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 I thought I’d take this opportunity to pull a few unpublished photographs from my Procycling Magazine cover shoot earlier in the year; a much tighter cropped alternative photo from the above set-up ran double page spread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.
May 23rd, 2009 § § permalink
The new July 2009 issue of Cycle Sport Magazine is now on sale in the UK and USA and I’m pleased to say is packed with portraits that I shot on assignment for the publication. Three interviews in the magazine are illustrated with my photographs; Olympic Gold medallist and World Champion Nicole Cooke in Italy (above and below), Tour de France Green Jersey winner Robbie McEwen at home in Belgium, and American sprinter Tyler Farrar in his adopted home town of Gent, Belgium. To read the interviews and see more of my images pick up a copy of the magazine at any WH Smiths in the UK or any other good newsagents in the UK or US (archive race photography by Graham Watson).
March 22nd, 2009 § § permalink
This week I was assigned to photograph another Olympic and World Champion – British cyclist Nicole Cooke – at her Vision 1 racing team’s training camp in Italy. I was out there primarily to create portraits of Nicole for an upcoming article in Cycle Sport magazine, as well as to capture some straight photojournalism shots of the training camp for sister publication Cycling Weekly; apparently I’m the first photographer to shoot Nicole in her World Champion jersey which was something of a surprise. I was working with the Italian based writer Stephen Farrand who was in between covering the final stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico and heading up to Milan for the Lance Armstrong press conference prior to the Milan-San-Remo so I’ll forgive him for being late every time he was due to pick me up! And besides which he was a true gent; his local knowledge ensured that I ate at some really nice little restaurants and cafes and he even helped me out by stopping off at a great place to pick up some local wine to take home as we were heading out of town to drop me at Pisa airport. He does kind of look like a much taller version of me though so God knows what we looked like together. I think that next week’s Cycling Weekly will be running the news images in an article, but I’ll keep the portraits firmly under wraps until the Cycle Sport interview goes to press. Also at the Tuscan training camp was a crew from Channel 4′s Transworld Sport who filmed part of the photo shoot, so I may have a cameo on the show within the next couple of weeks…
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.
July 24th, 2008 § § permalink
This is one of the selects from a portrait sitting I did with ten-time world downhill mountain bike champion Nicolas Vouilloz when he was briefly in the area earlier this year with bike sponsor Lapierre. Vouilloz still competes in the occasional mountain bike race but now concentrates on his new career as a professional rally car driver and is currently leading the overall standings in the 2008 Intercontinental Rally Challenge. If you require images of Nicolas Vouilloz for editorial or commercial use please contact me to discuss licensing options and to view further images from the shoot.
