Since I was a kid I have read and dreamed about the Bonneville Salt Flats. It has been said that if you are a Buddhist you go to Tibet, but if you are a motorhead, you go to Bonneville. This August I finally made it!

No matter what you have read or seen you will not be prepared for what you will experience.  I arrived a little after 6 am, well before the sun was up, just as the glow on the horizon began to intensify. Once you leave the paved road and roll out onto the salt, you feel like you are in another world. The expanse and flatness, along with the history of racing, creates a sense of place that is beyond written description. Everyone should go to the salt flats at least once in your life to experience it for your self.

This first image conveys my vision of Bonneville. A very old Indian motorcycle contrasted against the high tech helmet and leathers all set on the expansive white surface communicates what I felt.

It can be blistering hot and waiting for the starter to give you the go ahead while wearing full leathers can be excruciating without some shade.

Randy Speranza has been racing for 15 years at Bonneville. He, along with his father, and brother, have set nearly 30 records, 14 of which are still standing.

Recently Tris Cannon, a friend of mine, bought a new Triumph Bonneville and dropped it off in front of my house with out warning. Seemingly a nice gesture! I’ll always believe he knew exactly what he was doing when he dropped off that bike. I now have an overwhelming desire to buy a motorcycle, one like I had in the early 70’s, a Triumph Bonneville. The upside is I felt a new inspiration to shoot which resulted in the image below.

Tris’ Triumph

Me in 1971 with my Triumph Bonneville

In 1971 I was in Da Nang and before I left to come home I bought the bike you see in the photo above sight unseen. A few days after I arrived home I went down to the port of Los Angeles and picked it up in the crate it had been shipped in from England. In those days there were no helmet laws and so I spent the summer racing up and down Pacific Coast Highway without a helmet, and occasionally no shoes and no shirt. Those were the days! Riding Tris’ bike has brought back some great memories.

I received an editorial  assignment to shoot a suit of armor representing the armor of God. Although the art director envisioned shooting in the studio I felt that there was greater potential on location. After driving most of the day we shot at dusk in the Badwater area of Death Valley. I had long wanted to explore the sand dunes nearby so the next morning we got up before the sun and hiked in a mile or two to be in position as the sun rose across the valley. A perfect time for light, shadow and textures. These images were made on a Hasselblad H3D-39 creating files with amazing depth and resolution.

One of the great aspects of being a photographer is the opportunity to work on location. Shooting in the desert, on the beach or in the city brings a whole new set of challenges but when planned and executed professionally can be very rewarding. In this digital age of photoshop many might say that there is no longer a  reason to go on location. It could be argued that these days you can shoot the product in the studio and photoshop it into a stock location shot. The following set of images have been posted for two reasons. One is to give a look behind the scenes to show what it takes to pull off a location shoot. The second is to show that sometimes there are important nuances in the image that can only happen while shooting on location. Scouting the location in advance to determine camera angle, time of day, the setting of the sun (always carry a compass) and other logistics is a must. Then contracting for the right equipment and crew is critical. The crane was used to avoid walking on the sand to maintain the natural textures created by the wind. The most interesting detail of the picture was created by leaving the door in position for a few hours before the shoot to allow the wind to shape the sand around the door. You can see the “waves” in the sand much like current created in water as it passes by a tree in a river.

The next 3 shots are taken from a series of 5 images we made for the MTA to introduce a new line of buses. The logistics of tying up traffic and maneuvering a bus thorugh city streets did not seem worth the time and expense so we shot the bus in the MTA yard at the same time of day that we shot the background assuring that they would feel harmonious as they were composed in Photoshop.