2010 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike Stage 5: Bulls 1 at pace

First off, it’s not Flash TM anymore, it’s just very plain HTML. This will make it easier to link directly to images – which is obviously a double-edged sword. People can now link like crazy … but I’d rather they linked to the pages if you don’t mind. You can also obviously download the 800px wide images to your heart’s content now without having to go to all the hassle of doing a screencap and then cropping. But i do ask you play friendly with my livelihood and if you need to use them for something other than on your own computer please contact me. Seriously, if you do a quick search on google images for my work you will see it scattered across all the internets for all and sundry to see and, given the fact most content management systems strip metadata from images, and thus copyright, it gets kinda tricky to manage that. I am probably adding to my woes moving from Flash TM. But thats a chance i’m willing to take.

I’ve kept the metadata intact in the images, so if you wish you can check out the numbers used to take the photos check it out – maybe this helpful … and maybe I’ll eventually put it on the pages I dunno … we’ll see.

Now before the design guru’s hit me with all kinds of comments and slings and arrows about the layout – you have to remember that these will normally be done in:

a) a rush at the end of hectic week’s work;
b) somewhere exotic like a hotel foyer at 2am because the internet doesn’t work anywhere else, the front seat of a speeding car getting to an airport, or the airport itself somewhere between check-in and departure gate;
c) whenever I get the chance;
d) in an ongoing easily repeatable way.

So this mean’s it has to be quick, simple, and easy to replicate time and time again. To this end I’m talking PhotoMechanic by CameraBits. I have told most people I have come into contact with in the photo business that this software has changed my life – and i really mean that. And i truly thank the Formula 1 photog who showed me light – and whose name escapes me as I type this. Oops – I was obviously so bowled over at PhotoMechanic I forgot his name! UK-based guy, shot for Honda F1? Ring any bells?

Anyway, the speed and ease of use of PM on a day to day basis is amazing. And then you have the extensibility of editing the Export templates as long as you can fudge a bit of Ruby on Rails and HTML. That’s how i built the templates you see in the galleries. Simple, efficient and eminently repeatable. The watermarks, captions, HTML etc are generated on output once you’ve selected your images. Then simply uploaded and linked to my site. I would recommend PhotoMechanic to anyone who takes images on a regular basis. I have no affiliation to them either – I paid full whack for my copy.

Just one final thing, well i guess a repeat of something above, but in other words, there is a copyright statement linked from all the gallery pages, if you’re in doubt about image usage, please check it and try do the right thing.

We headed out of the camp in a similar way to Day 2 so i knew we’d get some more sunrise images … but know having seen my take from yesterday so did everybody else … so i had to find something different again. Thankfully the course ended up in perfect west-east  alignment a couple of times thus throwing up more alternative shots.

Cape Epic Stage 3: Sunrise leaving Ceres

Besides working with great scenery on the Epic we’re also working with a large amount of riders so that helps create great shots in itself – not to mention gives you some time to practice a shot! Here’s one i liked from day 3 showing the numbers involved and featuring one of my favourite photographic devices: recession.

Cape Epic Stage 3: Sunrise leaving Ceres

This year’s Cape Epic was particularly dusty – a combination of the season, the stage locations and not to mention my personal favourite: the TV quads. You can either bitch and moan all day and fight against the dust or you can use it to your advantage. And given the power TV has over these things it’s better to chose the latter as the former is no-win situation right off the bat.

There are certain visual elements i find synonymous with the Epic: Barbed wire fences, telegraph lines and windmills. I didn’t get to see the windmills this year – but more on that later. But i did manage to get some good stuff using the lines the farm boundaries throw up.

Cape Epic Stage 3: Barded wire fences outside Ceres

Next it was time to move away from dusty silhouettes and replace them with water crossing silhouettes

Cape Epic Stage 3: Water crossing near Matroosberg

When shooting from the motorbike you invariably have limited choices when it comes to shot selection, I tend to use the 15mm fisheye a lot … and also the 70-200 2.8. A bit of fill flash doesnt hurt either under the African sun.

Cape Epic Stage 3: Christoph Sauser of Specialized Factory Racing

Cape Epic Stage 3: Lukas Fluckiger of Trek World Racing

Cape Epic Stage 3: Bart Brentjens of Trek Brentjens

Race to finish, swop to 300 2.8 and grab Susi and Burry winning. Check.

Cape Epic Stage 3: Christoph Sauser and Burry Stander of Specialized Factory Racing win

Swop to 70-200 and get some emotion shots under red tent which throws all colours out .. so push colours all over the way to make it look intentional. Check.

Cape Epic Stage 3: Kevin Evans and Alban Lakata of MTN Qhubeka Topeak Ergon

Thats about it for Day 3 from my perspective. Although you only see 9 images here I did shoot 1388 images. But i think these sum up the day for me.

Ok just one more sunrise!

Cape Epic Stage 3: Sunrise leaving Ceres

PS: I have to admit the WordPress resizing of images is not the best i’ve encountered and leaves all of them looking muddy and soft. Will need to work on this for future updates.

When shooting a race like the Epic it helps to know whats coming up so you can plan shots and have an idea when to stay with the leaders or when to ride on ahead to setup for something special. But that doesnt always happen and some days you just have to hope for the best and make use of what happens as you go along. I had an inkling the sunrise in Ceres would be a good one and it took place just minutes after the start, so I was hoping to get some nice backlit dusty goodness … but i was unprepared for how good it was going to be!

Cape Epic Stage 2: Sunrise leaving Ceres

Cape Epic Stage 2: Sunrise leaving Ceres

After spending quite a while shooting this in a multitude of ways we moved on to Eselfontein, but given the sensitivity of the singletrack trails we couldn’t follow on motorbikes and had to duck in and out to a few key points to try capture the day’s action. This always makes it hard to get complete coverage of the racing but thats how the cookie crumbles. And we’d all rather have great singletrack to ride our bikes on than a wide open road for moto’s to work on right?

Cape Epic Stage 2: Silvio Bundi leads the bunch

Cape Epic Stage 2: Platt and Brentjens

As a race photographer I believe we have to try tell the story of the day as best we can with images that show terrain, action, emotion etc and the I try and shoot to that self-imposed brief as much as I can. Given that I’m on a motorbike chasing the leaders over some seriously rough terrain that does present some hazards and hassles in achieving this. And the fact that I’m also usually riding blind into the terrain – I know most of the area from personal experience but I don’t have full access to the entire route and know it inch by inch. That would just be too easy.

Then after racing around the dirt for ages it’s time to plan an escape and make it to the finish for the stage winners … sometimes this mad dash works, sometimes it doesn’t but I usually make it. Sometimes we have to race over the finish line on the moto and ‘win’ the stage upsetting all and sundry but when the leaders are 30 seconds behind you and you still have to swop lenses its the only option.

Cape Epic Stage 2: Pietersma and Brentjens win

Then its time to capture some post-race emotion … and given the intensity and rigours of the Cape Epic this is a fairly easy task.

Cape Epic Stage 2: Platt and Sahm

Then it’s time to ingest cards, caption, tag and all that and get them out to the internets … but not before one more sunrise pic

Cape Epic Stage 2: Sunrise leaving Ceres

Thanks for reading … more to come …

This year’s route is a little different to previous years in that it is centered further north than it has been before – around Ceres and Worcester – so that means more dusty, rocky trails. But as you know I’m more of a pictures person than a wordsmith. So here’s stage 1 from Wellington to Ceres.

Cape Epic Stage 1: Leaving Diemersfontein Wine Estate

Cape Epic Stage 1: Descending Bain’s Kloof Pass

Cape Epic Stage 1: Watervalberg Nature Reserve

Cape Epic Stage 1: Kevin Evans in Watervalberg Nature Reserve

Cape Epic Stage 1: Kevin Evans after the finish

More to come …

You see like the rider’s are in training for the 2010 season so should us photogs be – you gotta keep your eye in, find some new angles, play with new equipment and try see if you can find that percentage difference to make the shots count. Even World Champions push themselves above and beyond in the off season to find their limits and try come back stronger and faster still, like Conrad Stoltz in the image below during lactate threshold & power testing in Stellenbosch.

Conrad Stoltz

But like I said i just haven’t had the time to do that – given book layouts, family life, riding my bike before my exodus from South Africa and prolonged stay in Europeland for the season. Not that i’m complaining about having plenty of distractions from taking ‘proper’ photos. I’ve been taking plenty of iPhone photos mind and those who follow @garyperkin on Twitter can attest to that.

So far this month or so I’ve been lucky enough to shoot runners, swimmers, mountainbikers, olympians, world champions, doctors and celebrities – and sometimes a mixture of all of the aformentioned.

Michael Mol

Dan Hugo

But quite possibly the thing that had the most impact on me was going to Robben Island and riding my bike around the island. Its hard to imagine the impact that years in those cells had on people like Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and the many less famous political prisoners that walked through the imposing gates to find themselves on an island just a few miles off the coast of Cape Town with a release date some 20 years hence for the majority of prisoners there.

Robben Island

In some ways it is similar to Alcatraz in San Francisco bay, an imposing land mark surrounded by water and shrouded in myth and legend, or as in the case today mist and low cloud. But the prison facilities on Robben Island are quite small but yet have an unnerving aura and presence to them. Just a few small details give you a sense that this is major historical landmark in South Africa’s history. I’m no historian so I won’t bore you with the place’s history, all I can say is that the freedom I have to ride my bike and take some photos that mean something to me has been afforded by those who suffered solitude, confinement and loss and for that I’m pretty damn grateful. Nkosi kakhulu.

Freedom

I’ve been super busy of late and have been up to all sorts of things. None of which pertain to my lack of blog entries until you add them all up and realise I haven’t had much time to put words to digitalness.

But something is looming large that i feel i had to write about – along with most other tech/geeky folks out there. The mythical Apple Table/iSlate/iPad/whatever. If we are to believe the hype – which is pretty darn big – but all completely unsubstantiated this will be a game changer. A revolution in silicon. An end to all the worlds woes. And a lifeline for print. Really?

I’m not sure where I stand on it though. On the one hand I love gadgets and after having used my iPhone a lot over the past couple of years I know it is a super device that has helped make taking photos, keeping in contact, remote working & travelling easier. It is essential to what I do.

The thing that is at the same time exciting and scary is how the proposed/visualised/rumoured Tablet / iTunes version of electronic print media will hurt/hinder/help photographers & content producers as a whole. I can see the method in the medium – read a story on the latest UCI Mountain Bike World Cup or the Cape Epic and while you are reading intro and article you can tap references and download ‘sidebars’ of the latest images, results, athlete profiles, videos, history, popups, interactive charts etc etc all while keeping your place in the main article.

As Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message … basically how or where or on what you view the content dictates your response to it and how you react to it. Basically the actual content won’t have the profound effect on us as much as how it is delivered – think reading an article on a newspaper on a park bench or train and then watching the self same story on Fox News. But also think of the interaction between you the viewer/reader/consumer of the media and how it impacts you and how, if you could, read up on all related items as you wish. McLuhan also postulated that as we evolve and change in society due to our constant and eager thirst for more and more information we miss how the interaction with the content via the medium has changed us. And it is only later how we see this influence … think Television. At first it was basic, informative but as it’s power has grown it has spawned such blights on society as ‘Reality TV’ and this has shaped how we view such things as song, dance, desert islands and me time with a room full of strangers.

I think I’ve just derailed my train of thought there … basically what i am trying to say is the ability to consume large amounts of information is an important part of being human … but it is also a slippery slope as once you get a powerful tool to consume the knowledge you actually become less human. Social interaction comes through Twitter, Facebook, email and the like … I know this for a fact as I am as guilty as the next iPhone owner for sneaking in a Tweet here or quick check on Facebook to see what folks on the other side of the world are up to as I head to bed. To the exclusion of real honest human interaction.

Now we’re at the bottom of this particular roller coaster blog post … lets go back up!

The idea of a device that, even though we don’t know if it exists or not, could shake up old media in the way that the iPod and iTunes changed music is obviously very cool and exciting … imagine the possibilities to shape the message via the medium. Wow. Interactive features with images, video, charts, stats, related features all in one hand held device.

But something worries me and that is how do I bill for it? Or is it free like all the good stuff that is on the Internet? Will the new prime mover of photo sales be for the electronic medium as opposed to the print model of yore? Every now and then I use Google Image search to see where my photos are ending up and to be honest they are all over the place – a lot are obviously used legitimately, others not so much and others that fall into a grey area somewhere in between. But as i have I don’t even have the time to put down a couple of hundred words I sure can’t spend my days trawling the Internet to find every Joe Soap or Doña Fulana who has posted an image of mine. Maybe I should. Or maybe I should just dump them all in the new iTunes aggregator and get a cut.

Molly, who turns 3 in March, has an alter ego she calls Alice. When she gets up to mischief, Alice is around, or so she tells us. Maybe my alter ego wrote this … I call him Joe.

We have been riding a lot though which is always good … helps stave off the Bike Polar Disorder … check how much Tom has been riding ….

more to come … i’m on the road now from Canberra-SYD-KUL-AMS-BRU …

g

So i will be updating this as I go as a kind of timeline as much for me as for the three of you who look at this.

0901 leave hotel for station in taxi – I decided to pack neorealism breakfast to avoid one extra trip upstairs to fetch bags – as Christoph Sauser said it’s all about economy on a long trip like this.

0925 arrive 1 minute before train departs for Vienna – sign of things to come? Decided on 1st class on train as much because rest was full but also in the vain hope it sets a trend and I get an upgrade on one of the longer legs!

1214 arrive Vienna Sudbahnhof – next train is across station at 1219 but delayed by 4 mins so can make that easy enough to get to Vienna Mitte.

1225 arrive Vienna Mitte – short walk in midday sun to CAT terminal. Then board for Vienna airport.

1237 Depart for Vienna Airport. Much to the chagrin of those banging door as we roll out

1405 head to security and get bags scanned a couple of times cos of cameras and lenses. Still all done by 1418. Now just the standard 10 minute or so wait before boarding … Don’t know why this is but I you add up all the little waits here and there you soon find out just why it takes so long to get anywhere.

1434 looks like we got our first delay … Supposed to board at 1410 for 1500 departure – plane has just arrived and folks getting off or as the uhmuricans say deplaning. Btw have to mention an indispensable tool in this jet set lifestyle – other than iPhone of course – TripIt.com and associated app. Man that thing is handy – email your itenraries straight from airlines be it text, HTML or PDF and boom it creates a nice schedule for to have at hand on your phone, calendar or what have you. It stores the obvious ticket numbers, flight numbers, etc but it also has links to maps, weather and what the best seats are. Plus you can add all kinds of stuff to make it your one stop shop for references – hotels, trains, rental car whatever. It’s great when you just call up flight numbers, ticket numbers etc all on your phone in front of checkin to speed the process.

1440 crew just boarded … Should be a few minutes yet … But this is how it begins – couple of minutes here a short delay there and boom your carefully constructed itenerary falls to pieces. Still not the case yet as I have a couple of hours in Schipol to kill … Shopping anyone?

1449 Boarding. Will see what air ttraffic control say about delay and when they let us leave. Seat 5F – window near front just the way I like it. Well that’s not entirely true – anywhere in business class is where I like it

1509 Takeoff … Not too late sure we’ll catch up over Germany where the Autobahn limits extend vertically as well as horizontally.

1646 Arrive ahead of schedule despite late start. Nice. Quick jaunt through Schengen “border” then off to get some AAA batteries for the Bose headphones – don’t want those to die on 12 and a half hour flight! Quick to chat to Karen and Molly on Skype and then sort a few images out for folks.

1857 Been in the airport lounge for a bit – power, Internet, coffee, decent bogs and all that goes into making this weekly chore all that more bearable. Only couple of hours to go before boarding. Seat allocation doesn’t look so good though – am I jinxing myself again by hoping for an upgrade? Probably.

2036 Yep think I blew by typing my hope for upgrade stuck in 15c – hope I’m not stuck next to someone with a golfball size bladder. The next bit always amazes me – how people boarding a plane lose the ability to count! If the first seat is 1 the next is 2 etc it’s aviation for the masses not rocket science!

2135 Didnt want to jinx it so kept schtum when they told us flight was pretty empty and I had 3 seats to myself – almost better than upgrade. So on our way now – with about 12 hours in the air before getting to Singapore. Bummer about flying so often is when you fly often in the same month you se the same movies whenever you get on a plane. Over and out till half a day hence.

0650 in Amsterdam anyway – about 9-ish hours in. No idea of local time because I have no idea of where we are. KLM has just upgraded their in- flight entertainment interface but it’s a bit buggy and if you choose flight tracking you get the news. Oops. Slept for a good few hours. One thing though when you hear a fart through noise-cancelling headphones you know it’s a ripper. Sorry folks

0905 or more correctly 1505 Heading down Malaysian peninsula now to Singapore – 30 minutes or so to go now … Wasn’t too bad as 12 hour flights go. Watched a movie called The Great Buck Howard unfortunatley not as great as the title would suggest. John Malkovich held it together though in a strange sort of way – what would you expect from him!
Flight wise we are well ahead of schedule – while that might seem great it usually means that the gate will still be occupied and you sit in the plane for an extra half hour. Still I have 4 hours to kill before the next leg 7.5 hours to Sydney.

1822 got some work done in business class lounge just 40 minutes till boarding so gonna go see if I can find a book to read or something. Flying Qantas next so hopefully they have a different selection of movies. My dad told me years ago that Qantas means Quite A Nice Trip All Survived … The old ones are the best.

To be continued … here

Canon 5DMKII 15mm fisheye,  1/800 @ f7.1 @ ISO800

Thats myself, Sven Martin and Damian Breach in Bromont … post and pre rain storms!

Been a wet and wild couple of weeks in Canada … it seemed to rain on and off all the time. I’m sure it didnt it just felt that way. I know we had some good days I have the pics to prove it … but my abiding memory is rain, rain and more rain. I’ve always said it makes for better shots … but when you’re gear is submerged and not working you aren’t going to get any shots let alone good ones.

Still will catch up on Bromont later – those images are still being sent around the place for clients … but wanted to post something anyways cos i have been so slack lately – blog-wise that is. Been super busy otherwise! Mainly cleaning up after the downpours of Bromont! Camera gear took a real beating there with the 5D MKII coming off the worst – and requiring a new shutter. Still it held up fairly well considering the downpour and the type of shots i was taking with it.

The last post in June had a lot to do with shadows so I thought I’d do another of my favourites … reflections. So before and after the 2 Canadian World Cups in Mont-Saint-Anne and Bromont I spend a day in New York City. I’ve been there before a couple of times but its always amazing to see the size and scale of the place. And the crowds! As always I am a pretty crappy tourist – which is pretty bad for someone who travels so much .. or maybe its because I travel so much. But its a great place to play photographically with all the shapes and sizes and colors and all that. But i somehow got fixated on taking some non-standard shots – ie not the Flat Iron Building and not Empire State and not Chrysler Building etc etc … just what took my fancy.

Canon 1D MKIII, TS-E24mm f/3.5L, 1/800 @ 3.5 ISO 400

Canon 1D MKIII, TS-E24mm f/3.5L, 1/500 @ 3.5 ISO 400

In other news, my Cape Epic shadows image won the VeloArto exhibition competition thing in Quebec .. it was a public vote type competition where 10 invited photogs displayed 10 examples of their work alongside some video installations. So I can now officially class myself as an award winning photographer. Ha Ha …

BTW .. I’m working on not one but two books at the moment. The plan is to get them out by the end of the year .. watch this space.

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

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