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”).
