Photographer Kim Horgan is a master of that Instagram cycling staple, the bike-against-a-wall shot (#baaw). It’s an oversaturated and occasionally maligned genre—how interesting can the seven-millionth photo of a bike leaning on a wall be?—but Horgan elevates hers by masterfully integrating old architecture, flashes of bright paint and graffiti, and intricate wall murals that make her bike part of the art.

Seven years ago, Horgan fell in love with cycling as a means of therapy after a divorce; she’s ridden around the greater Kansas City area ever since, looking for new, compelling places to snap photos of her Jamis road bike. Sometimes, it’s posed perfectly in the middle of a trail, as if held up by an invisible rider, inviting the viewer to jump on and go for a sunset ride. Other times her bike rests against a bright yellow doorway, or floats above a sculpture outside Kansas City’s iconic Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. The entire collection dares others to search out urban adventure, old buildings, and great light just outside city limits.

“When people see a bike photo, they see a kind of freedom,” she says. “When you see a bike and it’s just out there and it’s not in the middle of a race or organized ride, it has this spirit of adventure, which is what I love about riding my bike.”

Kim Horgan

Here are Horgan’s tips for getting the most out of your bike photos.

Stay alert for interesting colors, patterns, and parts of town.

“There’s so much to see and you don’t really see it if you’re going by in your car. On the West Side here in Kansas City, you’ll find a turquoise building with red trim or a bright yellow building with orange and green, and I think those just make great backdrops for your bike. We also have great graffiti in the Crossroads and it’s always changing, so it’s fun to ride over there with all the huge walls and alleyways. Old buildings, abandoned buildings, trails—I think it helps to just stay out of the suburbs, because there isn’t much character there.”

The big secret: How to prop up your bike.

“When I ride on trails, what I always like is a path. There’s kind of a metaphor there for that path you’re taking. A bike looks better propped up than lying down, but people always ask, ‘How do you get your bike to stand up in the middle of nowhere?’ It seems like every ride I go on I have a stick I just find on the side of the trail and that’s my prop. In Kansas you have wide-open roads or open fields of wheat and I think it’s nice to just put the bike in the middle of that. One of the reasons I ride out there is it’s so peaceful. It’s just you and the bike.”

The stick trick in action. Kim Horgan

Wait for the best light

“Light makes a huge difference. Sometimes I try to plan rides to end sometime around sunset; it’s nice riding your bike until there’s no light left and everything just glows. It makes a great picture. And people love sunsets, no matter what—you can’t go wrong with that!”

Related: The 17 Best Cycling Instagram Accounts to Follow

Give it a little context

“For some people, even if they’re not riding, they see [one of my photos] and feel like they’re in on the adventure. I’ve gotten comments from women in particular on Instagram saying that I’ve inspired them to get out by themselves and ride and see what’s out there. If the photo is good it makes you feel something. You don’t just want something that says, ‘Here’s my bike leaning on a tree, you don’t know where this is.’ I think it should show them you’re out adventuring and exploring, and that’s what they like about it.”

Kim Horgan

Edit—but not too much

“If you have a nice shot, crop it down to what looks good. Don’t overdo it on the editing. I follow some people who edit into another world and you don’t need that—just tweak things a little.”

Try a new route

“Just ride in interesting places because that’s going to be more fun anyway. Change where you ride and you’re going to see something. An old building, new graffiti, a museum. Even if you live in a tiny town, you can find some cool stuff there, like old signs or abandoned buildings. There’s great stuff everywhere.”

Check out Horgan’s bike photography on Instagram at @kim_horgan.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io