Bob Boone rode around the corner of South and Pohukaina streets yesterday among a pack of cyclists during Race B of the Kakaako Criterium. Exposure details: Canon EOS 20D, EF-S 10-22mm (at 10mm), Manual, 1/200 sec at f/14, ISO 100, Daylight setting, Canon 580EX speedlight

Sunday rolls around, and I was assigned to the “wild art hunt.” We refer to those stand-alone “kiddie in the park” feature photos as “wild art.” It’s a task that often involves us jumping in our cars and driving around looking for something remotely interesting or, “wild,” to stick in the paper. Sometimes we drive for hours, other times the pictures just appear.

I was outside our office at Restaurant Row and noticed cones being placed up South Street, and remembered that BOCA was holding their Kakaako Criterium bicycle race. Ahhh… the perfect opportunity for “wild art.” So I grabbed my cameras and wandered out to see what was up.

Criterium races generally involve racers riding around in circles for a set period of time, then on the final lap sprinting to the finish. I pondered a finish line shot, but instead opted to hunt for something on the course.

I walked pretty much the length of the course looking for interesting walls or shadows to use, but nothing really lit my candle, so I decided I’d try something with the riders turning a corner. I noticed they really hug the inside of the turn, so now I needed at good turn with decent light. I went to the corner of South and Pohukaina Streets where the sun was at a good angle for drama — slightly backlit, but still some rim light on the riders.

I figured I’d go with some fill flash (on-camera) with a slow shutter speed and pan with a wide-angle lens. The fill would give detail to the riders while the pan would lend a sense of “motion.” So I sat on the corner, far enough away to avoid the riders (all I need is to cause a pile-up), and stuck my camera out and panned wildly as the riders whipped around the corner.

The results were less than stellar. The shutter speed was too slow, and the flash not really getting any detail, so the pictures were turning into bizarre abstracts. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not quite what I had in mind.

I’m not a big fan of on-camera flash, and soon realized the photos had a real flat look to them. So I decided I’d take the flash off-camera and trigger it remotely with a ST-E2 transmitter. I was a little concerned it wouldn’t fire in the sun (the transmitter is an infrared affair, so it gets moody in bright sunlight), but since I didn’t have any Pocket Wizards on me it was the best I could do.

So I placed the flash on the sidewalk aimed directly towards the sun. This would provide the main light for the subject, and the sun would act as a giant rim light. If you look in the lower left corner of the photo you can see some light spill on the sidewalk from the flash.

I panned the camera as the bikes came riding by, but kept the shutter speed relatively high to minimize any really crazy abstracts like I was getting earlier. Now there was just a suggestion of motion. After a few passes of riders, I had what I was looking for.

I shot a few “safe” shots with a long lens, just in case, but turns out they weren’t needed.