So, May/June was a good few weeks for me cover wise … 5 that i know of. 2 UK, 1 South Africa, 1 Belgium and 1 Brazil. Not a bad haul really. It started off in Belgium when I got to Belgium for the World Cup in Houffalize and Christophe Meurice - the editor of Belgium’s biggest MTB magazine O2Bikers – said he had a something for me – the first Cape Epic cover of my shadows pic:
No Exif on cover cos it was with iPhone 
but original was Canon 1DMKIIN, 70-200 2.8, 1/1250 @ f7.1 ISO 640.
Next up was Bike Action Brazil with another take on the epic shadows series from day 6 of the 2009 Epic:
Then it was the turn of Mike Rose at Dirt Magazine said he was keen on two images I had taken Jill Kintner @ Houffalize as mentioned in my previous post or a Sam Hill shot from Sea Otter … the office vote swung it and Sam it was.
Canon 1DMKIIN, 300 2.8, 1/80 @ 20, ISO 125
Previous to Issue 88 above I had only ever had one Dirt cover – Cedric Gracia railing a berm in the wet in Champery in 2007. So it’s weird that my second one is also a right to left pan from above! Not your standard cover style.
Then it was the turn of Mountain Biker back home in South Africa with a Greg Minnaar shot from the Pietermaritzburg World Cup .. this was actually a landscape shot cropped to portrait – something that i havent had experience with before as I never crop. I always shoot for full frame every time.
Canon 5DMKII, 15 fisheye, 1/60 @ f8, ISO 125, 2 X flashes left and right on PocketWizards.
You’ll notice this is the only image in these 5 that have used flashes. This is intentional, I’m doing my best to move on from the staged, 2 flash, PocketWizard setup stuff – while it is extremely effective at producing results, i feel it is time to move on and return to natural light as much as possible. For example, at the Sea Otter Classic i only used flash to light the underneath of the Specialized pits for a group shot i was doing. I didn’t use flash at all for race coverage and I was pretty damn pleased with the results.
And finally, this is the cover of the latest Dirt! Issue 89 should be winging its way to subscribers as we speak and i’m pretty chuffed with this shot of Steve Peat of Santa Cruz Syndicate from the Andorra World Cup. This shot was intentionally shot to look like and Old Skool cover – straight on, turn action, disk rotor straight up etc etc … much like my mentor Malcolm Fearon could do in his sleep. This was on purpose because Peaty has been tearing the World Cup apart this year with wins in La Bresse – equalling Nico Voullioz’ record – and Andorra – going one better to become the most successful male downhiller in the history of the sport. But also because he had been using the catch phrase – Old Skool is the only school and i’m the fucking headmaster! Pure class. Congrats Peaty.
Canon 1DMKIIN, 300 2.8, 1/1250 @ f4, ISO 125
Just fyi – Dirt did photoshop cables from the chair lift out of the blue sky … just to clear that up in case anyone asks
laters
g