Lichter Photo | Motorcycle Photography

Over the years, I have photographed more than a thousand custom bikes from the most famous custom builders to bikes built in the backyards of fairly obscure but passionate bikers. I shot Jesse James’, Billy Lane’s, Indian Larry’s and many other known builders’ first customs to be featured in Easyriders. The builders in this section include builders that I have photographed three or more of their bikes for feature stories. The photos posted here are typically found in other sections of the site under the year they were photographed, or in the case of portraits and lifestyle photographs, in the events from which they came. Please bear with us as we are going back through our archives to add more builders to this section as fast as we can. Clearly, there are many more I have shot 3 or more bikes from and just need to keep moving back through the years loading content to get them in this section.

EXHIBITIONS - Michael first exhibited his black and white photographic prints of bikers and rodeo cowboys in the late 1970’s, but then after an exhibition of Michael’s photography in Dublin, Ireland was boycotted by the league of decency in 1981, he took a 30-year break in publicly displaying his work. Then in 2001, he started to show his work again as well as organizing, curating and producing an annual exhibitions combining custom motorcycles and motorcycle related art at the Journey Museum in Rapid City. These themed exhibitions moved to the 6,000’ purpose-built gallery at the Buffalo Chip in 2009 where they continue to this day under the name "Motorcycles as Art.” The shows are typically very focused as the bikes were in "The Naked Truth” in 2015 when none of the bikes could have any paint or finish (so you walked in the gallery and saw a sea of raw metal), the all Cafe Racer show "Ton Up” in 2013, the race Inspired "Built for Speed” in 2014 or 2016’s tattoo inspired exhibition "Skin and Bones.” These themes often exclude Michael’s own participation as with "One World Choppers” in 2007 when all participants were born outside the USA or the 2008 "Stay Gold” when you couldn’t earn a living from your craft and more recently, the 2017 "Old Iron / Young Blood” when participants couldn’t be older than 35 years old. He does, however, do a major display of his photography every five years coinciding with the big Sturgis anniversaries (70th, 75th, 80th…) While Michael’s focus remains on shooting the most relevant photography he can, he usually exhibits his work several times a year in galleries and occasionally, at events.

The first bike feature I shot for Easyriders was back in 1981, just before opening my own Boulder, Colorado studio the following year (which I still operate out of to this day). In the years since, I’ve had the pleasure of shooting well over 1,000 bike features for Easyriders and other magazines around the world. These have included bikes from the most famous customizers to relatively obscure garage builders who build their bikes for nothing more than bragging rights down at the local bar. As my goal is to show the artistry and talent of the incredible craftsmen behind the machines by showing the bike as clearly and in as much detail as possible, I rarely include models with the bikes and for the most part, shoot them on plain studio backgrounds so the bikes stand on their own merits. The bikes are organized alphabetically by first name in the years they were shot. We will keep loading older bikes moving back through the years as fast as we can.