Simon Keitch Photography Blog

Wilfred Emmanuel Jones; entrepreneur and founder of the The Black Farmer brand photographed for the What I’ve Learnt section of British Airways Business Life magazine.

My first book cover: Inside the Peloton – My Life As A Professional Cyclist; the new autobiography by Nicolas Roche was released a few days ago. I saw the mock-up earlier in the year but it’s great to finally see it in print and on book shop shelves.

Issue two of Privateer magazine arrived in today’s post and includes a feature I shot for them last year at the 2010 TransWales mountain bike endurance race; a seven day stage race in the heart of Wales. I actually shot this assignment just over six months ago so it’s great to finally see the photos go to print. In addition to producing all of the photography I also wrote the introduction for this piece which probably took me longer to finish than the time I spent on location in Wales… In the (paraphrased) words of David Sedaris: me write pretty one day.

The magazine is quite a thing to behold; more coffee table book than magazine, beautifully printed on nice thick paper stock and with each feature getting plenty of space (this one running a full 15 pages in total). Privateer is the sister publication of the now firmly established Rouleur road cycling magazine so if you’re at all familiar with Rouleur you’ll know what to expect in terms of style and quality.

Out-takes:

You can order a copy or subscribe to Privateer at: http://www.rouleur.cc/privateer

Jeremy Hunt photographed for the current December 2010 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine. This is the last of my portraits produced on location at this year’s Tour of Britain to go to print and was another hotel conference room set-up with nothing but a dark and wet car park outside the team hotel and very little time available with the subject. I’d been warned beforehand to allow for plenty of time at the location as there was a chance that Hunt may forget and sure enough I was met with a blank face when I introduced myself as he entered the lobby with the rest of the Cervelo cycling team, but he graciously agreed to a sitting after dinner. When we got to the photo-shoot it became quickly clear that Hunt was having a tough week; red eyes (‘these will need to be black and white photos; I look good in black and white…’ he said as sat down) and it transpired he’d slept between checking into his hotel room and coming down to the restaurant for dinner.

The straight-on set-up on white seamless was looking good (image above runs full page within the feature) but the red eyes were making me worry that the images would indeed need to be converted to black and white plus it was clear that Mr Hunt wanted to get back to bed or maybe just fall asleep in his chair right in front of me so we quickly moved to the second set-up on black in team jersey. Jeremy has a great profile and this angle negates the red eyes, while the black background suits him I think. Lionel Birnie did a great job with the words and the interview gives a good insight into Hunt’s personality and his 15 years and counting career. The feature also touches on the implosion of the Cervelo cycling team that Hunt’s been a member of for the past two years and was originally contracted to for 2011; fortunately since the interview went to press the Sky cycling team has announced its signing of Hunt for next season.

Out takes:

Saxo Bank team pro cyclist Richie Porte photographed for the November issue of Cycle Sport Magazine; the 25 year old Tasmanian rider has had something of a breakthrough year this season with a three day stint in the pink leader’s jersey at the Giro d’Italia and held on to seventh place overall at the end of the three-week race which was also his very first Grand Tour.

When I caught up with Richie he was sitting in second place in the general classification at the 2010 Tour of Britain and with only a twenty minute window of opportunity at the team hotel between massage and dinner and nothing outdoors but a dark and wet carpark I took over one of the hotel’s dull but empty, private and appropriately sized conference rooms which I turned into a field studio; we got through two set-ups and two outfit changes plus a little conversation despite the tight time-frame and I was impressed by Porte’s relaxed, honest and frank attitude which I’ve found to be fairly typical traits amongst the Australians I’ve met and photographed in the past. The interview written by Gregor Brown is a great insight into Porte’s background and his struggles as an Australian coming to Europe to make it as a professional cyclist and as ever the feature is best appreciated in print so pick up a copy if you can. Thanks as ever to Deputy Editor Ed Pickering for assigning me and the magazine’s art department for doing such a great job with image choice and layout.

The current issue of Cycle Sport Magazine features portraits of Garmin-Transitions team cyclist and Tyler Farrar lead-out man Julian Dean. The portraits were shot on location in Spain during the Vuelta a Espana, and despite producing a few lit portrait options at the team’s overnight hotel the image that ran as the opener to the interview (above) was shot with available ambient light outside the team bus in about 20 seconds flat. There’s probably a lesson to be learned there.

Julian’s a super-nice guy; quiet and laconic but incredibly polite and earnest and he’s been riding at the top-tier of the sport long enough to have gained a huge amount of experience and some great anecdotes, including being tackled to the ground by a gendarme, getting shot with a BB gun and being on the receiving end of Mark Renshaw‘s infamous head-butts at this year’s Tour de France so the interview (written by Andy McGrath) is well worth reading; the seven page feature also includes a few more of my portraits not seen here so get your hands on a copy to see the full feature.

Out takes:

My portrait of mountain bike importer/distributor Silverfish UK Ltd’s Managing Director Darren Mabbott features in the October 2010 (#104) issue of Dirt Magazine. This photograph was actually produced over two years ago on location at the Silverfish warehouse in Cornwall (original image below). Portraits tend to have a short shelf life so it was nice to get a stock sale from this one and good to have my work appear in Dirt Magazine for the first time also.

Portraits of competitors at the finish-line of the 2010 Bontrager 24/12 mountain bike endurance race held this past weekend at the Newnham Park Estate in Devon. The 24 Hour Solo Male category winner completed 26 laps of the technical 14KM course (or 364KM in total…) in 24:00:17 with the second placed rider equal on laps but 26 minutes 10 seconds behind.

The full gallery of this series is now available to view at:

http://www.simonkeitch.com/#/Portfolios/24%20Hour%20Racers/1

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.

Tear-sheet from the new edition of Arts+Culture magazine featuring one my portraits of Devon based Anglo-Chinese artist Clem So. I blogged about experimenting with a Holga toy camera on this shoot at the time which can be viewed HERE plus here’s some more unpublished out-takes from the shoot below.