Simon Keitch Photography Blog

Danish professional cyclist Lars Bak photographed for the new issue of Cycle Sport Magazine. It’s never ideal photographing an athlete during a big race; I was sent out to a team hotel on the 2011 Tour of Britain route to photograph Bak and I know from past experience that the subject will be tired, have very little time, and will have no clothing other than the standard team issue tracksuit and race kit. After arriving on location, scouting and ultimately setting up a studio in a conference room and waiting all evening I was eventually told by one of the team soigneurs that Lars was too fatigued and had already retired to bed. It’s frustrating to leave with nothing in the can but with a guarantee of an early slot the following evening it didn’t feel that my time was entirely wasted so I returned to the hotel nice and early the next day hopeful that we could get an outdoor set-up in while it was still daylight.

More waiting followed and it transpired that Lars was riding back to the team hotel after the stage for some extra training (that’s a 180KM of racing, then around 60KM or so from the race finish to the team hotel) so it was looking like it was going to be pretty tight. Fortunately when Bak did arrive we talked him into doing the shoot before dinner and we managed to squeeze out the last few minutes of daylight after finding the only clear view from the grounds of the motorway-side hotel (looking out over the motorway in fact, to the hills beyond). I’d taken along a few options on wardrobe as an alternative to the team issue clothing and we went with a formal coat for both style and warmth (professional cyclists are notoriously sensitive to the cold…). We managed to get nearly 25 minutes with Lars Bak in the end; three set-ups, one outdoor, two indoor, and three wardrobe changes plus a little conversation; not so bad. Big thanks to Ed Pickering and the rest of the team at Cycle Sport for the assignment and doing such a nice job with the layout.

Out takes:

A couple of portraits of Bleeding Through keyboard player Marta Peterson produced in a matter of minutes prior to the recent show supporting Machine Head at the Pavilions in Plymouth recently. I was at the show to photograph the live performances as well as some backstage portraits to illustrate interviews with relevant band members for Rocklouder. I have a ton of material from the show so I’ll post up some more images over the next week or so.

Promotional portrait of Devon based singer/songwriter and musician Katie Marie; we shot this in a ruined railway cottage on the edge of what’s now the Plym Valley cycle route on the edge of Dartmoor. Another in a series of recent very wintry outdoor portraits and there was still a little -albeit slushy – snow on the ground at the time. As well as writing and performing on her own albums Katie has just launched her own record label; for more information check out her website HERE

Music has played such a huge role in shaping me and my work and so my one big regret so far is that I don’t get to photograph many bands and musicians; well 2010 is going to be different… My first shoot of the year was with Brotherhood of the Lake; a Devon based band ‘intent on creating innovative, heavy music based around solid song writing and an energetic live show’ to create promotional portraits of the group. The band were great to work with despite the freezing temperatures and biting wind on location at Dartmoor as well as the usual down-time between set-ups and locations of which we squeezed in three in total with a few different options.

I’d  already tech scouted the first two locations and knew exactly what images I wanted from each but I also had a third location in mind if time allowed; fortunately not only did we have the time but the band knew of somewhere close-by that fitted exactly what I needed; an old ruined manor house hidden away in the woods near Burrator that provided a dark grey stone backdrop and shade from the winter sun.

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The guys had been killing time with a bag of Mega Sour Apple Sweets and a video camera; Rusty (guitarist) kindly offered me one but I thought better of it and figured I’d rather steal their idea and photograph each of them choking one down. I thought Rob (vocalist) was going to lose his lunch.

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Check out the Brotherhood of the Lake MySpace Page for more info and a teaser for their forthcoming album debut Iron Sails.

Issue 51 of Shred magazine is now available featuring my photos of British cross-country mountain bike legend and Giant Global Team rider Oli Beckingsale on the cover and illustrating the feature interview; I shot these images way back in the summer in Oli’s hometown of Bristol and it’s great to finally see them in print. Read on-line or order a good old fashioned hard-copy HERE or pick one up from any good UK bike shop.

The new issue of Shred West South West Bicycle Magazine is now available featuring some of my photographs of Yanto Barker illustrating the cover and four page interview within. As always the photos look better in good old analogue so get yourself a hard copy from your nearest bike shop or get a subscription direct from Shred Publishing where you can also read the latest issue on-line for free.

Astana team rider Alberto Contador has taken his second Tour de France overall victory at the end of the final stage in Paris today. Contador was the favourite going into the race but I never expected him to be as dominant as he ultimately proved to be over the past three weeks, with an overall time of four minutes and eleven seconds faster than the second placed rider Andy Schleck and five minutes and 24 seconds faster than seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong (an incredible performance at the age of 38 and just out of retirement; he’ll be much stronger next year despite being another year older and will be far more likely to contest the win than a lot of people unrealistically expected him to be this year), Contador always looked comfortable and his explosive attacks at Arcalis and Verbier were matched by no other rider. Contador is without a doubt the best climber in the world right now, and his strength as a time trialist – proven by his win in stage 18′s 40.5KM time trial over Olympic and past four-time World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara by three seconds – means that he’s incredibly tough to beat in a three week tour.

It was also a good year for British riders; Bradley Wiggins just missing out on a podium position with fourth place overall – equalling the previous best British overall performance of Robert Millar in 1984 – and Mark Cavendish became the first Brit to win on the Champs Elysees in Paris on the final stage of the Tour – his sixth stage win this year – but just missing out on the Green Jersey to rival sprinter Thor Hushovd.

The course of the 2009 Tour de France was criticised by many and after a great first week of racing provided a long lull in the middle week; the race organiser (ASO) kind of put all their eggs in one basket with one big, decisive stage finishing on the Ventoux on the penultimate stage, with the objective of keeping the racing interesting by bringing it right down to the wire; this made the race feel at times as if everyone was waiting for that one stage with little attacking or excitement in the GC contention. The gamble sadly didn’t pay off for the ASO however as – after much anticipation – the final stage failed to deliver much action as the top riders sought to protect their existing places with only the Schleck brothers trying to attack in an attempt to bring older brother Frank up to a podium position, but were not able to break away from the group containing the other main GC contenders.

Ultimately the third week did deliver some decent action and the 2009 Tour de France will be remembered as a success; but that was despite of the course I think rather instead of it; it’ll be interesting to see what they do next year when the ASO launch the 2010 route later this year.

Image above is an – as yet – unpublished portrait of Alberto Contador from the sitting I had with the 2007 and 2009 Tour de France winner earlier in the year in his home town of Pinto, Spain.

Personal work; some say the best kind of work, although I’m sure my bank manager would disagree… Featured above is Ken Foster the new Lord Mayor of Plymouth, photographed on location in the Lord Mayor’s Parlour at Council House in Plymouth in a studio set up within about six feet of the Mayor’s desk. This is part of a series of portraits I’ve produced of local figures and personalities as and when I get the time and the whim takes me. I think what I’m finding most interesting about this project is that a lot of the subjects are normally photographed for the local news etc and their usual experience of being photographed is being told to smile, the photographer then fires off maybe half a dozen frames and it’s all over; invariably the result is an obviously contrived expression and a dull, throwaway image. I think that most people are relieved when they’re told they don’t need to smile, and the result is always something very genuine. The new Mayor’s a really nice guy and was very generous with his time; I had 40 minutes with him between appointments so there was time to chat about common interests while working through a couple of different set-ups and burn through the equivalent of four rolls of film (you have to love digital for that if nothing else…).

8:00AM meeting this morning: Bantham Beach, South Devon. Could be worse, although the only car park there charges a flat rate of £5 regardless of the length of stay! Man, those surfers must have a lot of cash; the place was crawling with them; it’s a big surf break apparently. Was at the beach for a shoot with the good guys at Endurance Life as well as a meeting regarding the details of a forthcoming insanely hard endurance event I’m shooting for both themselves and an editorial client (more on that later…). Bantham is just down the road from the Endurance Life office and provided a convenient outdoor backdrop for the staff photographs; while I enjoy working with a seamless for both corporate portraits and editorial portraits that wouldn’t have been right for a company based around coastal endurance/adventure racing so the beach location and overcast skies (just missed the heavy rain I’m glad to say; it started on my way back) made for the perfect background for the photos. Featured above is Endurance Life Financial and Technical Director James Barker, and below is Customer Service Director Gary Jolliffe.

Last week I met up with British professional cyclist Yanto Barker of Le Col/Colnago for a location photo-shoot to create promotional/commercial images of Yanto for him and his Le Col clothing company which will be launching later this summer. We shot the images at two remote locations on Dartmoor, Devon over the course of two evenings while the London based cyclist was back in Devon (where he grew up) briefly after riding the Totnes-Vire stage race over the previous weekend. We got a little lucky with the weather and found overcast but dry conditions at both locations and made the most of the perfect late-evening light augmented by a simple one-light flash set-up. We squeezed every last minute of light out of both days, shooting until well after the sun went down at both locations and got a good range of images from the full length cycling clothing with bike portrait above to the casual-clothed portrait below, as well as a good range of action photographs, wide-angle landscape and tight headshots combining to provide a versatile range of images.