Last month I was assigned by the Statesman to shoot what they called, “a spin class on steroids.”
That was an accurate description.
I went to Cyc, a new spin studio in Austin, with multimedia journalist Kelly West. The energy level was already high as soon as we walked in the door. Instructor Keoni Hudoba met with us briefly before starting the class. He told us there would be loud music, lots of movement, lots of sweat, and the lights would be mostly off. Hmm…a perfect situation for photos (that was sarcasm)…I’ll grab my flash.
The room was crowded, there was just enough space between bikes for each class participant (“Cyco”) to move around on their bike, but not enough for me to move between them. Soon the lights turned off, all except a few orange lights around the edges of the room, the music blasted and the class started.
It got pretty warm in there pretty fast. Kelly’s lens started to fog, but she kept shooting. Water droplets hit me about half way through the class. I gagged a little, thinking it was sweat, but I realized it was so warm and humid in there that it was actually starting to rain from the ceiling. Kept shooting.
I couldn’t believe what these people were doing. It was crazy. They were dancing, lifting weights, doing aerobics, boxing and cycling like a hungry tiger was after them, all from the top of a stationary bike. Not only that, they were enjoying it!
We made it through the class a little damper, and I don’t know about Kelly, but I was a little intimidated.
As far as gear goes, I used my D700 (my D300 didn’t have high enough ISO settings), with my 24-70mm f 2.8 lens. I was on at least ISO 6400 pretty much the whole time, and I used my SB910 at an arm’s length because one side of the room was covered with mirrors. By moving the flash off camera, I avoided (mostly) getting a large white ball of light straight back in to my lens from the mirrors.
Click here to view Kelly West’s video, read the story by Pam LeBlanc, and see more photos.
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