Bike Restoration

I took these photos a while back, over winter break, when I was restoring an old road bike that I found lying around my house. The bike was in great condition considering it was 30+ years old, but the paint had lots of chips in it that we filing with rust. The first picture captures one of my favorite parts of the restoration, when I used the paint stripper to remove all of the paint so I could sand the frame down. I had never used a paint stripper before, but learned that it was very toxic and very dangerous. You could see how the stripper ate away at the pain and made it easy to wipe right off. Despite the hazard, it worked wonders on the bike frame and made it very easy to remove the current paint which was old and was applied very thick. I think this photo of the bottom section of the frame is a really interesting photo, I was able to get a very neat angle with great focus on the frame. The lighting is a little on the dark side, but the light is visible where is counts and lets you see the stripper bubbling up the paint. After I stripped all of the paint off of the bike, I proceeded to sand it down until the metal was smooth and then I applied a primer coat, and then the green paint. With the new paint job, which can be seen in the second photo, the bike frame was now smooth and looked much sleeker. I really like the contrasts in the second photo of the bike frame; the bike frame stands out from the newspaper but also blends in, but you can tell the newspaper is not the focus of the picture, even though it is in focus and almost in the same depth of field as the bike. All together, the bike restoration took about a week, which included taking the bike apart completely, stripping, painting, applying all new parts and cables, and reassembling. I’m thinking about making it a side business of mine.

Springing Forward

Spring is right around the corner, and we’ve been experiencing some great previews of the glorious spring weather soon to come to the valley. After reading over some of my past posts, its time to reassess my topics of these posts, they have become to much like journal entries, so here it goes. I saw the perfect opportunity to capture some really cool shadows the other day walking back from class on Pollock Road. The sun was in an interesting position where I had to focus my phones camera behind a tree to not get the sunlight into the lens, and I loved the results. There is a really interesting contrast between the highlights and the shadows here, especially towards the bottom of the photo. I also want to point out the shadows and highlights from the trees at the right side of the photo, the lines are really crisp and the highlights are not to bright, it is the perfect mix for an interesting shadow. The photograph seems to be a bit dark at first but when you look further into it, it brightens up and you can see the light, almost like the winter months are almost ending and spring is near. To build on that concept, it is worth noting that people on the right sidewalk are walking into the picture, into the light, into spring, inferring even more of a forward movement. The color effects I added to the photo help to make it seem somewhat old and over/under exposed and bring more personality to the photo; a pink sky and yellow sidewalk are pretty uncommon but focus on the sunlight. After spring break, I plan on upgrading from my cell phone camera and bringing my professional camera up to get more creative with my shots, so be ready!