This week I feature another bike from beautiful Italy – The Aprilia Caponord 1200. Its V2 engine delivers 125 HP and 115 Nm of torque. Being red like a Ducati Multistrada it can be easily told apart from a distance by the missing beak at the front. I have to say I just love the Italian bikes. When it comes to design, the Italians know their trade.

The shooting setup consisted of two flashes on a tripod, shot through an umbrella. The flashes were controlled by a master flash which I mounted on the camera. The following two images required a trick. In order to capture enough residual light to expose the sky in a nice dark blue I had to make a 1,3s exposure. I instructed Tino, the owner of the bike, to stand still for 2 seconds after the first flash had gone off in order to reiceive a sharp image of him.

The extreme colours contrast of the machine (screaming red fairing, matte black and grey engine parts) posed a challenge for the lighting job. The light had to be placed at a very flat angle before and after the bike in order to achieve a good lighting situation:

We shot on a remote public road which led to an agricultural facility, there was no traffic in the evening. That’s an important factor when choosing the location – will there be traffic ? If yes the options of placing your lighting equipment and the bike on the road are very limited. So it is always wise to use a remote of closed location.

This concludes the first part of the shooting. After shooting on the road we moved to another nearby location with a huge metal rolling door, which provided a pseudo-studio environment.

Stay tuned !