Upon hearing the news of my friend Mauricio getting married, there was no hesitation when asked if I were able to photograph his wedding. I’ve known Mauricio well over a decade when we became friends after we rode street bikes with mutual friends. He’s been into photography for as long as I can remember, and got a couple of cool shoots of me on my bike a few years ago. So when I mentioned getting a photograph of them for an engagement session, he quickly thought of getting a shot on the bike.
As time approaches closer to the wedding date, restricted time schedules kept us from getting together much less an engagement session. We finally reached a time in which Margie (his fiancé), Mauricio and myself could get together Tuesday of last week. That day came and we prepared to head out to New Mexico just south of Old Mesilla. We traveled about 5 miles before we encountered a rain storm heading in from the south…which is unusual because we rarely get rain. Back at the house we set up to meet last Thursday in the morning.
We met up at the house that morning and before we could travel 5 blocks, we were graced with more rain. Mauricio continued to travel towards the mountain in hope of catching a break.
Even though it was just sprinkling, it was enough to make the roads slick, and bring down the temperature. Margie didn’t even bother getting out of the car…I don’t blame her. So we headed back to the house.
Photo by: Sammy Espinoza
We waited for Sunday in hope of some cooperative weather. There’s something about Sundays that brings great riding weather for most motorcycle riders. The clear skies and warm sun made for a pleasant journey to the pecan groves south of Old Mesilla.
Once there, I set up two flash rigs on the pick up with the use of some PocketWizards. The first rig was set up hanging out of the passenger window, facing what would be the ideal bike spot. I originally was not planing on placing the first rig out the passenger window, but we were short one driver.
The other rig was more a fill flash than anything else. Assuming that I wanted to use the sun as a hair light and have the sun behind them, I wanted to compensate by adding a fill flash perpendicular to the sun. The rig was fastened on a Justin Clamp, then zip tied for security.
At last, we cruised up and down the two mile stretch of pecan trees, where the limbs hang over the road making one get the impression of driving thru a tunnel. I made minor adjustments increasing the power of the flashes, and reducing the speed of the shutter slower and slower.
I’m glad the photo shoot went well and that the weather cooperated. I didn’t have any glitches with the flash rigs or the pocketwizards. At the end of the shoot, we went out for some lunch in Old Mesilla and Mauricio was pretty happy to find out that lunch was on him.
