Welcome (Back) to Texas: Fishy Beer Bike

I mentioned in the previous post that I’ve photographed Beer Bike for seven years.

And while it is certainly true that the key to good event coverage is always looking for the contextual and visual surprises…it’s also true that sometimes, you just want to try out a different lens. Like a fisheye.

When I rented the fisheye for this trip, I essentially did it for one reason. Everything else, every other picture I took, was just icing on the cake as far as I was concerned.

I wanted this picture:

This is not a groundbreaking, earth-shattering photo by any means, but I like it for two reasons. The first is that I’ve never seen this picture made before (oh, CPOY, you’ve taught me so much!). The second is that, like I said, this is almost exactly the shot I wanted…I wanted an aerial overview of the whole event (when I was deciding on whether to rent or not, Chris very correctly pointed out that the aerial was almost necessary to justify using a fisheye in the first place). This very rarely happens; it’s not often that I have an idea for a photo and then it actually works out as planned.

I thought at first I would just go up to the first level of the football stadium, where there are always some spectators, and see what I could see.

I took a few shots there, but they weren’t right at all. The curve of the horizon wasn’t prominent enough (nor was I high enough to get a convex curve), and the distortion wasn’t working with me.

(This is how not to shoot fisheye photos. Womp.)

So I went higher, to the top of the stadium. It was also the first time I’d ever thought to shoot from this vantage point (I know, I know…), which turned out well for some other photos as well (see previous post).

And from there, it worked. Thanks, fisheye!

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