When I moved to Boulder I knew very few people in the area, but I knew my friends, Lee and Emily from my trip to Patagonia, lived in nearby Golden. I’ve only been able to meet up with the a couple of times, but I’d mentioned to Lee about doing a trail running shoot soon. We finally found a date that worked.
A few miles outside of Boulder a system of trails run between highway 93 and the first range of mountains. They are great for running and mountain biking, and to just get out of the city for a few.
One of these areas is called Doudy Draw, and Lee picked it for our location. With Lee, Emily, and my assistant Scott we head up into the draw. I decided to pull out all of my tricks for this shoot. I brought out my studio strobes (Scott is a beast and carried them to all the locations) just in case I might use them. Glad I did.
I had been envisioning this shot for a while, a small runner running down the apex of a hill with a small tree against the horizon.
The sun kept playing peekaboo with us, but we were able to get the shots I was looking for.
And with the pop of the shutter, before I’d even looked at the screen I knew this shot was exactly what I wanted from the shoot. The studio strobe lit his face, the sun peaking from behind his back, Lee in full stride. And I figured out how to trick my studio strobe into firing faster than the 1/200th sync speed using my Pixel King ETTL wireless radio slaves. Again, I hope to do a full review on those soon.
The sun went behind some clouds but gave off some great diffused light, providing this photo with beautiful ambient lighting.
I love playing with flash and slash lighting whenever I can.
I’ll have some more updates soon. Take care.