When I was consulting with CSC, one day Steve Seidner (the CSC CEO) asked me to go with him to visit Shinya Kimura, a man who builds custom bikes. Steve thought I might enjoy grabbing a few photos of Mr. Kimura’s shop and a few of his bikes. Little did I know about what I would see.
From the outside, all I could see was a small shop, but when I entered I was stopped dead in my tracks by one of the most beautiful motorcycles I had ever seen. It was an early CB750 Honda Shinya had customized and it was visually arresting. I had never seen anything like it. The lens cap came off my Nikon, I dialed the ISO up to 800, and I had started snapping away.
Steve introduced me to Shinya, who invited me to look around the shop and photograph whatever I wanted. And I did, not really knowing who this guy was. But the shop…wow! It was more of a studio and a museum than a shop and it was amazing. The place was a working shop, but the tools, custom motorcycles with a unique, retro-futuristic-formed-aluminum theme, the motorcycle accoutrements, the patina, and more somehow made me feel immediately like I was in a place where I belonged. It’s hard to describe and I know these words are failing me, but if you’re a gearhead, I think you’ll get it.
But don’t take my word for it. Take a look.
Later that day I Googled Shinya Kimura. It’s good I did this later, as I might have spent more time asking him questions than taking photos, and the things I photographed were amazing. I didn’t know anything about Mr. Kimura, but Google gave me perspective on the man I had met earlier.
That night I went through the raw files I had captured with my Nikon and processed them in Photoshop. I think they are some of the best photos I’ve ever taken, but that’s not me bragging about my photography or my Photoshop skills. It was what I was shooting that made the photos what they are.
Fourth pic from the bottom. The Honda warning light cluster looks so out of place on such an artful machine.
I will let him know. It may also be that the bike wasn’t finished when I shot that photo.
This is the creation of the artist. It is there for a reason, a vestigial piece perhaps.
OOO…..AHHH… This is like fireworks at Disney on the Fourth of July to me, just overwhelming and all you can do id just look in awe at this real eye candy. Now I have view the YouTube stuff to get a feel for the real person behind this metal magic. I have seen some of his work on various sites, Pipeburn probably and always wondered what the shop looked like, now I have better idea. Thanks for Making my Saturday!
Seeing the shop made my day, too.
I’ve found that shooting the photos in RAW, rather than jpeg, and then using Photoshop to bring out the best in them, really makes a difference.