Simon Keitch Photography Blog

I’m very happy to say that I’ve been working with the Astana Professional Cycling Team this winter to produce the commercial photography for all of the team’s promotional and marketing material for the 2011 racing season (photographed above is new signing for 2011 Czech rider Roman Kreuziger); an assignment that eventually took me to three different countries and involved the full set of planes, trains and automobiles. And helicopters.

First up was a short trip to the Italian town of Montecatini Terme in Tuscany where the team was holding its first training camp with the 2011 season roster, to produce headshots of each of the 27 team riders plus a full team photo in the new team kit, ready for release on the 1st of January when the new team and kit could be officially announced in accordance to UCI rules. I flew out to Italy at the end of November and snow was just starting to fall at Gatwick Airport when I arrived there for my flight in the very early morning and I was subsequently told that delays and/or cancellations were possible… A nervous few hours followed while my flight was delayed further and further as a result of the poor weather before eventually boarding, and we then had another 30 minutes or so on the plane while the ground-crew hosed down the entire plane with de-icer before ultimately getting airborne. Terrible weather seemed to be battering the whole of Europe and heavy rain storms in Italy put paid to the original plan of photographing the full team outdoors, but fortunately the conference room we used as a studio for the individual headshots was large enough for all 27 riders so we had a plan B to fall back on; not ideal certainly but with only this one short window when all 27 riders would be in one place and available for the group shot it’s a case of doing the best job possible in the circumstances (and pro cyclists with 5% body fat aren’t too keen on standing outside in the cold either…). In retrospect I was lucky to get to Italy as I later learned that Gatwick was closed just a few hours after my flight took off and the airport remained closed for the rest of the week. I was woken up at 5:00AM the morning after the photo-shoot with a text informing me that my flight was cancelled, but with pre-production meetings and another shoot to get to back in the UK I didn’t have the luxury of staying in Italy for a few more days so I opened up the laptop and got to work searching for a different route home, eventually finding an available seat on a later flight with a different airline flying into Heathrow, which curiously remained open despite only being on the other side of London from Gatwick.

View from room 817, Hotel Diamante Beach, Calpe, Spain

After the coldest December on record, a week on the south coast of Spain sounded pretty good even if the busy work schedule did mean I wouldn’t have time to get my feet wet in any of those pools in the photo above. I was based in a hotel with the Astana team in Calpe for their first training camp of the calendar year with both documentary images of the training and behind the scenes goings on as well as more ‘studio’ style portraits on white seamless on the shot-list, this time with the new Specialized 2011 team bikes which were being delivered during the training camp. Riding on the back of a motorbike piloted by an ex Moto-GP pro through the Spanish countryside was a definite highlight of the trip and it’s a testament to my driver’s skill that no matter how fast he drove into a corner I always felt safe. Riding in the back of one of the team cars with the Directeur Sportif at the wheel was an entirely different matter however, and I’m fairly sure that years have been taken off my life as a result of one particularly hairy mountain road descent although happily no-where near as many years as I feared might be removed at the time.

The third and final location was Monaco for the 2011 Astana Team launch as well as full length portraits of the remaining seven riders who weren’t at the training camp in Calpe because they were racing at the Tour Down Under in Australia. Arrived at Nice airport and then transferred the 20KM to Monaco via helicopter (naturally), about 30 minutes for a quick stroll to take in the ‘sights’ then straight to work, eat, sleep, eat some more then taxi-to-helicopter-to-plane; in and out in under 24 hours…

Alexander Vinokourov

Astana Professional Cycling Team captain Alexander Vinokourov; more to come from this shoot in the New Year.

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.

Back in June I travelled out to Switzerland with Cycle Sport magazine staff writer Andy McGrath to photograph Daniel Teklehaimanot at the UCI World Cycling Centre in Aigle; the feature appears in the new October 2010 issue and I’m pleased to say that they’ve done a very fine job with image selection and layout with only one photo that isn’t mine sneaking in via a side-bar with Sky rider John-Lee Augustyn about the difficulties for Africans making it to the professional ranks. This was a great assignment to get and was quite different from the usual celebrity athlete interview feature (not that I don’t love those too…); currently relatively unknown, Teklehaimanot was born and raised in the African country of Eritrea (a country with a strong cycling scene as a result of it being colonised by Italy from 1890 to 1941 but also a bloody war-torn history and ranked as the worst country in the world for press freedom violations) and poised to become the first black-African cyclist to make it to the top-tier of professional cycling despite undergoing a heart operation just last year after tests indicated that he had tachycardia. Big thanks to Ed Pickering for assigning me and Andy McGrath for being such a good travel companion and doing such a great job with the words; you can read the article in full by picking up a copy of the new issue from any good newsagents.

Out-takes: I really wish I’d stepped back and taken a wider set-up photo of this first one (an alternate from the photo that ran as the double page spread opener); there were four of us all hunkered down in the wheat; as well as Daniel and me, Andy (writer) and Michel (Daniel’s coach) were holding onto a softbox for dear life as gale-force winds blew through the valley.

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.

The new April 2010 issue of Cycle Sport is now on sale and includes an article I shot for the magazine on location in Holland with Rabobank team rider Robert Gesink. There was a big train crash in Brussels a few days before we were due to head out to meet Gesink at his home in Holland not too far from the German border which nixed the original plan to catch the Eurostar out to Belgium and hire a car from there, so plan B was to drive out the whole way to avoid any possible issues with the train service that may of caused us to miss our very narrow window. Three long days of traveling across northern France, Belgium and Holland and back again on a road that I can only describe as consistent was made more bearable with the company of Cycle Sport staff writer Lionel Birnie and we kept ourselves entertained with some good conversation and dreams of a large glass of Leffe at that night’s hotel. The shoot was the usual affair with a limited location and time and we were in and out of Gesink’s home in a little over two hours including the interview but with some solid images and several different options in the can. As always there were many good photos that didn’t make it into the final article but the magazine did a great job with the layout which as always is best appreciated in print so be sure to pick up a copy from any good newsagent. The rest of the layout is below, along with some out takes that didn’t make the final cut.

One of my previously unpublished portraits of Nicolas Roche ran in Ireland’s best selling newspaper the Irish Independent recently. It’s always great to see unpublished photos finally go to print especially as this image was one of my own personal favourites from the shoot.

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.