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

1916 boarding the Qantas flight now and guess what karma kickback straight away 55D middle row at bulkead so seat goes back about 50mm but the seat in front goes way back … awesome. Guess its better on a 7 hour flight than a 12 hour one but still crap as. It’s a 747 too so old school narrower-than-a-person aisle so gonna get smashed by every drinks cart that comes past.

0430 (0230 in Singapore) descending into Sydney now. Not too bad flight just the normal saga of folks not sure what the hell a light switch is for and endlessly trying to emulate Homer Simpson “light goes on, light goes off, light goes on, light goes off”. Still there was Family Guy and The Simpsons to take my mind off that.

0508 in Sydney and 2108 in Austria where I left 36 hours ago almost to the minute. Quite possibly one of the bumpiest approaches ever … Man thought I was gonna lose my “continetal breakfast” … And the descent seemed to go on forever as we were early and had to circle outside Sydney to make 5am curfew – think the pilot went to Tasmania for a look see then dropped in to final approach across the Bass Straits.

0533 Cleared customs and immigration, rechecked bags, through domestic security and now waiting for bus to domestic terminal. Then a couple of hours to kill before 0925 departue to Cairns. Starting to feel the fuzzy head now … Still got Cairns to look forward to with the GT boys – Mick Hannah, Mark Maurissen an Steve Spencer … Should be a laugh.

0549 On bus to domestic – drive past an Airbus A380. just looking through the updates above and editing them – they were full of missing words – I guess brain was fuzzy before I felt it. Re-editing this bit too missed like 3 words per sentence!

0739 Tracked down some free wifi – it’s between gates 4 and 5 in domestic if you don’t fancy paying $4 for 15 minutes! Trying to track down Steve Peat in domestic using Twitter.

0855 couldn’t track Peaty down – he left for Sydney. Can’t blame him it’s a cool city. Boarding plane for Cairns. Got window seat on starboard side – perfect.

0920 Take off was nowhere near as bad as landing in Sydney. Which was nice.

1206 Arrive early in Cairns … After great view all the way up the coast. Water was amazing you could see the cloud’s reflections on the ocean let alone their shadows.

1228 Hike through construction works at Cairns airport .. Get bags. Meet Mick Hannah and his dad Dave. It’s 28c here – not bad for winters day.

1235 Quick stop at a welders near the airport to try weld a new tool for Mark Maurissen.

1257 arrive at Hannah’s place in Yorkeys Knob. Put bags down for last time in a couple of days. Grab a much needed and welcome shower.

1315 Head to Cairns to help Mick with some errands.

1604 Ride to beach with Mark and have a couple of beers …

1903 Fall asleep on the couch…

1945 Sean McCarroll drops by …

2013 Fast asleep in bed. Over and out.

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

As usual travel was an adventure – left home with time to spare – I mean the airport is technically only 15 minutes away. But given the fact that the cape town city council has decided that every major artery to the city has to be worked on all together it gets tricky when you have a flight that requires you to drive in rush hour traffic to try make checkin. Usually I take the direct flight from Cape Town to Amsterdam but for some or other reason this was full and I had to fly via Jo’Burg … Not one of my favourite airports. Not that it’s a bad place like Heathrow it’s just that all the perks and priveleges earned as a frequent flyer seem to fall by the wayside there. Online check-in to get good seats, more baggage allowance, easy access to customs to declare cameras etc. You’d be surprised how much this all helps when you do it every couple of weeks.
Here’s an example of how quickly it can go wrong – try check-in for CPT-JHB – get stung for excess – within gold allowance in KLM but not SAA! Walk 10 mins to customs but now officer won’t declare my flashes and pocketwizards as they are now checked (as has been the case for 6 years of declaring goods) – so we will see how that affects me going back in to SA. SAA can’t check me all the way to Vienna or even Amsterdam or they would have to charge me excess! WTF they want to tale money for a KLM where I have allowance? I smell a rat and decide to just pick up bags in Jo’Burg and recheck myself for KLM flights. But now all the good frequent flyer seats are gone and I get middle seat in middle row. Awesome.

Still in Amsterdam you can sit in lounge get cleaned up, do internets and have a nice breakfast pre- next flights.

Get to Vienna and it’s like 30C and humid. Coming from winter in SA this was a bit of a shock to the system and dragging bags from city-airport train through construction site in Vienna to intercity was a bit of a chore. But it’s a nice place so what the hell.

Two and a half hour train trip later – it’s time for a taxi for last leg to Hotel in Graz. Total time from door to door 25 hours 31 mins. Not bad considering i’ve just crossed Africa and most of Europe.

It’s marathon world champs here in Graz this weekend then the next leg is gonna be tough on the body – Graz – Vienna – Amsterdam – Singapore – Sydney – Cairns … All from Monday to Wednesday non-stop. Nice, but I’m guessing that will help my frequent flyer status no end.

No camera tips this week folks … But you will be pleased to know that after a week of sunny, dry weather it is now pouring in Graz – so the UCI rain machine is here. Seems like every race this season its poured. I wonder is how much it’s going to cost to ship to Oz!

Doing this from my iPhone in some down time so no fancy pics and metadata – and it seems apt I use an iPhone pic. I wish more machines had a light like this.

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

g

Canon 5DMKII, 50mm 1.2, 1/1600 @ 1.2 ISO 125

It’s hard to strike a balance between showing off the images taken over a weekend and keeping exclusivity for clients – be they magazines or commercial clients. So I have to try and hold off posting images to flickr, twitter, blog, flipper.co.za before they become seen and all over the place. Sometimes all I want to do is post them up and get them seen … but that has got me into trouble in the past so you’ll have to bear with me while i send them out to clients and magazines to be previewed, selected, ok’ed etc etc.

Canon 1DMKIIN, 70-200 2.8,  1/250 @ f9 ISO 200.

Anyways, onto the weekend in Belgium for the Houffalize World Cup. That place has MTB history like no other. The fans love it, the rider’s all want to race it and we photographers want to try and capture that essence. This year was a first for the town with a UCI World Cup 4X taking place in the traditional XC venue. How would they mix? Would the 4X be long enough? Well the course was great, weather was perfect and it all went off without a hitch. Save for the ever changing generator-driven lights which made color shots almost impossible at night – unless you wanted them green, orange or blue depending on which phase you took the shot at. Hoo hum …

But before the lights came on there was some glorious light to work with for some backlit goodness – always a fave in my book.

Canon 5DMKII, 15mm fisheye, 1/800 @ 2.8 on ISO 100. Shot in B&W on camera.

XC was tough though with a super long loop for the lap meaning you have to hike it around the Belgian countryside looking for different shots that you haven’t shot over the year’s of coming here  - thats the downside to tradition and history i guess. As i said in the previous post i got stuck between the valleys of the race course and missed a lap of the men’s XC … not a good thing. The thing to bear in mind at this point is to try and recover as much as you can outside of the race with other shots to ensure you keep clients happy.

A parting shot of Jill Kintner in the 1st turn at Houffalize – this was a contender for the cover of issue 88 of Dirt Magazine .. but lost out to another of my pans – Sam Hill at Sea Otter.

Canon 1DMKIIN, 70-200 2.8, 1/60 @ f18 ISO 100.

As you may have noticed i’m putting in some more metadata for these images … maybe someone gets something out of that. Or maybe i’m giving too much away

Update: Forgot mention, some more of my coverage of the Houffalize World Cup here:

• http://www.flipper.co.za/gallery/Houffalize_2009/
• http://www.littermag.com/2009/uci-4x-world-cup-houffalize-belgium-qualifiers/
• http://www.littermag.com/2009/uci-4x-world-cup-houffalize-belgium-finals/

laters

g

I lost yet another fisheye lens cap – they really do need to be designed better. Or maybe they shouldn’t be thrust through a crowd of hundreds while trying to get a unique podium shot from within the midst of said crowd.

Body wise I’m starting to feel that I have been on the go flat out since what feels like forever. But technically the last weekend off I have had was the 1st weekend of March. Since then I have been shooting the Argus Cycle Tour, the Cape Epic, SA Nationals, 3 World Cups and Sea Otter. All continents apart.

My knee injury from being pinned under a moto on the Cape Epic is flaring up with all the walking on the Houffalize and Offenburg tracks. The other knee is sore from compensating under the load of camera gear. The horse fly bites hurt too … But at least the tick bite from Offenburg is healed with no ill effects and the brambles have mostly worked their way out.

But all of that pales into how much I miss the family back home. Case in point – my wife sent me a pic of 3 girls on the farm and I only recognized Molly on the third or fourth look at it. That just plain hurts. 3 more weeks till I go home as well. F@ck it!

Still, on the plus side I’ve witnessed some awesome racing, spent time with some absolutely great folks and managed to take a few nice images along the way. Maybe not during the main races at Houffalize. Don’t get me wrong, I got some shots but I would have preferred to be a little less stressed come the end of the Mens XC and had a few more shots in the bag. But considering I missed a lap by being stuck on a tar road at the wrong side of the adjacent valley from the race course I think it turned out better than expected.
I will edit this later and include some pics for the more visual amongst you. But I think that’s enough iPhone typing for one night and I don’t want to get too deep and meaningful