Dirt Bike

A Mattawa Birthday

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Every year all my brother Mark wants for his birthday is a family dirt bike outing in Mattawa, Washington. This year we had to postpone the event due to windy conditions and we finally made it out there today. I took a quick look at the photos and will do a longer post of them later, but I got a great one of Mark on his new bike that I thought worth sharing now.

Mark-0256

Project 52: Week 29 “Mid Air”

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moto-4719

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/800 sec, Aperture f/6.3 ISO 400, Focal Length 35mm, Canon EF 16-35mm F/2.8L

Why This Photo:
Last weekend Jeremy and I tagged along for the Motocross Championship in Washougal with my brother and his wife. This was the best shot to show how incredibly high these guys were jumping. The whole experience was unreal – there is no fear for these kids. And yes, they are kids (being late teens and early twenties). The rider in this shot is Ryan Dungey – he won the 450 MX Class.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
As you can see, the cloudy sky of the morning was AWFUL for getting good exposure. I struggled with lighting because shutter speeds needed to be so fast and relied heavily on bumping up the ISO. I took a TON of photos and will likely throw out 90% of them because I needed to see them on a larger screen to be able to correct what I was doing wrong. Plus shooting Pro MX riders is WAY harder than the fam riding dirt bikes.

First Round of Mattawa Photos

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I took a crazy number of photos this weekend, so I am going to have to break this post out into several posts. It is going to take me time to get through everything, edit, and post. This is just the first handful, so if you were there and aren’t in them, fear not … You will get your turn.

I have to throw out some serious kudos to Heather, a friend of our family. At almost 12, she learned how to ride a dirt bike this weekend and picked it up faster than anyone I have ever seen. She went from the “kid” bike and finished on one with a clutch. She was ripping it up out there!

{Carter hanging out at the site with his earphones on, Gavin eating a cracker on a bike/Our site set up/Heather & Ryan (#94) riding}Mattawa1-1Mattawa1-2{Heather riding with a nice view behind her, Kimmy helping Nikki get her bike started/Grandpa tearing it up/Nikki riding, Grandpa riding}Mattawa1-3{Ryan & Heather lounging, Carter with his helmet on/Nikki and Carter at the site, Ryan and Heather/And a lovely Heather hanging out}Mattawa1-4

Project 52: Week 17 “Learning”

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Carter-3794

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/1250 sec, Aperture f/4 ISO 100, Focal Length 70mm, Canon EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM

Why This Photo:
Saturday we headed to Mattawa, Washington to dirt bike ride and this year Carter actually got on his bike! Carter freaks out over loud noises, so I am sure you can imagine what a trip like this would be like for him. This year we put earplugs and headphones to block out the noise and he did much better. He even rode his bike all of twenty feet! This is really a huge step for him – we are pretty excited about him finally not being afraid of the bikes again.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
Harsh sunlight throughout the day was probably the biggest issue. And dust. I couldn’t really “set the shot up” because we needed to focus on getting him on the bike, so I am going to cop out and say the shadows on their faces add dimension to it, haha.

Project 52: Week 16 “Happy Birthday Mark”

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Mark_birthday-0326

Photo Details:
Exposure time 1/500 sec, Aperture f/9 ISO 200, Focal Length 41mm, Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

Why This Photo: 
My brother Mark’s birthday was on Sunday and I thought it would be nice to post a photo of him. Every year his birthday party request is for our entire family to head to Mattawa, Washington to dirt bike ride. Pretty much everyone on my side of the family has at least one bike, if not two. Including a small one that is Carter’s (eventually Gavin’s). Even my mom has a dirt bike! This is a photo of Mark jumping last year and I will be sure to post photos from this years trip too.

Challenges/Lessons Learned:
My lesson here is that I need to take more photos of my brother! After looking through my tags, I only have a handful of him and this one is perfect, cause you can’t really see what he looks like (HAHA, cause he is OLD NOW!). Happy Birthday Mark!