This week I was assigned to photograph another Olympic and World Champion – British cyclist Nicole Cooke – at her Vision 1 racing team’s training camp in Italy. I was out there primarily to create portraits of Nicole for an upcoming article in Cycle Sport magazine, as well as to capture some straight photojournalism shots of the training camp for sister publication Cycling Weekly; apparently I’m the first photographer to shoot Nicole in her World Champion jersey which was something of a surprise. I was working with the Italian based writer Stephen Farrand who was in between covering the final stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico and heading up to Milan for the Lance Armstrong press conference prior to the Milan-San-Remo so I’ll forgive him for being late every time he was due to pick me up! And besides which he was a true gent; his local knowledge ensured that I ate at some really nice little restaurants and cafes and he even helped me out by stopping off at a great place to pick up some local wine to take home as we were heading out of town to drop me at Pisa airport. He does kind of look like a much taller version of me though so God knows what we looked like together. I think that next week’s Cycling Weekly will be running the news images in an article, but I’ll keep the portraits firmly under wraps until the Cycle Sport interview goes to press. Also at the Tuscan training camp was a crew from Channel 4′s Transworld Sport who filmed part of the photo shoot, so I may have a cameo on the show within the next couple of weeks…
Procycling Magazine issue 123 is now on sale in the UK (mid-March in the USA) with my work on the cover and throughout two articles inside the magazine; the Fabian Cancellara cover story and an interview with Jakob Fuglsang in the ‘Fab Four’ feature where Procycling unveil their choice of four young riders who they will follow over the upcoming season. The two articles were both shot back in January at the team’s first training camp of the year, on the island of Mallorca. Time was pretty tight as we were out there for just the last couple of days of the camp and with the riders out on the road all day we were able to get just a few minutes in the mornings as they left the hotel and picked up their bikes from the Saxo Bank team truck parked outside, and then maybe an hour in the evening between the post-ride massage and dinner to get both the interview and shoot the photographs.
With the daylight gone entirely by the time we got our slot with each rider, an outdoor portrait was completely out of the question and a walk around the hotel interior prior to the shoot had failed to unveil anything that would provide a background that would look strong enough for the cover or the jump photo for the article. What I did find however was a very large and empty conference room in the hotel basement which the hotel manager was kind enough to let us use for the duration of the interview and photo shoot which turned out to be perfect; it was warm (which turned out to be important as Fabian was feeling a little ill) and very private. I set up a small studio in the conference room around two chairs for the subject and journalist and shot some candid portraits during the interview, and Cancellara then changed into the new Saxo Bank team jersey for the more formal portraits that you can see from the cover and double-truck image above.
Above: New Saxo Bank team rider Jakob Fuglsang outside the team truck prior to setting out on the day’s team training ride.
This week I was assigned to photograph another Olympic and World Champion – British cyclist Nicole Cooke – at her Vision 1 racing team’s training camp in Italy. I was out there primarily to create portraits of Nicole for an upcoming article in Cycle Sport magazine, as well as to capture some straight photojournalism shots of the training camp for sister publication Cycling Weekly; apparently I’m the first photographer to shoot Nicole in her World Champion jersey which was something of a surprise. I was working with the Italian based writer Stephen Farrand who was in between covering the final stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico and heading up to Milan for the Lance Armstrong press conference prior to the Milan-San-Remo so I’ll forgive him for being late every time he was due to pick me up! And besides which he was a true gent; his local knowledge ensured that I ate at some really nice little restaurants and cafes and he even helped me out by stopping off at a great place to pick up some local wine to take home as we were heading out of town to drop me at Pisa airport. He does kind of look like a much taller version of me though so God knows what we looked like together. I think that next week’s Cycling Weekly will be running the news images in an article, but I’ll keep the portraits firmly under wraps until the Cycle Sport interview goes to press. Also at the Tuscan training camp was a crew from Channel 4′s Transworld Sport who filmed part of the photo shoot, so I may have a cameo on the show within the next couple of weeks…
