Ed Drew showcases the beauty and strength of Arkansas Mountain Bikers through portraits.

By Kai Caddy |  Photography by Ed Drew

Fate has an interesting way of bringing things together. For Ed Drew, a fine art photographer based in Little Rock, fate has brought his camera and the mountain bike together.

After Drew’s father died and left him some money, one of the first things he purchased was a Minolta camera.

“From the moment I used that camera, it was instant love,” Drew said. “The two things in my life that I instantly fell in love with were mountain bikes and cameras.”

His most recent work is an ongoing series of Arkansas mountain biker portraits. It seems like an obvious connection, but fate sometimes takes its time.

Drew grew up in Brooklyn, New York. You won’t find any singletrack mountain bike trails in New York, but it’s where he fell in love with mountain biking.

“The first time I ever saw a mountain bike or a bike, I fell in love,” he said. “That was back when I was like 15 or 16. And I begged my father to get me a mountain bike. He finally got me one.

“I would ride my bike through the streets of New York. That was my mountain biking. And occasionally, my mom would take us out to New Jersey or upstate New York, and I could run actual dirt. Mind you, I had no idea what I was doing. I was a hazard to the trees. But that little taste of dirt and actually, the bike shop itself was a huge refuge for me.”

Drew would ride almost every day to Bayridge Bicycle World from his home in Bensonhurst.

“The first time I ever saw a mountain bike or a bike, I fell in love … I begged my father to get me a mountain bike.
He finally got me one.”

It was when he arrived in California, though, that he decided to pursue art as a career. He enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute. His mountain bike education also grew while in California.

“Once I moved to California, and I was in the San Francisco area, I got to ride in Marin County and Tamarancho, which is supposedly the birthplace of mountain biking,” he said.

He became friends with one of the founders of mountain biking, custom bike builder Steve Potts.

In 2013, as a member of the California Air National Guard, he was deployed to Afghanistan, where he would produce his first major body of work.

“It was interesting, to say the least, to go from the middle of San Francisco and art school, to the very conservative, helicopter combat search and rescue, which kind of folds into that whole special operations lifestyle,” he said. “I’ve always been an artist or thought of myself as an artistic person. So the whole idea of creating art in everything I do, it flowed, so to speak.”

In Afghanistan, he created tintypes of fellow combat rescue airmen. A number of those original plates are now part of the permanent collection in the Smithsonian American History Museum.

Drew’s first experience in Arkansas was in 2000 when he was stationed at the Little Rock Air Force Base.

“To go to Arkansas, it was kind of a shell shock, culture shock moment for me,” he said. “But I ended up meeting my wife here. And we got married in 2001.”

While Drew was finishing up his active duty, his wife was in medical school. Her residency took the couple back to New York, but eventually she got a job in Little Rock and the couple returned to Arkansas.

“I absolutely love it. Now,” Drew said. “Back then, I was like 18-years-old, coming to Arkansas from New York City. It wasn’t really the dream for somebody from New York City.

“Now, I’m older, I’m more calm. Wiser. I like going out and doing outdoorsy stuff. I absolutely love the state. I’m always singing its praises. And it’s because it’s the truth.”

“Bobby,” dry plate process, 4×5 shot on an Aero Ektar/Speed Graphic.

Back in Arkansas, taking mountain biking seriously and looking for his next project, it was a nudge from his wife to do something a little closer to home that led to the mountain biker portrait series.

“Sometimes the greatest things happen without you even trying,” he said. “I’m a series-based photographer, so I go for different cultures in different sections of the state. Like I’m also doing work in the Ozarks and I started doing work in the Delta. My wife was complaining because I would have to drive like two hours to the Ozarks and two hours to the Delta. She’s like, ‘Why don’t you start a photo project that is actually close to home for once?’ So it was like, I don’t know, I guess I could do mountain biking. And that’s literally how it started. It was just that simple.”

So far Drew has mostly photographed riders from Central Arkansas and Hot Springs. He’s also a NICA coach and has taken some portraits of the athletes at NICA races.

Drew says the invitation is open to any mountain biker in Arkansas.

“If you want to please do, and I will be happy to travel to you and photograph you and all that,” Drew said. “It’s a really flowing series.

“I want it to be as big as possible. I stress the point where I’m an artist, over a photographer, because my motivations and the concepts for the work I do are all conceptual. It’s a feeling I get like, OK, I think I’ve done enough. And honestly, this project is really, really about Arkansas. Like I said, I really love the state and I really want to highlight its beauty and also the strength of mountain biking in the state. It’s way bigger than I thought it was.

“When I started this project, it was like, I’ll take some photos of friends and it might turn into something. And then as time went on, I met more people and I’m like, wow, this is like high school football in Texas. It’s just huge here.”

Being involved with NICA, the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, has really ramped up Drew’s enthusiasm for the sport.

“The enthusiasm of the kids is what motivates me the most,” he said. “They train, they show up to training consistently. And then, you know, the parents are really into it. So all of that combined makes for a great atmosphere. And also provides motivation for me to want to do this series more. Because it really does show mountain biking is a big deal here. And I think it needs to be recognized for what it is.”

“I think shops, because growing up that shop meant the world to me, it really did. To be able to go physically to that place and see those bikes and be inspired by the bike.”

Drew’s portraits for this series have been shot on glass plates, 4-by-5 film negatives in black and white and color and he’s even done some digitally.

“I don’t want the process to dictate this series itself so much,” he said. “I think variation of processes, looking at not only black and white, but also color kind of shows the breadth of it because the colors in mountain biking are important. People spend time with their mountain bikes picking them out, they liked this color more on this or that, I thought it was kind of an interesting thing to look into.”

He would also like to include those who make mountain biking happen for the riders as well, like shop owners and local framebuilders and bike manufacturers like Allied Cycleworks in Bentonville.

“I think shops, because growing up that shop meant the world to me, it really did,” he said. “To be able to go physically to that place and see those bikes and be inspired by the bike.

“I race for the Arkansas Cycling and Fitness team. [Owner] Richard Maycheck is amazing. He’s the best guy. And the guys that work there, Frank and Robert and Tommy, all those guys are just so welcoming, and warm, and it creates an atmosphere and an outlet. And a lot of these kids when they go to these bike shops, they’re inspired by the bike shop owners and the bike shop workers. And they ultimately go for these bikes because of that. So I thought it was an integral part of the mountain biking world to include them.”

Interested in sitting for a portrait?
Contact Drew at end2end@hotmail.com or on his Instagram page @eddrewphotos.
Visit eddrew.net to see more of his work.