If your girlfriend SHOULD be a model... then you really ought to get her in shots! I think a lot of us can say our GF or significant other looks good/great, but maybe not model material.
Thanks for accepting the criticism, too many times people get offended.
So it sounds like you lens inventory is curtailing your photography. I hear ya on the lens issue, they really are critical for shooters. I suggest trading or borrowing lenses from other photographers you know. They may want to test out or use your lens, while you want to experiment with theirs. If you can't do that. Maybe rent a lens to get different shots. Certainly rent/test lenses BEFORE you buy them. Too, you have to be careful and trust your gut on your impressions of sellers but buying used lenses is an option (Craigslist, eBay, used section on photography stores like B&H).
As for your question, I mean both… you can use both or just one at a time to get the shot you want. Mix up the vertical angle (high, low, or level) you shoot at but also mix up the position of the bike. You can mess with both but I think bike position is more important to vary and shoot off angle at. As for different bike positions, I'm referring to angles that you shoot the bike on. Shooting directly head on at the front or the rear of the bike, or 90 degrees from that (so directly at the profile of the bike) are not as desirable as shooting inbetween those angles of the bike (thought this is NOT always the case). For example,
, notice how you see the front of the bike but you also see the side of the bike. Shooting on this angle highlights the bodywork and lines of the bike because they are given dimension from lighting and because you’re showing the viewer the X, Y, and Z axis of the bike… the bike pops, it’s a 3D (X,Y, and Z axis) entity. Or this shot,
, this shot accents the rear end of the bike, but notice the camera is lower to the ground than the bike and is angled up, shot is taken from the rear but not fully behind it but halfway between the rear and profile of the bike, this shot makes the bike look big, fast (almost like it’s evading the camera), and it highlights the lines of the body. I just google ‘motorcycle photography” from that you’ll see a bunch of different angles.
Photography is an art, art is supposed to messy. We’ve got to experiment until we find what we’re looking for or something that we like. Try things, you never know, you might find something you we’re expecting but really like. Hope that helps!
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
by ducatij2012, on Flickr
by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
Untitled by ducatij2012, on Flickr
