Help! Chucked in at the deep end!

[Tomotheplumber]

Hi all,
I recently developed the need to take pictures of all my biking/snowboarding/kitebuggying/wakeboarding adventures so invested in a canon 450d as a start off point for my photography as money has been a bit tight. Anyway to the point, I've been asked to do some advertising pics for a new bmx/jump bike pump track opening near me. The lenses I got with the camera are stock as I got them in a package but I've had some pretty cool shots with them so far. My question is are there any rules or tricks of the trade to shooting bmx pictures? I'm really panicking now as there are two bmx crews coming down especially for the shoot and I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing. Thanx

[cozmocha]

Look at different photos and see what you like and think about what you / the client want. http://www.flickr.com/groups/goodbmxphotography/pool/
http://www.google.com/images?q=bmx+r...w=1346&bih=654

Don't just go and start shooting. You need to plan out what you want and how to get it. Most of the commercial bmx photography has alot of remote flashes and wide lenses.

Don't get run over too!

[Photo-John]

Ditto to what cozmocha said - research first. Whenever I've shot a subject I'm not that familiar with, the first thing I do is buy some magazines and go over the photos so I can get a feel for the subject and how people are shooting it. One thing about pump tracks and bmx is they're *really* fast. Timing is critical. So understanding how to time your shots is going to be key. Angles are important, too. Look at the backgrounds. If they're ugly you'll have to figure out how to minimize their impact in the photos.

[Photo-John]

So how did the shoot go? Tell us about it and show us some of the photos!