Magazine cover pictures don't get much attention from most readers, but that's kind of the way they're supposed to work. After all, the whole point of a great cover shot is to draw browsing eyes in at the newsstand, entice a quick flick through and - hopefully - encourage a trip to the till.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of thought put into them. Quite the opposite, in fact, and mountain bike mags - for many years a bastion of the 'pick a nice shot from one of the features we're running and stick it on the cover' school of thought - have become more switched on to the impact a well-planned cover shot can have on sales. In a tough consumer magazine market, it's time and money well spent.
Here's an example from last year. MBUK wanted a shot to illustrate a technique feature on fast descending. So far, so much like any number of previous MBUK covers. But there were a number of specific criteria the picture had to meet:
- it had to be downhill (natch)
- it would preferably be rocky
- there'd be blue sky in the background
- there'd be plenty of motion blur
- the rider needed to look aggressive and confident
- the bike would probably not be airborne, but if it was it needed to be low to the ground
Just to add to the interest, a cover mount flap meant that most of the image had to be concentrated on the right hand side of the cover (which would also mean the rider travelling from left to right). MBUK's art ed, James Blackwell, even took the unusual step of sketching an image of how they wanted the cover to look for me.
So, armed with one of the most detailed briefs I've ever been given for a cover shoot, it was time to do some brainstorming.
Planning is everything for a shoot like this, so time spent at this stage can save a lot of hassle later on. Searching for a location can easily eat up a whole day, and experience has taught me that it's better to go straight to a specific place that I know will work (or at least will probably work) and that's close to at least one alternative. The fast, rocky and downhill requirements were easy to meet; the blue sky less so.
But I could think of one location that I'd used before that allowed a nice low angle and had all the other elements we needed. The only downside was that we'd need to be there early in the morning. And, assuming it was sunny, we'd have a window of just an hour to an hour and a half to get the shot before the rider would be completely backlit.
The weather on the day turned out gloomy and overcast, which was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it potentially gave us a longer window of opportunity. On the other, it meant a lot more Photoshop work to insert a believable-looking blue sky behind the rider. Not my problem, ultimately, but I prefer the look of a 'real' blue sky on the whole.
Still, you've got to work with what you have. After a quick check to make sure that Oli Beckingsale, our rider for the day, was happy with the location (he was - a rider who isn't happy, incidentally, will never ride at their best, so this stage isn't just a formality) it was time to set up some lighting to lift the dull day. Setting my main flash to the right and below Oli, I positioned a second flash to the left and behind as a rim light. It's not quite the same as sunlight, but it adds contrast and punch in flat lighting.
And, um, action...
Nikon D2X, 12-24mm f/4 @17mm, 1/200sec f/8 @ ISO100, two radio slaves
I quickly discovered that shooting from such a low angle - a choice forced on me by the need to include as much sky as possible - meant that I could only hear, rather than see, Oli approach. After a couple of missed shots I asked James to count me down... after which I had to rely on quick reflexes and a certain degree of good luck in getting the shot.
As usual in a situation like this, the only thing to do is to keep taking pictures. With this kind of setup, involving a high speed descent and a single shot per pass, it's hard work for the rider. It's also tricky to keep riding the same section of trail ad infinitum without feeling self-conscious, so it's good to get a useable shot or two in the bag early on.
This, as it turns out, was one of the best shots of the day - and also one of the first that I took. Although I was having difficulty with the need to crop aggressively to the right of the frame, I knew that a combination of some tight cropping and a bit of Photoshop - plus the covermount flap - would effectively shift the rider over to the right for me.
Here's the end result, after having a new sky inserted and a little Photoshop work on the foreground and background.
What's interesting about this cover is that it matches the original brief so closely, right down to the angle and positioning of the bike and rider. That doesn't happen all the time, of course - sometimes reality intervenes to rule out a specific angle or location. But on this occasion all the planning paid off, and MBUK got precisely the cover they wanted.
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