Recently I met 12-year-old Bianca Derka. I was assigned by the Statesman to take a photo of her and her bike at her Buda home.
Reporter Ciara O’Rourke and I sat around Derka’s kitchen table as she described a trip of a lifetime that she took with her father over the summer. Together, Derka and her father, Pavel, rode their bikes from Selma, NC (Pavel’s home) to Austin, TX (Bianca’s home). It took 55 days to ride the 2,222 mile course that crossed nine states.
Pavel was back home in Selma by the time the interview took place, so it was my job to capture Bianca’s side of the story. As I said, we sat around the kitchen table talking, and there was a large window on Bianca’s left that allowed for plenty of natural light. I sat across from her and snapped away as she told stories of man’s greatest achievement – ice cubes, glazed donuts given to her as rewards along the way, and the dozens of interesting people she met.
She had so many great stories, but we met in the evening, and I needed to get her portrait with her bike before the sun went down.
Bianca pulled her bike in to the back yard and I tried to figure out how to pose her. Bikes are surprisingly awkward to photograph. Luckily, confident 12-year-old blondes are much more photogenic.
My favorite portrait was the one at the top, which was the one that ended up in the paper. For all of the portraits I used a 24-70mm lens on my D700 with an SB910 speed light hand held to my left.
Bianca kept a blog during her trip with plenty of photos, so a portrait was all that was needed in this assignment. I really enjoyed meeting her and hearing about her adventures!
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