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:

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.

Portraits I was assigned to produce of the Irish National Champion and AG2R La Mondiale rider Nicolas Roche can be found illustrating an interview in the new November 2009 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine (race photos by Graham Watson). The photographs were shot on location at this year’s Tour of Britain at an overnight hotel which was taken over by most of the race entourage and participating teams. There was a lot of waiting around at the location and very little time with the subjects in an extremely limiting setting – as you would expect when trying to shoot professional cyclists in the middle of a major eight-day stage race – but I love the challenge of working on location and the finished article looks great with a nice choice of images and good layout. A couple of the highlights during the downtime included seeing the eventual overall Tour of Britain winner Edvald Boasson Hagen roll into the hotel car park on his time trial bike after riding back to the hotel (after winning that day’s stage), followed a little later in the evening by the entire police cavalcade. Also worth a mention is the photo below of Agritubel team riders Nicolas Vogondy and Freddy Bichot who walked straight in to the studio I’d set up in a conference room on the ground floor of the hotel, sat down and demanded to have their photo taken; I figured why not, squeezed off a single frame and they jumped up, gave me their email addresses and were off…

I made these portraits of Frank Schleck back in January this year while on assignment for Procycling Magazine. The Saxo Bank team were based in a hotel on the Spanish island of Mallorca for a week long team training camp; their first of  the year and their first with the new Saxo Bank sponsor, also their first on the new bikes supplied by Specialized. I was on location with staff writer Ellis Bacon primarily to photograph the Swiss Olympic and former World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara for the cover of the March issue, but as part of my brief was also asked to photograph the other riders and team management (including team owner Bjarne Riis who accompanied the riders on the final day’s training ride) on a more casual basis wherever possible for the magazine to keep on their stock file. I really love the above image – so much so that I have a framed print on the wall above my desk – but as far I’m aware it’s never actually been published. I asked Frank if I could take his portrait as the riders were getting themselves organised outside their hotel and next to the team truck one morning, and he instinctively took off his jacket so I could photograph him in his Luxembourg National Champion’s jersey (Frank lost the title later in the year, but to his younger brother Andy so it’s still in the family); it was first thing in the morning and the sun was still behind the buildings surrounding the town-centre hotel, which provided a really beautiful soft ambient light; as much as I love lighting my portraits (which is a big part of my style) it’s important to recognise those times when adding strobe light will actually detract from the image (Annie Leibovitz wrote in her At Work book that “I’ve never been able to make strobe light look as beautiful as natural light”).