Like most of my work, it is all in the evolution of the capture as time progresses over a year. The biggest thing to come out of the last year besides capturing the seasons is mastering a style of jump photography with the bicycle. It has humble beginnings much like the rest of what I capture.

The original intent of the jump shot was to capture the feeling of really needing to get out and go. Whether it was because I was running late, and no time was had, or that the day had a feeling it was going to be an exciting one, and thus the need to rush into it was there. The first iteration of this was hard enough to capture with vaulting on to the bike, pivoting my leg over the seat to rest myself then continuing forward, all while counting to 10 and hoping the back leg was lifted. The process was anything but quick and a complete lie of the intended feeling that the photograph was showing the an onward emotion.

With the freezing of time and the pausing of the legs in mid-air now discovered, a new idea arose to capture more of the dance that exists with the bike. In the beginning of the year most of the frames were tilted down only capturing the lower half of the body, thus, with jumping you could raise the torso out of the frame and capture just the expression of the legs with the bike. The pose has nothing to do with scurrying of to work, however, a bit of awe is captured at the peak of the leap, so it soon became a go-to staple.

However, as the staple started to ware out, it was only natural to return to the original thought of capturing the get and go feeling. With many iterations being done already, what could be changed to make the frame exciting? A simple shift of perspective. A ninety degree rotation doesn’t quite capture the honesty of heading straight out to work, but it is a good compromise between the dance and the original idea of getting out and going. The splendor of a mid-air capture is there, and a slight struggle is shown on the face relating that it’s not an easy task to actually get up and go grab the day.

As the year wound down, and most of the original ideas had been exhausted in conveying the original theme and the only thing left to do was to make each frame as magical as possible. If you can jump, and you can jump holding on to your bike, the only natural progression is to jump, while letting the bike stay upright by itself.

Finally, a year has passed with the project, and the only left to do is jump for joy like any other person would at the completion of a goal. Looking back on what was accomplished, it is inspiring to see how everything progressed over a year. Taking on the realization that things might not click the first time they are tried, it is great to see that if enough effort and heart is put into something, eventually they will mold a final product worthy jumping for.

Ryan Behner