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:

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.

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…