October 25th, 2010 § § permalink
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.
September 24th, 2009 § § permalink
Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara took his third World Championship jersey today when he won the 2009 World Time Trial Championships by an incredible 27 seconds over the Silver medallist Gustav Larsson of Sweden; Cancellara showing once again that when on form he’s unbeatable in the discipline. I thought I’d take this opportunity to pull a few unpublished photographs from my Procycling Magazine cover shoot earlier in the year; a much tighter cropped alternative photo from the above set-up ran double page spread in the original interview but this one and the two out takes below have never been published or publicly shown previously. Fabian was a pleasure to work with and a true gent, he even went back to his hotel room to find a team jersey to wear for the shoot when the team management didn’t deliver one to the location (a not so glamorous but very large conference room in the team hotel’s basement) as arranged.
September 14th, 2009 § § permalink
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”).
July 4th, 2009 § § permalink
The 2009 Tour De France is finally underway with Fabian Cancellara of the Saxo Bank team pulling on the famous yellow jersey after winning the opening stage’s 15.5KM individual time trial by a huge 18 second lead over the second place finisher Astana’s Alberto Contador, with British rider Bradley Wiggins of Garmin-Slipstream rounding out the top three just one second down on Contador. Head to the Cycling Weekly Stage 1 Report by my lookalike Stephen Farrand for full details. Photograph of Fabian Cancellara featured above was shot on assignment for Procycling Magazine earlier this year for the March 2009 issue cover story and ran double page spread as the article’s jump photo.
March 3rd, 2009 § § permalink
Procycling Magazine issue 123 is now on sale in the UK (mid-March in the USA) with my work on the cover and throughout two articles inside the magazine; the Fabian Cancellara cover story and an interview with Jakob Fuglsang in the ‘Fab Four’ feature where Procycling unveil their choice of four young riders who they will follow over the upcoming season. The two articles were both shot back in January at the team’s first training camp of the year, on the island of Mallorca. Time was pretty tight as we were out there for just the last couple of days of the camp and with the riders out on the road all day we were able to get just a few minutes in the mornings as they left the hotel and picked up their bikes from the Saxo Bank team truck parked outside, and then maybe an hour in the evening between the post-ride massage and dinner to get both the interview and shoot the photographs.
With the daylight gone entirely by the time we got our slot with each rider, an outdoor portrait was completely out of the question and a walk around the hotel interior prior to the shoot had failed to unveil anything that would provide a background that would look strong enough for the cover or the jump photo for the article. What I did find however was a very large and empty conference room in the hotel basement which the hotel manager was kind enough to let us use for the duration of the interview and photo shoot which turned out to be perfect; it was warm (which turned out to be important as Fabian was feeling a little ill) and very private. I set up a small studio in the conference room around two chairs for the subject and journalist and shot some candid portraits during the interview, and Cancellara then changed into the new Saxo Bank team jersey for the more formal portraits that you can see from the cover and double-truck image above.
Above: New Saxo Bank team rider Jakob Fuglsang outside the team truck prior to setting out on the day’s team training ride.
January 25th, 2009 § § permalink
Loads of stuff happening right now, way too much to mention here (as always) but the big news this week was an assignment with Procycling magazine which involved me flying out to the Saxo Bank team’s early season training camp in Mallorca to shoot portraits for a couple of articles, including the cover story for an upcoming issue. I’ll stay tight-lipped about the subjects for now but will post the full details here when the magazine goes to print in a few week’s time.
