestled in their garage was enough to convince me we needed to shoot them regardless. Fast-forward twenty four hours and I’m precariously perched in the passenger seat of one, facing backwards and desperately trying to focus through the camera’s viewfinder despite the trail whizzing by at an alarming pace. I’m claiming the first bicycle sidecar-mounted remote flash on this one, too.

Backcountry Alaska

The word “epic” is bandied around far too much these days, but the Upper Russian Lakes trail in Alaska is definitely deserving. This was the last shot on the last day of a fantastic trip.

So there they are, hope you like ‘em. I had a great time making them, and a bunch of other shots you’ve seen here and will see soon, despite the grumbling that anyone who’s caught me on a bad day has to endure. Thanks to everyone who’s followed this blog over the last year, here’s to a great 2009!