I photographed HTC-Columbia cycling team member Mark Renshaw for the latest issue of Cycle Sport Magazine; a super-quick speedlight portrait in a very cramped hotel room just prior to the team presentation at the Tour Of Switzerland. I arrived on location at the team’s hotel with Cycle Sport staff writer Andy McGrath nice and early so we’d have plenty of time to scout the location and work out a shot-plan. Unfortunately HTC-Columbia were staying at what must be the only hotel in Switzerland without a chocolate-box view; just a motorway and some pylons… Any options we did have ultimately went out the window though after meeting with the team’s PR, who initially had some trouble tracking down Mark and eventually found him on the massage table in his room. ‘Do we have any time constraints?’ we asked the PR. ‘No, none at all. Oh, but Mark has to be on the team bus by 7:15PM’. A glance at our watches reveals that it’s already nearly 6:20PM… By the time the interview is wrapped up and Renshaw climbs off the massage table I realise that there’s no time to move outside so I grab a Nikon speedlight and a Lastolite Ezybox softbox and move into the small space left by the soigneur as he kindly folds up the massage table and moves it to one side while Mark grabs another top to wear. Ran through a few different expressions/options before Mark apologised for not having more time and legged it out the door for the Tour of Switzerland team presentation. Mark Renshaw can currently be seen leading out Mark Cavendish at the Tour de France and is widely regarded as the best lead-out man in the business; it’s a tough career decision to forego your own success and personal glory however and it’ll be interesting to see if he does eventually step up to winning races for himself.
it’s something that always is gonna happen
ALWAYS
that’s why we practice on our loved-ones so much; getting the techniques down
like the one-light approach