“We hear ‘eat locally’ quite often these days, but sometimes it’s difficult for landscape and adventure photographers to stay close to home when the great outdoors are beckoning. Fortunately I live in Seattle, where adventure can be found literally out my back door. Here are some photos from a half-day sea kayaking trip around Blake Island in Puget Sound. All images were shot hand-held (mostly from my sea kayak) with a Canon Rebel XT, Canon 17-85 IS and polarizer.”

Is your “back yard” a photography heaven too? Send in some images so we can see.

Sounds easy perhaps, as going downhill shouldn’t require too much pedaling, right? Wrong. Proper DH tracks feature quite a lot of technical elements you need to speed up into or out of. Without a chain and the ability to propel himself, a DH biker will need to concentrate much more on keeping the momentum and having a steady, stable ride in order to finish a run successfully.

I visited the event to take some still photographs as part of the production of a local Free ride and downhill movie currently in progress, titled “Loose grounds“. Using my friend’s Canon digital Rebel which has seen some unique views in its life by now, I got these few nice samples to share here.

Photographed a unique event yourself? Tell about it on The Wide Lens

The small town atmosphere was broken by the roar of Harley Davidson’s and other custom motor bikes. Cruising around were dozens of bikes, and in growing numbers as the distance to Daytona beach, and its speedway in particular, shortens- where dozens became thousands.

I’ve quickly found these beautiful machines (although you got to admit… all that polishing all day is a bit over the top) to be amazing photography objects, providing a variety of colors, textures, reflection and original composition opportunities. I found myself lingering next to many of the bikes, and this series shows just a bit of the selection.

As I was not planning on a photography adventure, all images were taken with my travel friendly Canon Ixus-850 (Or SD-800) digital pocket camera.

Got cool motor bike pictures or another interesting photography experience to share, send me a post!