Shooting bikes and cars in the States


	To obtain unobstructed views of a custom machine, be patient and wait for the crowds to melt away. Alternatively adopt a higher viewpoint so there's less background clutter.


	Not all my T-bird pictures were shot in America. There's a good following for these stylish gas-guzzlers in the UK too, and I found this superb example in Bedford. It's popped up on a ramp for an unusual low viewpoint, and the huge aircraft hangers at nearby Cardington made a complimentary backdrop to the car's paintjob.

Malcolm Birkitt

Like a golfer who works hard at his game and suddenly seems to hit the fairway regularly and sink more putts, I firmly believe that you make your own luck as a professional photographer. It's all about trying to keep your name in people's minds, staying humble despite your successes, never letting the pace slacken, and being receptive to new ideas and opportunities.

If you work at it and put yourself forward then you give every opportunity for serendipity to play her role. For example, a major commission fell into my lap some time ago when I was out and about in London one winter with my portfolio, knocking on doors and showing selected new people what I could do. At one such meeting about a landscape project, nothing came of my original objective. But another guy in the same office ambled over and glanced at my work, asked to see me too and we got on so well that shortly afterwards I'd signed up to write and supply all the photographs for two new books. The subjects were both icons of the American automotive industry, and would entail lots of travel and research over there. A dirty job, but someone has to do it!

As time was of the essence, I cracked on with the planning of the chapters and pictures, with Florida nailed down as my initial destination. Subsequent trips over an eighteen month period found me in Texas, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Minnesota and South Dakota as well. Yes, I covered the miles, met countless helpful people along the way and enjoyed every second of it, but must admit it was also very hard work. By luck and some judgement, I also gathered a stack of images to illustrate the two books, one on the Ford Thunderbird and another on Harley Davidson.


This 1957 Thunderbird provided a real test for the accuracy of a camera's metering system, with a very light subject portrayed against a darker backdrop. I was well pleased with the composition - the lamp globes echoing the car's pale tones - and that the Fuji slide film showed detail in both the shadows and the highlights of this scene.


A panning technique produced this colourful and dynamic image of a lady Harley rider in Daytona, Florida.

I'd gone to the sunshine state of Florida for starters because it was early February in the UK, damp, cold and the light was flat, grey and downright dull. After a few hours on a transatlantic jet, I emerged from hibernation into sparkling light and very pleasing spring warmth. I had a long list of Ford Thunderbird car owners to chase up, and the small matter of Bike Week at Daytona Beach to attend. At this high-spirited jamboree of everything on two wheels, I was sure I'd start to accumulate some decent shots for the Harley-Davidson book too.

Though it took me a little while to warm up from my winter torpor, very soon the old eyes were starting to 'see' some decent pictures again, and framing and focusing reactions were picking up too. There were countless Harleys grunting around in an almost endless carnival display of two-wheeled kinetic sculpture - how could I go wrong? Soon I'd shot off half a dozen rolls and I was starting to visualise finished pictures in my head, then finding the techniques to capture those images.

To encapsulate the dazzling spectacle and perpetual motion of the crush of bikes on Main Street, I took a position way off to one side of the street and panned the camera on promising Harley targets. I set the Canon EOS-1 and 80-200mm telezoom to medium telephoto and selected manual focus, pre-setting the distance to a point I'd gauged where the bikes would run. A slow shutter speed of 1/30sec or 1/60sec proved sufficient to blur the background yet keep the main subject sharp enough while still portraying that vital element of movement to breathe life into the image. Machines parked in the background created a lovely blurred wall of colour.


	This immaculate vision in white must have cost an awful lot of time and a whole pile of dollars to create. My bit took one frame of Fuji slide film and 1/500sec exactly.

Some of the characters at this carnival are beyond description, suffice to say all human life is represented! No two Harleys are the same and apart from a sprinkling of real ratbikes most of the owners take great pride in showing off their customising skills. This was an area I wanted to concentrate on, and I achieved it in the book by including a combination of stills and action shots.

For another action shot of a custom bike I set up by a bridge over a stretch of water, and waited for the right machine to happen along. My patience was eventually rewarded when a superb symphony in white cruised into view. This was a hand-held shot with the 80-200mm f/2.8 Canon zoom used at full aperture. All the pictures were taken on slow speed Fujichromes such as Velvia and Provia for optimum image quality.


I met Neil at Sturgis in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He'd been riding his 1970 Electra Glide to the rally for a quarter of a century, and covered 200,000 miles without a problem. A burst of fill-in flash illuminated the shadows to balance with the bright sunlight beyond.

Still on customising, I learned that to concentrate attention on a particular design it was especially important to keep the background clear. I've seen a lot of shots with good subjects, but the picture is ruined by a crowd of arms and legs behind or some other distraction. For my shot of the yellow and red custom Harley, I waited until the coast was clear and shot from a slightly higher viewpoint to remove unwanted elements in the distance.

All too soon my spell in Florida was over, and it was time to fly home, get everything processed and take stock. Naturally I couldn't wait to return to the States and later that same year I visited Texas, where a Ford Thunderbird convention was being held, plus some states in middle America. As always people couldn't do enough to help, and I shot piles of pictures for the car book.

In Houston, Texas I also went along to the local Harley hangouts, and with an open and straightforward approach I was able to 'make' my own luck again. Some of the riders look really fierce, but underneath that grim exterior they are the nicest people you can meet. The old days of feuds are long gone, and many of the bikers are now lawyers, doctors and so on. One person that I met turned out to be a motorcycle traffic cop on his day off. I'd wanted some police pictures, and the following day he arranged a police van to carry me along while I shot pictures out of the windows of him and his colleague cruising the Houston interstates - brilliant!


	A tracking shot of traffic cops on the Houston interstate, photographed from the comfort of a police van - all kindly arranged by Tom on the left.

After several trips and hundreds of rolls of transparency film, I'd amassed enough pictures and material to write ten books, never mind two. And I'd had the experience of a lifetime along the way. Did I make any money at it? Well the publishers' advance fee soon evaporated, but the royalties still drop through the letterbox every six months. However this was a project I did for the love of the game, not for the financial gain.