It’s good to see some work I completed last summer for Mavic has recently gone live, with their Haute Route collection now available to purchase. I was called up to spend the day climbing the Col de la Columbière with athlete Nicolas Roux. The road is a staple of Tour de France action, featuring 20 times in the race so far. The iconic yellow Mavic car certainly drew attention, with the road remaining open during our shoot. The French love a good alpine climb, and with the cycling season almost in full swing I’m certainly looking forward to putting some ascent in my legs.
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Mavic Haute Route Collection
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Recent Work: Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez
I’ve just added a new gallery to my website (check it out here) documenting my week at Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez. Held in the first week of October, I looked forward to some late summer sun that the South of France is famous for. Whilst researching the event a Google Image search returns pages upon pages of blue skies, beautiful boats (and people), aerial images and action. it quickly became apparent that on this particular week I wouldn’t be getting anywhere near a helicopter or capturing any action where the colour of the sky could be described as blue.
About to board the rip, which would follow around the J-Class RangerLes Voiles de Saint-Tropez features a week of racing for a range of categories. Classic boats race alongside modern yachts, making quite the visual feast. I was there to photograph the J-Class division, concentrating on a boat called Ranger. The boat, built in 2004, is an exact replica of the 1937 Ranger that won that years Americas Cup. At the regatta the J-Class boats feel like the royalty of the event. They’re moored at the best location of the port and crowds flock around to see them as they exit and return from the days race.
My chauffeur for the dayTwo days of sailing were unfortunately cancelled due to gale force winds, so we were limited to two days of shooting. The first, rain soaked day I was to follow the yachts, capturing some of the atmosphere of the race. I used a self constructed workstation consisting of dry towels and lens cloths to keep everything operating smoothly. I’d first pat the body and lens down with one towel before using a second to place directly on the lens absorbing any surface water. A third step was to then use a dedicated lens cloth to further clean it. A battle of the elements ensued to keep everything working.
A change of scenery for day twoI don’t think i’ve ever experienced so much rain in one week, but we really had everything thrown at us. I think the shot that was used in the introduction for the 2015 J-Class yearbook sums up the week perfectly.
Until sunnier times….
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One Week, Two Light Shows
This week I had the opportunity to witness two light shows, one constructed by the hands of humans, and the other an incredible natural phenomenon. Lights and Summits was the first chance, where several mountain ranges across the canton of Valais were lit up simultaneously. It was not until I was driving towards the Dents du Midi that I found out that the light show would last for only three minutes. “Are you kidding me?”, my rather blunt response. I pictured an evening of photographing the mountain range from a host of different angles, but in fact I only captured 6 frames during the entire event. It felt a little like the Tour de France, where you often commute all day for the riders to the fly past you in 30 seconds. Three minutes in and, as predicted, the lights went out. Advertising for this event had been sparse and I was actually one of five people (all of whom were in my group) that had turned up to the recommended viewpoint that i’d seen on the organisers website. Literally there was no one else there! One of the most amazing things i’ve seen in the mountains and no one around. Perfect.
The second light show this week was seen by a few more people. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions got to witness a solar eclipse earlier this morning. Here in Switzerland it was possible to just catch a partial eclipse, but the feeling as the town descended into semi darkness was still incredible. I would have loved to have been somewhere else with a foreground element to provide some contrast to the image, with the sun very high and surrounded by clouds from where I was watching. It was great though to turn the camera on the various people who were watching the event unfold around me.
10:30 rolled around with a pretty impressive partial eclipse
People had come out to witness the eclipse in some grounds adjacent to me
A lone man takes it all in from lakeside