I’m a big geek when it comes to sports performance. A vast majority of sports that I photograph rely on the human endurance capabilities, with trail running and the cycling grand tours really highlighting what professional athletes put their bodies through. Of course, any talk of cyclists and endurance often descends into the authenticity of certain performances (even more for me with a girlfriend who works in the anti doping industry), usually highlighted by dominant displays by riders such as Team Sky’s Chris Froome. Moving away from the “Armstrong Era” I like to believe that the these sports are coming to a period where the battles we see out on the course are down to physical shape with the strongest winning on the day.At the complete other end of the spectrum are the people like me. I also love to compete in endurance events, with trail runs over a variety of distances up to the 160km mark. Any question marks about my performances largely go unnoticed. A large part of that is down to the fact that i’m not very good. The dream is still there, of course, that come the last weekend in August i’ll be at the sharp end of the field competing with the best distance runners in the world as I descend into Chamonix with 168km of the UTMB course in my legs. I much prefer to shy away from the reality that is crawling over the line 20 hours since the winners, along with the 20,000 strong cheering spectators, have long since left.My VO2 Max was an eye opening experience. I’m not sure everyone would like it as a birthday present (geeks like me rejoice at this type of thing), but for performance analysis, along with training recommendations, I think it’s an incredible tool.Time to shift that 3.5kg of excess weight.Self portrait setup – Camera: Canon EOS 1D Mark IV – lens: Sigma 15mm Fisheye – Additional: Intervalometer to record image every 10 seconds, Manfrotto magic arm and clamp to hold camera in place
Author: timothy_lloyd
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Roles Reversed – VO2 Max Self Portrait
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Updated Portfolio – The Tour de Romandie
A new portfolio depicting two days of the recent Tour de Romandie is now available to view on my website (check it out here). With the cycling season now in full swing I wanted to approach one of the lesser known races to document some of the story behind the action. The Grand tours (The Giro D’Italia, The Tour de France and The Vuelta) have strict policies that sees the race route closed for hours before a stage with limited access to the riders. The Tour de Romandie on the other hand allows almost unrivalled access to both the route and the riders giving me an opportunity to cover a number of positions during the two days.
Britain’s Chris Froome came out of a Spring period with question marks over his head due to fitness concerns. All of this was laid to rest though as he showed a dominant prowess on the climb up to the Swiss ski resort of Villars leaving one of his main rivals, Vincenzo Nibali, in his wake. If this is a sign of things to come then we’ll have an electric Tour de France later in July.
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Personal Milestones
As a child I was lucky enough to spend a lot of my holiday time up in the Lake District, a beautiful part of the countryside just two hours north of the town that I grew up in. My sisters and I would be told tales of a mountain called Helvellyn just up in the valley from where we stayed. Too young and inexperienced to climb the peak, I never actually made it up there during those years and future visits to the area would also mark another trip where i didn’t quite make it. This made the mountain seem even more majestic to me as it was fast becoming the one that got away.All this was put to rest yesterday though, as a midweek family catch us brought us back up to this wonderful area for the night. Having logged an all day walk with my Mother and Sister, I set my alarm clock for 6am the following morning, woke up, checked the weather and duly set off with the aim of running up to the summit. My years of not climbing this peak became apparent as i found myself first on an adjacent peak having taken the wrong path 40 minutes earlier. A little bit of extra pace brought me to the summit where around 7am I captured this image (Sony RX100). It’s funny how a mountain that once seemed impregnable could actually be summited in a pre-breakfast run.As well as being a personal milestone, I also sensed the obvious changing of seasons. Having ran the previous week up in the Alps, it’s only too apparent how quickly the snow is melting with the signs of Spring everywhere. Last year took an awful long time for the mountain trails to open (into July for some of them), whereas it feels like we’re already on the cusp of a summer season.If that’s the case then i’m happy with that. Bring it on I say. -
Freeride World Tour Portraits
I feel lucky to have an association with the Freeride World Tour. This season has been my third year working alongside the team, with a number of great relationships being formed along the way. Over the past year my workload has switched over to the junior Freeride Tour which runs parallel to the main event. Don’t be fooled by the name though. Despite them being classed as juniors, some of the skiing i’ve witnessed by them simply blows my mind.Verbier is the final showdown on the tour and like almost every event this season it was disrupted due to the weather. The juniors event went off without a hitch just over a week ago, freeing up my schedule for the main event that was postponed until this Saturday. I’d received an interesting commission from ESPN to shoot finish line portraits, keeping my back firmly turned to the action that was unrolling. With some of the riders crashing out and others elated with their results, there was a mixed bag of emotions shown in the above images.This marks the start of the end in terms of the 2013/2014 winter. Maybe it will be remembered as the winter of discontent by many. Sure it was a challenging one but productive nonetheless. With the changing of the clocks and the lengthening days i really can’t wait now for summer. -
Paris – Nice Kicks Off Cycle Season
I’ve spent hours this winter mulling over the 2014 cycling calendar, with the Paris – Nice proving to be a perfect starting point for a body of personal work that I have planned out around this years road cycling circuit. I have a pretty good idea of action related images that I’d like to photograph during this season, but the thing that excites me most is the lifestyle that you can capture along the way.Unlike the sport, you have little control over what lifestyle is presented to you, with each race or set of fans being unique to that occasion. Once you’ve witnessed the crazy carnival type atmosphere of the Tour de France, the Paris – Nice seems an almost quaint affair. The image above depicts a group of locals ascending Mont Brouilly towards the end of the fourth stage of the tour. Nestled in the vineyards of the Beaujolais region of France, this hilly top just 14km from the finish proved steep enough to really string apart the peloton.This type of cycling photography really is a lesson in preparation. With a round trip in the car of 7 hours it’s important to know exactly where you’re heading on the stage as the athletes only travel past you once (more often than not, all at once too). 7 hours in the car for two action images makes you start to realise how dedicated you must be to grow an action portfolio in this sport. I’m looking forward to mine growing though, along with capturing great lifestyle shots like the one above, en route. -
Cool Stuff: Alex Honnold free-solos El Sendero
I came across this gem whilst watching a backlog of videos that had piled up during my visit to the States. This weeks cool stuff focuses on Free-soloing, the art of rock climbing minus any safety equipment, has held my attention of recent with an uncomfortable feeling developing as i sit through each video. The raw nature of this activity is something that many of us will never experience. To be honest, it’s probably a rush that most of us will be content in not feeling, happy in the knowledge that some things are just too extreme to witness first hand.Alex Honnold is a different breed though. This recent video, expertly produced by the camp4collective for The North Face, showcases Alex’s talent in a 6 minute short. I’ve tried to fathom what capturing this feat must have been like for the cinematographers. Of course the route would have been precisely inspected by the team and Alex’s ability and confidence would have been at an all time high, but if one little thing would have gone wrong then the results would have been catastrophic.I’ve certainly photographed athletes in dangerous circumstances, but this simply blows my mind. Great work on display here, well worth 6 minutes of your time.
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Cool Stuff: Salt Lake City Beckons
This weekend i’ll be making my way over to Utah to participate in the Salt Lake City Shootout. I got the invite earlier last month to make the trip over, where i’ll be competing against 7 other ski photographers to try and capture the best that Utah has to offer. Having never actually skied any of the resorts that i’ll be shooting at, i imagine that it will be a steep learning curve over the 4 days as i attempt to keep up with the locals photographers who will have the priceless local knowledge.
I dont fancy my chances of taking away the title but these contests are always fickle things so you never know. I’ll just look forward to my week in Salt Lake City, will work as hard as possible over the 4 days of competition and see what comes out at the end.
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Behind The Shot: Backcountry Hikers
Just before the Christmas break I spent a lot of time working with this image of backcountry hikers having received a commission to produce it into a large format, aluminium mounted print. A whole day was spent fretting about the quality of the shot, with any Photoshop imperfections ready to jump out and ruin the effect. The photo features in an experimental series that i hadn’t envisioned printing when i originally constructed them. Having carefully worked my way inch by inch across the image, I then paired myself with a very talented Geneva based printer who brought this abstract piece to life.
And now onto behind the shot:
One of the great things about working as a photographer on the Freeride World Tour is having the ability to witness the unique changes in the surrounding landscape as the tour comes through a resort. When watching the live stream of the event, or admiring a great action image it’s easy to assume that these skiers and snowboarders are simply dropped off by helicopter before getting ready to start their run. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course, some events are exceptions that feature helicopters taxiing the athletes, but hiking is the expected norm. It’s worth considering that for a second: these athletes have to hike with all of their gear across some precarious looking terrain for up to 2 hours before starting their event. There’s not many sports where this would ever happen, although it’s fun to imagine professional footballers walking 10km to the stadium already in their boots ready for the game.
I’ve always wanted to work on an image where the action is removed from its context, although a ski related image can prove to be a risky move. The ski industry has a steadfast belief that context is king. In most ski images the surrounding landscape is what gives the viewer the perception of a scene. For example, if a skier hits a jump then its common practice to include both the takeoff and the landing in the image, allowing us to get a sense of size. This is why i love removing these hikers from their context. Even though the landscape has been peeled back, the viewer can still paint a picture of what it’s like around them. There’s a sense of uniformity amongst the hikers as they all follow a boot pack towards the summit, creating a pattern that worked its way across my viewfinder. On this particular day the athletes were hiking up the infamous face of the Bec des Rosses, but removing them from context places them wherever the viewer wants them to be.
Capturing the image was only one part of the finished article. A large amount of time was also spent removing the background whilst trying to remain faithful to the original photograph including trying to keep the finer details such as ski poles. Album after album filtered through my iTunes library whilst i refined the work until it was ready to be sent to the printers. I breathed a huge sense of relief upon seeing the finished print happy in the fact that while context may still be king, this looks pretty damn cool too.
You can view more of my ‘behind the shot’ series [lobo_button url=”http://spine-chilling-clown.flywheelsites.com/category/behind-the-shot/” bgcolor=”#fff85f” color=”#000000″ target=”_self” label=”here”].
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Getting Prepared
I’ve been running around this week trying to fit all of the little pieces together before i head off home for the Christmas break. Getting prepared included giving my camera bag a much needed spring clean of sorts, with me adding a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV to my lineup along with a Canon 1.4x Extender II to get a little additional reach from my lenses. The Mark IV version of the 1D has since been replaced by a newer flagship model (Canon EOS 1DX), but with finances to consider I opted for the “cheap” older edition. I can’t wait to get out in the mountains and put this camera to work.Speaking of mountains, the snow has finally arrived (again). Since skiing some early season lines back in November there has been no snow, literally nothing. An extremely cold and dry period fell around the Alps with December not seeing any precipitation, until now that is. Yesterday saw the tides changing and winter seems like it’s ready to begin. A word of caution has to go out at this stage. Despite everyones eagerness to get out there and catch up on the lack of early season opportunities, this unusual weather is about to cause havoc to the avalanche risk here in Europe. The recent conditions have been likened to the 2005/2006 season which saw a record 57 avalanche deaths in France alone. This excerpt taken from Piestehors.com sums it up,
Avalanche expert Alain Duclos cautions,
“we’ve not seen these kind of conditions for a number of years across the Savoies and Hautes-Alpes. The warm temperatures at altitude are unable to refreeze the snow on shaded slopes and this is coupled with a strong temperature gradient. Anything that falls on top of this layer will be particularly unstable.”
Just last week I was sat down for dinner with French photographer [lobo_button url=”http://domdaherblog.tumblr.com” bgcolor=”#fff85f” color=”#000000″ target=”_blank” label=”Dom Daher”] and we briefly touched upon the number of friends that have been lost to the mountains. “Too many” were the words that were mentioned. Lets make sure we all try to have a safe start to this season.
As for the start of mine, after a ski over in Chamonix tomorrow i’ll be heading back to the UK for some festive cheer, along with a couple of running races. Then it’s right back to the thick of things with the Swatch Skiers Cup over in Zermatt as my first port of call. Watch this space for updates along the way.
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2013: A Running Perspective
Over the last few weeks i’ve been watching an incredible series about wingsuit pilots and their search for the Perfect Flight. The programme follows an elite team across the world, with one episode in particular showing the abilities of the cameraman who jumps alongside the crew on all of their flights. Rather than being an outsider looking in, this cameraman forms an integral part of the team with an ability in the sport to match that of the athletes he films.
Wingsuit flying might be an extreme example to lead off with here, but I believe that in order to document adventure sports, a photographer should be able to handle the stresses and understand the underlying principles of each activity that they wish to cover. In desperate search of a summertime adventure, Trail Running came into my life in a big way in 2011. Having taken part in my first alpine half marathon the week prior, I headed to Chamonix to watch the finish of the UTMB (a 165km run from Chamonix to Chamonix around the circumference of Mont Blanc). Experiencing the passionate crowds firsthand (the valley towns around Mont Blanc are renowned for their enthusiastic support of the sport) was all the inspiration I needed to want to feature in this sport. Since then i’ve tried to develop my trail running ability through long days out training, racing ever increasing distances and documenting some of it along the way“
Fast forward to the end of this year where I find myself reflecting on a season where I raced over 650km. Pair that with the countless hours spent out training and a pretty solid running portfolio starts to form. Last year I experienced the otherworldly emotions of running straight through the night, from dusk until dawn. A number of my runs this year have incorporated this pleasure, with one particular race seeing me run straight through two nights. Running through one night might be a charm, but straight through two nights was just nasty.
Having ran my penultimate race of the year this weekend, I look forward to the ski season with a great appetite for snow. I want to work harder than ever whilst trying and maintain a strong level of fitness so that when running resumes i’ll be ready to experience it and document it with the same level of determination that I saw from the wingsuit pilots.
It might not be base jumping, but running is still a whole lot of fun.