Earlier this week, Brett Rheeder contacted me about shooting a new jump line he had built near his place in Mount Albert. I was of course down to come shoot it and shuffled some other work around to make it happen. Brett took the time to build a super nice step-up near an old abandoned farm house. I love that he actually considered the surroundings and light for photography purposes. I think he may be the only kid in Ontario that gets it. Most of the stuff I get asked to shoot is in some litter strewn ghetto with power-lines on every side.

I arrived at Brett’s place mid morning where he met me with his bud Matt Pollington. They were both ready to roll so we headed out to the jumps in Brett’s truck. When I got there, I was immediately impressed with the jump. The one thing that I was a bit concerned about though was it’s proximity and visibility from the road. I snapped a quick portrait of Brett by one of the barns then we started shooting the good stuff.

This shot of Brett was nominated in the first-ever Photo of the Year content on bike bike.  It eventually lost to the contest winner but it is was an honour to have it make the cut.

We got a bit of shooting under our belts, but already I could see that we were drawing a lot of attention from nosy passer-byers. It wasn’t long into the shoot when we heard a car crash on the road above. A young boy on an ATV had turned around on the road to get a better vantage point and was hit by a women in a minivan. It sounded bad so we ran up to see if everyone was ok. Everyone was fine so we decided to clear out and wait for the heat to pass. We headed back to the Rheeder compound to have some lunch and regroup. Mike Gray joined us and we made our way back to the jumps. Unfortunately the nice blue sky I had in the morning had become overcast but we made the most of it.

Thanks for all the effort Brett and Matt. I’ll be back to shoot this at twilight next week – if it’s still standing.