Simon Keitch Photography Blog

One of my band portraits of the Plymouth based group Brotherhood Of The Lake made it into the current issue of Rock Sound Magazine available now from all good newsagents… The band’s new album ‘Iron Sails” will be released on June 28th 2010 and gets a glowing write up by Rock Sound, stating: ‘we promise you won’t hear as many records as good as this in 2010…’.

I recently photographed the 2009 Tour of Britain winner, Norwegian cyclist Edvald Boasson Hagen of the Columbia team for an interview featured in the current December 2009 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine. Boasson Hagen and the Columbia team dominated this year’s Tour of Britain with Edvald winning four of the eight stages along with the overall win. At just 22 years old he’s an incredible talent and unusually quiet for a sprinter; the sitting was on location at a team hotel during the Tour of Britain so I only spent a few minutes with him, but he was very quiet, a little awkward and self conscious which I found endearing bearing in mind that he’s just signed a deal with the new Sky cycling team reported to be worth 2.5 million pounds.

And some out-takes that didn’t make the final article:

The new issue of south west bicycle magazine Shred West is now available featuring the portrait I created of Cervelo Test Team professional cyclist Jeremy Hunt on assignment for the magazine. Although Hunt has been a professional athlete riding for European teams for 13 years he still thinks of Devon as home; he was back in the area recently which is when I caught up with Jeremy at a personal appearance at Colin Lewis Cycles in Paignton. Options and time were (very) limited and I ended up shooting the portraits in a bus station behind the shop in just a few minutes before Jeremy was dragged off by Mr Colin Lewis himself for other commitments… And all while being heckled by local kids. As ever the photos look better in print so pick up a copy from your local bike shop or get a subscription direct from Shred. Also featured in this issue are my photographs from the Exeter round of the Tour Series, the Totnes Town Centre Bike Race, and the Springtime Pursuits.

The new July 2009 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine is now on sale in the UK and USA and I’m pleased to say is packed with portraits that I shot on assignment for the publication. Three interviews in the magazine are illustrated with my photographs; Olympic Gold medallist and World Champion Nicole Cooke in Italy (above and below), Tour de France Green Jersey winner Robbie McEwen at home in Belgium, and American sprinter Tyler Farrar in his adopted home town of Gent, Belgium. To read the interviews and see more of my images pick up a copy of the magazine at any WH Smiths in the UK or any other good newsagents in the UK or US (archive race photography by Graham Watson).

The new June 2009 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine is now available from all good news agents featuring the portraits that I created for this cover story of Astana team rider and Lance Armstrong team-mate Alberto Contador; winner of the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, and Vuelta a Espana grand tours over a timespan of less than 18 months. The portraits illustrating the interview were all created on-location in a hotel on the outskirts of Contador’s home-town of Pinto; a small Spanish town about a half-hour or so drive from Madrid. With just 15 minutes agreed to by Contador for the photo-shoot the pressure was on but I managed to squeeze several different looks and a lot of options out of the extremely tight timeframe and limited location. While scouting the location at the hotel in Pinto I picked up an email from the magazine’s picture desk notifying me that as they were right up against the deadline, they would need the images on their FTP server by the start of business the following day… and the interview had already been bumped to 7:30PM meaning I was in for a late night. Fortunately I’d already checked into the hotel at the location as the writer I was with was to continue south to Granada immediately after we wrapped-up – leaving me to make my own way back to the airport for my early morning flight back to Gatwick – so I stripped down the equipment, grabbed some dinner and hunkered down in the hotel room to make the selects, post-production adjustments and retouching and transmit the finished images via the hotel wi-fi. I got a few hours sleep while the images were uploading, then checked-out at 6:00AM; my taxi already waiting for me in the dark outside the hotel entrance for the transfer to Madrid airport. The finished article and cover look great but as ever there were a lot of good photos that didn’t make it in so I’ll update the blog with a slideshow featuring my favourites out of the images that didn’t make it to print as soon as I can.

As I mentioned in the last post here, I recently photographed the Inov8 sponsored adventure racer Alli Northcott for an interview in the current issue of Shred West magazine; I met Alli while shooting an adventure race for the event organiser Endurance Life and had already briefly discussed the possibility of meeting up for a photo-shoot at some point so it was a happy coincidence when the editor of Shred asked if I could shoot an outdoor environmental portrait of her for an interview in the next issue. The wheat-field location in the image is just a few feet from my front door and is somewhere that I’d had in mind for a while for a portrait, and it was ultimately chosen for this assignment as we live within just a few miles of each other and Alli’s heavy race/work schedule dictated that the location would have to be close to her home (we ended up doing the shoot very early one Saturday morning, not long after sunrise – we got lucky with the weather…).

Issue 2 of Shred West magazine is now on sale and features one of my images from this year’s Bontrager 24/12 endurance mountain bike race on the cover; the shot is of local rider Richie Rowland ten hours into his ride in the 12 hour solo category. More of my work can be seen in the magazine illustrating articles about the recent South West Mountain Bike Championships, as well as the portrait that I shot for an interview with Inov8 adventure race team athlete Alli Northcott; more on that to come.