We found these photos in our files last week. We couldn’t remember how we came up with the idea, but we called Travis Chipres, the guy jumping his bike in this photo, and he remembered some of the details that we had forgotten.
We were doing an article about how to spend less time being sick, and we had to come up with an idea for a photo to go with the article. Somebody came up with the idea we used for this photo.
We called two of our test riders, and they were both happy to help us out.
We wanted to have one of our test riders lie in a bed, while the other one jumped over him. Another MBA staff member dressed up as a doctor so he could like he was there to treat the sick rider.
Test rider Brian Schmith had a spare bed at his house, so he brought it to the photo shoot. We carried the mattress, the pillows, the sheets, the blanket, and two teddy bears out to one of our favorite test locations in Simi Valley, California.
Brian got into the bed and put a thermometer in his mouth. Then Travis Chipres went back, got going fast, hit a jump and launched his bike over Brian. MBA’s John Ker shot several different variations of the photo. Then we put the bed and the other props back in our vehicles and shot some other photos for the issue.
It was a crazy idea, but it made for some funny photos.
Here’s the full-page photo that we used in the magazine, along with the opening page of the article, which shows the headline for the story and some of the copy. The caption for the action photo is on the right side of the page, beginning with the words, “Fun stealer.”
Here’s the opening page of the article:
