Ben Franke is based in Brooklyn and has been shooting Parkour photography since college. His images are distinct among Parkour photos in how well he is able to capture the motion and direction of his subjects. His work has appeared in a number of international magazines including The New York Times, Time Out New York and GEO.
Below are a few examples of Ben Franke's Parkour shots.
My Attempts - Ben Franke
Objectively, in the images above, there are free runners doing acrobatics surrounded by flour that is being illuminated by a flash.
In addition to the acrobatics being 'out of the normal', it looks like they are being detained in a spherical haze, which contributes to the abnormality of the image. Also, as a result of the fragmented positions of the free runners, they connote a supernatural and dynamic ambience to the image. The positions they made could be likened to that of a fashion model on the cover of a magazine; being the centre of attention. Due to the composition and positioning of the flash, the flour has been illuminated, adding to the contrast of the flour against the black background.
To create this effect successfully, I simply set the camera on a 10 second timer and positioned the flash behind me. After I pressed the shutter and the timer started to count down, I grabbed two handfuls of flour and waited for the timer get to 1 second. I then threw each handful out to the side, while the shutter captured the flash illuminated flour around me. Before getting the flour involved, I experimented with the shutter speed until I got the ideal lighting, this reduced the overall mess of flour on the floor. This can relate to the work of Ben Franke because the niche of his work is the flash illuminated flour in a suspense around the subject.
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