Shropshire biking. February 15th, 2009
February in the French alps can be hell, the French spread their national holidays across the whole month, couple that with UK half term and it means very busy mountains, so I decided to keep away and shoot some pictures closer to home instead.So I ventured into the Shropshire hills to shoot some mountain biking pictures for Cultura. We chose the Long Mynd as a setting, it’s a great spot, it’s almost like having your own private lake district, just without the lakes. I do a lot of riding there to keep in shape, so I went to try and capture images suggesting “mates going for a ride”. I choose to use the Elinchroms again shooting at sunset over a few days, very cold but great light.
Road trip. January 25th, 2009
The French alps had had a huge amount of snow over Christmas so I decided to get myself out there and shoot a good batch of stock for Cultura Images. I picked up Ben Benson, a good friend who is also an incredible skier and headed south to the mountains. Our first stop was Hotel Le Chamois in Alpe d’Huez. This is a groovy little hotel run by some friends of mine, it has a great atmosphere, great food and a cool bar, an excellent spot to work from. So we shot pictures in the old town and then up in the mountains, shooting ski lifestyle and action, giving the Elinchroms a good workout in the freezing cold. We had great weather and great apres ski, which sometimes merged into an evening out. It’s a hard place to leave, but I had to try and keep to my plan, which I have to admit was fairly flimsey.
We said our goodbyes and headed off to Serre Chevalier. I hadn’t been there for nearly ten years and I’d forgotten how huge it was. I did a ski season there in 1993, so I met up with old friends and worked a few days on the hill shooting action, the light was superb and so was the snow, we got some great images. I must get back there again, maybe this summer, if not, definitely next winter. Back in car again and off to Morzine where we met up with Catherine Peck and professional model who was doing a ski season there. We spent a couple of days shooting lifestyle, but unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worst and our plans for action pictures where finished. We’d had a great trip but, as always when your travelling, money gets eaten everyday, so I decided we had done enough and headed back to the UK and home, all in all a very successful trip.
Many, many thanks to Gareth, Catherine and Adam at the Hotel Le Chamois for their help and hospitality. To Mike Truelove for nearly killing us and to Lara, Howie and Sally for the breakfast, guiding and Tartiflet. Also a big thank you to Ben Benson for all of the hiking and amazing back flips and Catherine Peck for all of the help in Morzine.
Tight and Motion. October 20th, 2008
Here are a few shots that I’ve been working on for stock, the idea was to zoom in to action that is generally gone in the blink of an eye and that no one really pays much attention to, and I also tried to use water to emphasize motion, all with the use of flash. After years of hiring large portable flashes, I decided to bite the bullet and buy some, I decided on Elinchrom. I went down to see the guys at The Flash Centre and they sorted me out with a Ranger RX speed kit with 2 A heads and Skyport remotes. It’s a pretty outstanding bit of kit.
So I went out and gave them a test run in the mud and water, all worked beautifully. I didn’t quite get all the shots I was after, but I managed a few gems.
Tales from Wales. September 26th, 2008
With summertime gradually creeping away, I decided to grab one last chance to shoot some lifestyle sports stock for Cultura Images in North Wales. The weather was a little unpredictable but it came good in the end and we had a ball. We braved snakes, swamps, mosquitoes, and Welsh beer!! I used some Profoto flashes on this trip, one ended up in a lake, luckily the brolly kept it afloat long enough to fish it out before it blew up. Towards the end we stumbled upon some great locations for next summer…bring it on!
Many thanks to my good friends Richard Owen of Sun Valley Canoeing Co, and Jim Adlington of Planks Clothing.
London calling. September 19th, 2008
This was a joint shoot for Snow + Rock, Britains largest outdoor sports retailer, and Cycle Surgery, their biking outlets. They wanted to use the last remnants of summer to shoot some running and biking in London City and the surrounding park lands to appeal to the commuter and the office worker making time for a jog. We also had to shoot some mountain biking in Surrey to appeal to to all those city bound bikers who dash out for some action in the evenings. We had the help of Sam Gardner and Emma Davies. Sam had just returned from winning his first Global Tour event, the Xterra in Japan, and Emma was back from the Beijing Olympic games where she represented Ireland in the Triathlon.
It was, as usual with Snow + Rock a fairly fast passed shoot, dashing in and out of traffic in London, changing on pavements, and racing around in cars and vans getting from one park to the next, but we got some pretty good results, even if the weather was, once again, not quite on our side for the whole time.
