Sometimes I do a post from the Wayback Machine…. I never got around to posting this one after the April edition… to that effect, May will be black and white to highlight the vintage nature of this post.

R introduced me to The Moto Social back in 2019—an event designed to bring motorcyclists of all types and persuasions together to hang out, have a good time, and break down the often-false barriers that arise in the motorcycling community because you ride an X and I ride a Y. It’s all too common for cruisers, adventure bikes, sport bikes, dirt bikes, and standards to have their own communities that rarely mix. The premise here is simple: “Don’t be a dud, be a bud.”

The team here in San Francisco puts on a pretty epic event, and it’s no small feat to find a location, negotiate with the vendor to accommodate 200 to 300 motorcycles, coordinate with The Moto Social team in Toronto to get the event posted, take photographs, and manage the social media presence. These two organizers do a kick-ass job, and it was great to meet them face-to-face and share stories about The Moto Social in Canada.

I’ve committed to bringing a camera to each event and photographing the experience. I’m looking to grow as a photographer, and The Moto Social is a great way to develop those skills. April was all about learning how to use a wide-angle lens. May is about learning to develop color photographs in black and white. Developing photos in black and white isn’t just about removing all the color. Modern photographs have eight color bands that can be individually manipulated: red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, and magenta. In addition, changing the white balance—a predominantly color function—radically changes the exposure of a photograph in black and white. And of course, all the other features—exposure, clarity, rotation, and geometry—still apply in black and white just as they do in color.

Every time I create black-and-white photos, I always feel like there’s something I’m leaving out. It’s that awkward feeling of letting go of something and working with the empty space until you find that you value the new thing more than the old. Looking at the photo above, the black-and-white photograph of R and the organizers, in my opinion, looks far better than the color version, as it minimizes background distractions and keeps the viewer’s eyes in the center.

That being said, there were two motorcycles that used color in such a demonstrative way that I couldn’t completely desaturate them. For those of you who have been following me for a while, one will be obvious and will likely make you laugh. We chatted with them and learned it’s pretty amazing what you can do with a yellow cover and some creative use of electrical tape, lol. I’d love to meet the rider of the second bike—you did a kick-ass job on your wheels!

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