Behind the Scenes – Mountain Biking Lifestyle Shoot — Neufeld Designs

In my opinion, one of the most important things a photographer, or any creative, can do to further their career is to complete personal projects outside the scope of paid work. It accomplishes many things, including:

providing the freedom to experiment without consequence or pressure;
testing new gear and artistic styles;
helping build a portfolio for the type of work you want to do;
offering a creative outlet and recharge; and
providing the opportunity to collaborate and network with other people in the industry

Because of these reasons, I continually try and organize personal projects. The latest of which involved a commercial style mountain biking shoot which can be viewed below.

One of the primary motivations for this specific project was to show potential clients the advantage of shoots with higher production value. Understandably, many clients want the most economical solution possible, so they hire photographers without the budget for assistants or on location lighting. This severely limits what is possible to capture, especially on location. As you can see in the video, a proper production involves a team of people. Even this shoot was still very bare bones.

Another goal of this shoot was to help build a body of work representative of the type projects I want to be hired to do. Clients typically aren’t going to hire you for a specific type of project if you haven’t proven your capabilities in that area. If you want to be a wedding photographer, you need wedding samples. If you want to be a product photographer, you need product photography samples. And so on. It seems obvious when you think about it but I see many people in creative fields ignore this point and get frustrated when they can’t land work in a desired niche. This is especially true for people just starting out – they have limited pieces so they include everything in their portfolio, thinking quantity will make up for quality and relevance.

Lastly, for me this shoot represented the opportunity to recharge creatively. My recent work has all centred around the same industry and I was starting to feel the stagnation that comes with repetitive projects. This shoot had no deadlines, budget restrictions or pressure. It was a style I had been wanting to try and involved a lot of excitement and collaboration with a great team. It’s amazing what a project like this can do in terms of recharging and adding energy back into your professional work.

Nicole Osborne, one of the team members and the talented photographer behind Neo Image Creations, captured the atmosphere behind the scenes beautifully.

So, if you’re a photographer, my advice to you – figure out the type of work you want to do, grab some friends and shoot some cool stuff. Also, have some fun!

The high res gallery can be viewed here.