Well, I said I'd been busy...
Somerset Life April 2009

I don't often get to sell images like this for use on mag covers. The UK magazine market is so competitive and so heavily biased towards newsstand sales that subtlety simply won't cut it, except perhaps with a few extremely well recognised brands. So it's nice to see a big landscape, small rider shot on a cover - and even better to see a general interest mag use real mountain bikers on the cover rather than the usual entirely unconvincing general purpose models plonked on a bike with the brake levers set too high and the saddle too low...
What Mountain Bike August '09

'We'd like a really summery cover', they said at What Mountain Bike. Happy, dusty trails and bright blue skies and all that. No problem, I said. In fact, this is one of very few covers I've shot in the past couple of years that hasn't needed any Photoshop work on the sky.
What you can't see - literally - is the rather fetching clump of purple flowers I deliberately left in the shot to the rider's left. That's because, by the time the cover was festooned with its browsing reader-snaring 'furniture', they'd been usurped by that big yellow rectangle. Such is the way of UK mag cover design.
What Mountain Bike September '09
The shoot for this cover was, by any reasonable standards, epic. Biblical quantities of rain, uncooperative equipment and map-reading cockups conspired to make this the most challenging cover shoot I've had for a while. In the end - and after a wholly unreasonable period of time spent cowering under bracken in driving rain - the location we'd chosen turned out to be a peach. Throw in half an hour of intermittent sun, and the 500 mile round trip even began to look worthwhile. Word is, this was one of WMB's best selling issues this year.
It's fair to say, though, that the image as it appears on the cover has had its fair share of Photoshop wizardry applied. I can't resist sharing the original, because it gives some idea of the conditions in which Ben and I were working. This is what it really looked like:
See that black cloud on the far horizon? Twenty minutes later that was depositing its contents all over us...
What Mountain Bike October '09
There's some stunning scenery lurking beyond those big black and red blobs, courtesy of the Long Mynd - officially Britain's Oldest Hills (TM). Honest.
Cycle Oct-Nov '09

Cass doesn't normally look that, erm, mad. It's just that, what with my constant berating to not screw up his eyes against the water splash and having to ride the same corner a few times, it looks like he's partway through a particularly rough day on the bike. Still, I like this spot - Mendip spring water to ride through, a curvy, rocky trail and warm sunshine.
What Mountain Bike November '09

it's a fact of life that the weather forecast isn't always right. So what should've been the week's only bright, sunny and clear day actually ended up rather dull and murky. In situations like this there's no choice but to think on your feet, so I ditched the view-heavy location i'd had in mind (on the grounds that the view was barely visible through the mist) and found a water splash instead.
Once again, there's a great trail winding away into the distance behind that splurge about locks. Ho hum.
Mountain Biking UK December '09

MBUK normally commission their covers as a separate shoot, but they liked this pic of mine so much they ran it as-is. And the odd thing is, it's a close crop from a landscape format shot:
All hail the mighty D3, which allows me to shoot stuff like this at ISO800 and still bag a sharp cover.
What Mountain Bike December '09

Sometimes you can't find a cover image for looking. I knew the views from here were stunning. I knew the light would be good. I even knew roughly where to go. But could we find a suitable trail with the view in the right position behind Matt? Could we b******y.
In this situation necessity is the mother of bankable pictures, and sheep are a mountain bike photographer's best friend. After a fruitless hour or so traipsing around on foot, searching in vain for the holy grail of a bridleway traverse, we happened to find a few yards of rideable singletrack thanks to our cloven-hooved friends. Not that riding trails blazed by sheep isn't without its pitfalls - literally...
It's all glamour, this mountain bike cover star business
So that, by my reckoning, rounds off my 2009 cover year: twelve all-in. One a month... that'll do nicely, thanks. Here's to a cover a month in 2010...
Battery charging
It's fair to say that, on a personal level, I've had a rough few months. I've been shooting plenty (and yes, more of that really will be appearing on the blog as I get back into the swing of things), but a few weeks back I realised I needed some proper time out to relax and recharge my batteries.
So I packed my camera gear, my trusty old tripod (which spends most of its time propping up the corner of the office), a stove-top coffee maker and my duvet in my new toy...
Westy Atlantic. In front of the Atlantic
...and headed west. Well, southwest. To revisit some childhood haunts and a couple of places that have particular personal resonance for me. With no clients to please, no timetable to stick to and no particular goal in mind, except to come back with a couple of pictures that I'd be happy to put on the wall.
It was ace. Whilst the pictures I took won't ever win any prizes (or earn me any money) they were fun to take and I've enjoyed coming back to them. And a couple of them will be taking pride of place in my new place, sometime next year.
If you ever get stuck in a creative rut, I recommend spending a little time doing something different. Cheaper than therapy, and more fun too!
Nikon D300, 80-200mm f/2.8, 15sec f/8 @ ISO200, tinted and toned in Bibble
Nikon D300, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/2 sec f/22 @ ISO200
Nikon D300, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/5sec f/22 @ ISO100
Oh, a few things I learnt:
- When it's blowing a force 7 you need a very heavy tripod to keep things stable. Heavier than mine, anyway...
- An onshore force 7 makes great waves but also chucks a lot of very fine salt spray in the air. And guess what? It's heading your way. I quickly discovered I could shoot with the 14-24mm's huge, exposed front element for about 5 minutes before the spray made it unusable.
- High-top campers and crosswinds don't mix. Not just on the road, but if you want to get a good night's sleep, too...
- T25 owners are almost certainly the friendliest, happiest people on the road. To other T25 owners, at least...
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