Mini Mark Schlegel, Barspin, Minneapolis, MN

What Mini Mark lacks in height, he makes up for in style. I met up with him and couple other guys to cruise around Minneapolis and take advantage of some of the recent warm weather. In between spots, someone mentioned that Mark had just learned barspins earlier that week. Mark has been progressing a ton in the last couple years, but I had never even seen him attempt a barspin before. I was pretty excited for him, and asked if he would be willing to ‘prove it’ by grabbing a quick photo. I had been wanting to shoot something simple at this location for a little while now, and this was the perfect time to pull it together. The background is about as simple as it gets, which makes for (in my opinion) a good dramatic contrast to the rider with a just a little lighting work. Mark had no problem throwing a few of these in a row, and had a stylish way of keeping his hands off the bars long enough to make it easy for me to grab the shot. We packed up and headed out, happy to have a new trick ‘proven’ although that was far from our true motivation.

-Ben Austin