Since this year is coming to a close, I thought I’d share with you what I think are some of the better photos from 2010. This year I shot the usual desert and short course races, along with King of the Hammers, some mountain biking, and the NHRA finals thrown in towards the end of the year. In total I went to about 28 events, and took around 40,000 photos. So be patient! Its a pretty long blog but hopefully worth the wait!

Before I begin I’d just like to thank my wife Jamie for putting up with another busy year of photography. I’m usually gone a few times a month which leaves all the responsibility of running a household on her while I’m gone. She is incredibly supportive and unselfish to let me do what I love and enjoy, and she is the backbone of our family.

First off I’d thought I’d show some of my favorite photos from mountain bike races I went to. I shot one endurance race called The Vision Quest / Counting Coup, and also covered a local series out in Irvine called Over The Hump Series. I started riding bikes myself the past few years and I’ve grown to really love the sport. Its man versus nature at the basic level, and the time you spend on the bike can be very relaxing.

The Counting Coup runs through the Santa Ana Mountains, and gives some great backgrounds and also some really good light in the morning.

The Over The Hump Race is held at Irvine Lake and also gives you some great backgrounds to chose from. OTH is a local series with great support from the community, and is a lot of fun to shoot. Its held every Tuesday for about 2 months so you get a lot of opportunities to play around with different angles.

The races are held during the end of the day so you get some nice lighting to work with.

Among short course racing, Crandon Offroad Raceway is the grandfather of all tracks. Its where the traditions and backbone of the sport started. Crandon is a great track with its wide open speeds, great scenery, and even better people. Here are a few from this years Labor Day race that I liked.

Here are a few of my favorites from this years LOORRS season. At the Surprise, AZ course one turn I like to shoot at is this photo below. Its a wide sweeping turn and during the race the sun is behind the corner so it gives the light a cool look to it.

Robby Woods flies through the air and into the sunset.

A course worker flags down the field silhouetted by the sun.

Ricky Johnson has the Santa Ana Mountains in the background has he hits a jump at Glen Helen Raceway.

Sean Geiser goes for a ride in his Prolite Truck.

Here is one shot from the King of the Hammers, this was taken at one of the more popular spectator spots called Sledgehammer.

At a few races this year I was able to mess around with remote flashes and cameras during the race, and was able to get a few interesting shots. At the SCORE Laughlin Leap I set up my Canon 550ex flash to the right of the trucks and walked farther down the landing area to get a nice head on shot.

At a LOORRS race this year Kyle Leduc let me put my flash inside his truck, so that I could fire it from the track. My goal was to get some interesting shots with the background and truck dark with the cab and him all lit up. You can see my blog about it here.

Here are two shots that I liked the best from the series.

That same weekend I also mounted a Canon 20D on the back of Kyle Leducs truck. Here is a blog about that as well.

I also had the opportunity in 2010 to help out a friend who runs the company Dirtbagz with some product photography. It was my first time doing product shots and I enjoyed it a lot and hope to do more in 2011.

Shooting desert racing is my first love. Its not just going to a track and shooting photos, its the adventure of racing from spot to spot to beat your client. Its prerunning before hand to find the best spots along the course, and the logistics of putting it all together with a game plan for race day. The course is constantly changing as more vehicles carve into the dirt. At a Nascar race you can go to the media center for lunch, in Baja you live off the local taco stand and Doritos.

I’d say overall one of the best desert races of 2010 for photos was the SNORE Mint 400. The course is rough with a lot of great spots, but the qualifying session the day before the race was a photographers candy jar. One spot along the qualifying loop was a jump at the bottom of a long downhill and the racers put on a great show, both intentionally and unintentionally. Here are three photos, one of Cameron Steele crashing his Trophy Truck after landing in a deep hole after the jump, and Roger Norman launching his truck in the air, and a Class 1 car who surprisingly saved it and just ended up breaking his front a-arm.

Here are some more of my favorite shots from the 2010 desert racing season.

Another photo from the Mint 400 where Zorba Racing blows their front bumper into the silt.

Overlooking contingency at the SCORE San Felipe 250 race.

Wilson Motorsports races down the town of Ensenada at the Baja 500.

Mastercraft’s Robbie Pierce and COPS Racing blast through a silt bed in San Felipe.

KING Shock using a Macro Lens.

BJ Baldwin launches off a jump at the BITD Vegas 2 Reno race.

Andy McMillin during qualifying for the BITD Parker 425.

Well thats it for the best of 2010, thank you for taking the time to look over my blog and photos for the past year. I enjoy showing my work to all of you and hope you enjoy checking them out. 2011 looks to be an even busier year then the last so make sure to keep checking back for updates! Thanks again and see you at the track/desert/mountains/dragstrip/rocks and more!

Jason Zindroski
HighRev Photography

This time last year marked the first time I photographed a mountain bike race. It was called the Vision Quest / Counting Coup mountain bike race in the Santa Ana Mountains, put on by the Warriors Society. The Vision Quest race is 56 miles long, with 11,000 feet of elevation, with the Counting Coup being 44 miles and 8,000 feet. I had a great time last year shooting all the racers and seeing them on their own personal battle. It’s always inspiring to watch someone push themselves beyond what they think they can do.

For this year I made it a goal to cover the Vision Quest again, and I’m glad that I did. The day started off early waking up at 4am to make it to the 5:30am start time for the race. Like all races I wanted to shoot in more then one spot so I planned on shooting about 18 miles into the course at a place called Motorway. It is a single track down the mountain leading to the first aid station, and the same area I shot last year. I like this section because it gives you a lot of different angles in a short amount of distance.

I got there when it was still dark out, and started to make the hike up the trail to setup where I’d be shooting first. I was expecting the leaders to come by about 7:30am so I had plenty of time to roam the trail and find where I wanted to shoot first. The spot I chose was about a mile from the aid station with some nice brush on either side of the trail. I also liked it because it gave me about 5 different shots in the same place.

I could shoot them head on right in front of me.

Here is last years winner Manny Prado, who would unfortunately succumb to mechanical failure and not finish this year.

Or I could take a photo a little earlier to use the brush in the shot more.

As the racers made their way down the trail I could turn to my right and see them coming down once again. This is one of my favorite shots from the race. Because it was early in the morning there was some great light.

As they traveled further down I could catch them once again.

My goal for the second spot I planned on shooting at was to try and catch the race leaders a couple miles before the finish near Holy Jim, so I started making the trek back to the aid station. Along the way I would stop and photograph racers as they passed me by.

Here is another favorite from the race, I’d shot the same exact spot last year and liked the story it tells with the rider versus the trail. In all my photos I tried to show the battle between man versus nature.

2010 Version

2009 Version

One thing that I enjoyed about the day was seeing people I recognized in photos from last year racing again this year. I wonder if anyone remembers me from last year!

Up next was the finish line. Last year I rode in about 3 miles with all my photo gear in my backpack, and while I didn’t mind riding in, the body part above my seat wasn’t too happy about it after the race. The road is pretty bumpy and having 40 pounds of photo gear on your back doesn’t help. This year I decided to use a bike trailer to tow all my gear in. Here is a crappy cell phone photo.

I chose not to drive in even though the road stays open as to not be “that guy” riding against race traffic. It amazed me how fast people were driving the opposite direction knowing that a bike race is going on. I tried to warn everyone who drove past me but some people were oblivious, and saw a few close calls. Hopefully next year they can get the road shut down.

For my final spot I wanted to use off camera flash to shoot the photographs. Last year I used only my Canon 550ex flash with an off camera cord, and while some shots came out decent I wasn’t that happy with them. The problem was that with only one flash it was hard to light up the racers enough. For this year I rented a Quantum QFlash T5d-R strobe to give me more power and another light source. I wanted to have that strobe to light up the rider, and use my Canon 550ex flash as more of a rim light behind the rider. I also used Pocketwizards to fire both lights so I didn’t have to worry about setting up a corded booby trap for everyone.

Here is a shot of how the lights were setup. Quantum on the right, and the 550ex on the left.

And here is how the shots came out.

As compared to last year with only one light.

Again I had a great time shooting this race. I’m pretty lucky that as a job I get to photograph two things that I enjoy, offroading and mountain bike riding. That along with my wonderful family I don’t have much to complain about these days. Well maybe that the race starts too early and interrupts my sleep .

Congrats to all those who participated, whether you finished or not you still did something most will never do! An extra congrats goes out to Erik Brown, Leigh Heyer, Elaine Gold and Chris Hanson. Erik, Leigh and Elaine were all awarded the Annual Haislett Trophy after the event. Extra congrats goes to Chris because he landed on a rock going down Motorway and put a hole in his nice new $6000 carbon fiber bike frame. That’s like taking a 94 Honda Civic that you bought for $6K and shooting a hole in the engine . Sorry bud, you can borrow my $500 bike anytime you need it!

All my photos from the event are up on my site, and I am giving 15% of all sales back to the Warriors Society as a thanks for putting on the event and for all that they do for the mountain bike community. You can visit their writeup about the event by clicking HERE.

To view all my photos from the race you can see them HERE.

John Early was also at the race taking photos at the finish line, and you can check them out on his website.

Until next time!

For the past five years I’ve been lucky enough to travel the country and photograph different types of off-road motorsports.  Being able to combine my love for photography and off-road has been good to me and I am grateful at each event I cover that I get to do what I do.  As a photographer I try and improve each time I’m out somewhere shooting, and one way I think is a good way to do that is try and photograph something different.  It gives you a new way of looking at things and gives yourself a challenge.  Doing something you’ve never done before always teaches you something new about yourself.

Back on March 7th, 2009 two friends of mine, Jordan May and Chris Hanson had entered a Mountain Bike race the Warriors Society put on called the Counting Coup / Vision Quest.  The race is based out of the Santa Ana Mountains in Orange County, CA.  Its 44 miles of tough trails, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who attempts such a feat.

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

My day started early as I planned on catching the leaders as they went through the halfway point through Maple Springs.  The day prior Jordan and Chris brought me to the location so I’d know how to get there on race day.  I always like to be prepared ahead of time so I appreciated them taking the time to show me.  I’m sure the last thing on their mind the day before having to trek 44 miles is take me on a joy ride to check out spots .

The race started at 6am, so I woke up at about 5 to make sure I would get there in time.  I knew I was in for a long day so I brought along plenty of water and snacks to get me through the day.  I got to Maple Springs with time to spare so I spent some time hiking backwards on the course.  I had about an hour to kill before the lead riders came through this spot so I used it to scout out where I’d want to shoot this part of the race.  I ended up hiking about two miles back from the aid station and found a good spot to shoot.  The nice part about that area is that it gave you a lot of different angles to work with.  It was in a canyon, so by simply turning around and shooting behind me it would give you a completely different look.

Here you can see a photograph of the riders coming down the single track along the mountain.

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

And then by simply turning to my left you could shoot them riding down the other side of the canyon.

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

I also wanted to play around with off camera flash photos, so I hooked up my Canon 550ex Flash to an off camera cord.   I tried it early in the day at the first spot so that I could get some photographs looking into the sun. I always like photos when you have the sun flaring in the shot, it gives it a real cool look. For these shots I used the 17-40 F4L lens and got as close as I could to the course without getting in the way. I then stopped down to underexpose the photo and used the flash to light up the rider.  Took me a little while to get the right settings down, but after I did I walked away with some photos that I liked.

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

I was able to catch both Jordan and Chris at that location so after they went by I worked my way back to the aid station where my truck was, and headed to the finish area to catch them one more time.

Chris is cool

Jordan the muscle man

The finish line was located near O’Neil Park where the Holy Jim Trail hits the street.  The race course is on public land so they aren’t able to close the course, so before the leaders came into the finish I rode back about 5 miles to catch them again.   Riding with full gear + no riding shorts = unhappy taint.  The ride to the spot I was going to shoot wasn’t that bad, but after Jordan and Chris went by and I headed back I had to ride the whole way standing up lol.

For these photos I wanted to use the off camera flash again.  My goal was to find a nice shaded area so that I could get some good panning photos with the foliage in the background blurred while the riders were nice and crisp.  There are a lot of great mountain bike photographers out there who have this down to a science. One photographer who does a great job at cycling and mountain bike photos is Michael Kirk.  He posts a lot on Fred Miranda and was nice enough to give me a few quick tips.

My biggest obstacle I’d have to over come was having enough flash to freeze all the rider, while at the same time stopping down the photo to be able to get a nice background blur. Another problems was that if I shot with the flash at full power the recycle time was a bit long, and I would miss a few riders.   If I shot at 1/2 power the recycle time would improve, but I sacrificed power.  With only one flash I didn’t get the exact results I was hoping for, but was able to grab a couple keepers.

He seemed pretty happy after riding 44 miles.

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

2009 Counting Coup / Vision Quest

All in all I had a really good time shooting the race, and really want to try and make it out to more as my schedule permits.  Here are a few more photographs from the day, and you can find the full gallery here. Enjoy!