Developing a Craft

It has been a little over a year since we relocated Chumba to our new, bigger, and brighter shop space in South Austin. We have yet to host an open house here due to COVID and trying to keep our staff as safe as possible. I approached Vince about doing a 35mm photography project to share our new shop space along with the hands that have moved Chumba forward. To showcase our new shop I shot a month’s worth of photos and compiled this gallery. I’m excited to give you a peep into our world at Chumba! (view below or @theradavist)

Process… It’s all about the process. With a background in studying architecture and working with my hands I appreciate each step in making something, anything. Sometimes it grasps me more than the finalized product itself. I enjoy shooting film for this reason. It’s fun to go through the whole journey of shooting the film, developing the film in my bathroom, and scanning the negatives into my computer for very light editing. I like having my hand in all parts of creation so I can understand what it takes to make the final, polished version. I have not perfected any part of the process yet, but that is the fun in learning and honing a craft.

In the following photos my intent is to show you a rough glimpse of our production procedures at Chumba, not a refined gallery filled with perfect photos. You’ll notice that some photos are out of focus and crude, and that is just the way I like it. From a photographic standpoint I like to focus on the emotion in a frame which is why I prefer to shoot black and white. Black and white is timeless and the viewer is not distracted by color to bring vibrancy, but rather texture, contrast, and composition.

The photos below show a rough timeline of the life of a bicycle frame starting from its infancy, a simple tube, to its final stage, wrapped up and ready to be shipped out. You’ll see most of our team working on the frames from start to finish. Here is a list of our team members in the photos:

Austin - Guy with beard

Mark - Guy with beard

Eric - Guy with beard

Vince - Guy with beard

(not pictured) - Dan - the new guy

Enjoy! Shot with Nikon F3 HP and Olympus OM-2N cameras, using Kodak T-Max 400 film