A retrospective on working solo

Read on if you want to take a look through my development as a maker of videos.

I shoot alone a fair amount mostly because finding willing subjects who are actually able to take time to come film, at least in my riding circle,are few and far between. It's actually worked out pretty well, since I started filming myself in 2012 I have improved in basically all aspects involved - riding shooting and filming. I started out with a point and shoot Fujifilm compact. Many hours were spent on the local hill which is covered in a network of mostly paths with a few trails thrown in, this was one of the first full length edits I made, cringeworthy but I still think not a bad start.



Of course instantly I wanted better quality video and it didn't take too long before I upgraded to a tiny HD pocket cam. With an old bulky tripod (my cameras looked ridiculously small perched atop this monstrosity!) I filmed somewhere around 40 videos and they were all edited in Windows Movie Maker. From the pocket cam I went to a GoPro Hero 2 which I used for both helmet cams and more self filmed tripod edits. It was soon after this that I what at the time I considered 'a big share' and that was a video filmed on Glentress on the final stretch of the Black route - Falla Brae. It was shared on the Chain Reaction Cycles Facebook page as a customer edit and my days was I stoked on that.



The other door that opened with the GoPro was self portraits using the timelapse mode, I had a lot of fun playing around with this and got some interesting shots.



2013 was a good year because that was when I managed to get a job over the summer and finally get a DSLR - something I had been aiming for for many months. As well as the videos that I had been making photography was also a growing part of my life despite only have that tiny compact camera. Despite both being 1080p the image sensor in a DSLR simply dwarfs a GoPro and hence provides much better image quality. More than that, manual focus and alterable focal lengths means that framing and focusing shots is hugely flexible.
This was the first time I had tried shooting video with a DSLR



The second video I shot with the new camera scored a UK front page, the first actual edit to be honest. I wrote the following at the time -
"Living in Edinburgh without a car, the Pentlands are the nearest place to truly find adrenaline. Bonaly, once frequented by downhillers, may be quieter these days but the trails still ride well and remain my favourite place to ride in Edinburgh. I've made a lot of videos at Bonaly, each one an improvement to the other - when I am filming myself I am always trying different things and pushing myself harder. There's always that little voice that says,"Do it for the camera!" and often enough that's all I need. This video was a bit different. I worked the Edinburgh Fringe this August and the long hours often at night deprived me of time for riding and I certainly had many a pang for trails but I needed the money. My recent investment in a Nikon D5200 has paid off with initial footage looking far better than I could ever have imagined. The last month working in a busy environment saw my personal confidence grow and make me a happier person and it shows in my riding. Even though I have been off the bike, I'm riding at a new level - much more controlled on the bike. Now in September with a new camera in the hands of a new me this edit just filmed itself - which I guess it did really..."



The next month I returned to the UK front page with October at Bonaly "as a direct sequel to September Riding" and quite frankly it remains one of my proudest accomplishments to date. With a super chill soundtrack and fantastic lighting conditions it was a perfect recipe, my riding had even improved a bit!



It was then over a year and a half until my next notable entirely solo video, Dusty Days, which also managed to get onto the UK front page as well as staying at the top of the /r/MTB hotlist for a number of days. This time it was a fun mashup for the musical accompaniment.



I showed some of my GoPro self portraits earlier and there is an obvious transition to make to DSLR self portraits, however, I don't have a remote which is usually used for taking self portraits especially in biking with a handlebar mounted trigger for example. The lack of that means putting the camera into interval timer mode, essentially a timelapse mode where it takes a photo at a set interval for however long you want. The main problem with this is that it only allows a minimum of a 1 second interval which is a long time when you're flying down a hill. It makes it very tricky (trial and error basically) to actually get a shot in focus.
This was shot this way back in 2013 for my September Riding blog piece.


Whilst these recent efforts where somewhat more adventurous


And there we have it my development from compact camera to DSLR with a few Pinkbike shares along the way.

Whilst this piece has focused on my self shot pieces you can see my fairly lengthy compilation including many of my videos shot of friends such as Not Nervous with Joe Swann which remains the most popular video I have made to date. Several of these videos ended up on the Pinkbike front page, whilst others have been shared by ENDURO Mountainbike Magazine and VitalMTB.