Freezing Dartmoor

Went for a bit of a walk up on the moors this afternoon and took the camera ( duh!? )

Also was really testing out a new app I got for my phone, like it so should be tweeting a lot more random photos from all over the place....

Anyway a few pics..

First a few from my phone:





And now a few from the big camera...










Thanks to the ponys of great staple tor for being such good models

DIY camera Dolly - How to

Now I have been busy ever since I started making films making little toys and tools to help get slightly differant shots and to improve what I am doing.

I have made a few things in the past, Jibs, shoulder mount rigs , steering wheel thingys , etc but its the simple camera dolly I have tried to make on I think its 4 or 5 differant projects now.

Now they seem very simple in theory, but to make one thats easy to use, easy to transport, quick to use, smooth, and versitile is quite tricky.

MK1- I made where full size and took a full size tripod on, it was in essence a MTBoard with a cross strut on it and some tracks for the wheels to run on... To Heavy

MK2- Was that same rib but chopped down so just the camera sat on it...camera had to be level or horrizons where wonky

MK3- A new rig from scratch using scooter wheels on a small wooden truck with an old bodged tripod head on it...Not smooth enough and tripod head kept hitting the ground when using it in the woods

MK4 - This is my new one. I looked at what the best ones online where, and rather than looking at them and working out how to cut corners, I just copied them...and unsupprisingly it worked out well...DUH!?

O well its the journey not the destination right ?

Anyway First Have a few photos of my new one... I will then list all the componont parts and a few links on where to get them...





















Right first off you need the strip of Alu angle- I got mine from Focus but you can get it in any old B&Q etc

Then the steel rods - again same places

the nuts, bolts and washers - again same places

Then the wheels, now I used 8 skateboard wheels I got 4 from a mate off an old board he has which I brought for £5 , and the other 4 my mate gave me as they where his old ones... But you would be best ideally getting new ones so they are the exact same size.

Then the bit of ply wood the camera sits on, and a few zip ties to get it on to the steel rod axels...

Now the tripod head is what makes this dolly so much better than all my earlier attempts, Just a simple ball head with QR lever- I got this one but any simalar one will do...



Thats about it really, Any more questions add them in the comments and I will answer them.

If people want I can do ones for the other bits and bobs I have made, but will see if theres the interest.

Thanks Jacob

Speed Kings cover Artwork

If you follow the latest MTB DVD realeses you will have heard about the new film from Scott Marshall "Speed Kings"

The trailer looks like something from the days of sprung, more than just racing or smashing out full on DH....just fun on things with 2 wheels. Makes you want to go ride.

Anyway back to the reason of this post, The photos on the front and back cover....

Now the photo on the back cover of the bike painted on the road ISNT mine. Im not to sure whos shot it is but its NOT mine.

ALL other shots on the front and back covers are mine, and im stoked on how this looks, really filmic, love it.

Anyway heres the Cover layouts....and a link to an excusive section from it on Dirt...See Scotts site to order it on this link

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/speed-kings-matt-simmonds-joe-smith.html

2 more from last season

Looking through the 1000s of photos again for something, Found these 2 that I quite like...

Ones from Ft Bill, the other from Val Di Sole... The one of Marc is from Val Di Sole which is the round he won, missed this shot first time round when it mattered... O well...

Gee Atherton, the video...

Right a few weeks ago I blogged about Gee Atherton coming down to Gawton to do the Dirt 1:04 with a few photos and screen shots...

See it here: http://jacobgibbinsdotcodotuk.blogspot.com/2010/10/gee-atherton.html

And the video I filmed went up on Dirt a day or 2 ago.... Having had very nearly 60,000 views in its first weekend online... its not going to badly.

Anyway please find the video embeded bellow....


MPORA Action Sports >>

Goon Ride ( Dolly test )

The other afternoon I finaly had the last part for my new Dolly ive been making the last month delivered.

So I just wanted to get out and try it out on something slightly more taxing than the walls and flowers in my garden, So gave my mate mono ( filmer for MTBcut ) a call and said lets go out the woods, I need to try this out, you like riding whats not to like WIN WIN!?

Where down there shooting about 45 mins till it started raining, so well called it a day, Came home and spent 15 mins editing. thats a 2 min riding web vid turned round from start to online in an hour...

And we thought, with all the vids out there of people just riding, that arnt pros, so we went for the goon ride approach.

Anyway, enjoy, the only real clips in this thing both in terms of riding and shooting are the last two... just a bit of fun...more polished vids coming in the near future of some much better riders.



Will get some snaps and a DIY step by step of the dolly online in the coming days....

Few more from the WCs

This time Ben Baker wanted me to have a look for photos of him from a few of the WCs...

So while looking for the one of him I found, I came accross these ones...

Now I was giving them a quick edit in PS and they all just seemed to look best as BWs, not to sure why, but none where really had strong uses of colour so not much was lost.

Anyway few from Champery WC last season, riders are the Santa Cruz Syndicate and Harry Heath.

Few randoms from last season...

When ever anyone asks me for photos of a rider, It means me searching through all the shots I have taken this season, and that's no small task.

Now I'm not complaining, its my job to do this but when I do I quite often find other photos that I missed first time round looking for things totally different.

So this morning I got an email from the editor of WO asking for a few snaps of Marc B from the season for his interview in the next issue, and as I was going through I saw a few random shots from a few races and they just jumped out at me as wanting a bit of extra attention and putting online... so here they are with a bit about when they where taken.



First is a shot of Josh Brcyeland doing a tricky jump on the Champery Wc track, steep dusty shoot run in, to this big triple, I waited there for a good 15 Min's waiting for someone to come down and put some style in to it while the sun was out, getting both at the same time isn't so easy ha



Another one from Champery, but this time just a wide shot where I was trying to show the big switch backs that make up most of the track, steep, gnarly, off the back of the bike, everything a real track should be.



Now to the other end of the season and Rd1 in Maribor...
One of the few riding shots of Hill I have from this season, and this was the worst days shooting I had all year, qualis in Maribor where heavy rain all day, and sitting in one spot for 5 hours as people did 1 practice run early on, then nothing till there 1 quali run...on a mountain, in the cold, and rain, soaked to the skin... FUN!



One of Gee at Val Di Sole this time, right near the bottom of the track, just like the colours and composition, not to sure why but I just like it, and when you consider this was the first real photo op in the woods from the bottom ( eg, min effort to shoot ) its all the sweeter.



Mr Minnar in the top rocks at Val... the light on practice day was just amazing, the section was Tog Deep as Keith would say. Anyway he walked up to do it again, and just as he passed through some trees I snapped this, just a moment of calm in all the chaos of the WCs



Nothing like a good old sequence shot. Now I know this isn't perfect with all the overlapping and the fact hes not sideways but there in is the story...

I waited for Bren in particular to come down for half an hour, he had been whipping the bottom jumps at Champery hard all week so I thought this shot would sum that up.

Anyway coming in to the jump he got a bit sketchy so backed off so was a bit of a huck to just clear it, any who...looks nice I think.


Thanks all

Keep your eyes on the blog for new on a few things coming in the next few days...

Thanks

Jacob

Few Desktop Backgrounds...

I have been meaning to get these done for some time now, I may add more if I get enough requests for certain shots...

But for now there is a gallery of 15 ish high res files for use as desktop Background.

http://www.jacobgibbins.co.uk/album/

click that link...find the image/s you want, then see the link that says "zoom" just bellow the thumnails on the left ?

click that for a nice file thats 1600 pixels wide...

Hope you enjoy them, I have all of them on a slideshow that changes on the hour for my desktop a home, and they look sweet!

Thanks

Jacob

Marketing yourself and blowing your own horn

Right, first off I would like to say I am by no means a big player on all this, and have no qualifications that allow me to write this, just what I have done myself, and what I have found to work!

Right the Disclaimer said, I'm just going to run through a few of the things I have done to help Market myself and self publicise my work.

I have always been quite pro active when it comes to Marketing, I think for what I do, paying google for some add words, or for adverts on Bike sites just isn't worth the money, I'm much better off advertising myself via actual content.

I will do this with Bullet points to make it easier...

Advertising:

I do this by watermarking every image that I put online, be it on twitter,Flickr, my blog, my site, everywhere! people see the images and they see my name at the same time. I know people say they are off putting, and take things away from the images, but if you don't want the watermark on the images, put your finger over that corner ? Don't make them bold, and large and put them in the middle of an image, but on the bottom, or in a corner is fine IMO.













































Social media and networking:

Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Facebook are all Forms of social media and networking and they are all amazing tools for marketing yourself.

Most people are on a few of them, and its just being aware of how to make the most of them, don't post the same things on both, use them in conjunction with each other.

Post on Twitter about an idea, Follow that up with a FB post with a bit more detail telling them about a full write up coming up on your blog ?

With flickr and blogs, don't just post photos regularly but also comment on other peoples work, its called social for a reason!

Branding:

This is the most important part as far as I'm aware. It affects everything you do online with regards to your business.

Get a website, logo, colour scheme that's all the same, use the same things, in the same ways, in the same places every time you do it so it looks uniform and coherent.

Look at my site, watermarks, video idents etc all the same fonts and colours, was that by accident, no...
























video:

For me personally this is a HUGE part of my marketing, its a skill I have that not a lot of other people have, being able to produce high quality work with both stills and videos. So I combine them with slide shows etc but also the idents on the start and end of every video I make is great adverting for me with most of my videos that go online getting anywhere from a few thousand to 100,000 + views... that's a lot of eye balls seeing my web address...

Jacob Gibbins 2010 Showreel from jacob gibbins on Vimeo.

If you don't make video, you have lots of other places you can put your name:

Forum signatures
PB,Fb,Mpora profiles
Blogs
Flickrs

make sure they all have good up to date info on them that's relevant to what your trying to do...

I think that just about sums up what I wanted to say in this post anyway.

If you have any more questions or things you want me to cover, jot them down in the comments on this post and If there's enough to warrant another post, You shall get one!

Thanks

Jacob