Prints Available

With a few days snow bound at home I have put together some galleries of images on a new website courtesy of Photoshelter. Whilst it will predominantly be motorcycle work, it is also a place to distribute some of the other photography that I do. It is also possible to make images available for sale and download with Photoshelter and nearly all of the images will be available to purchase as prints.

To start things off I have a gallery of all the Superbike World Champions that I have photographed from 2000 to 2010. Each image is available to purchase as a limited run of 10 of each, mounted and numbered. They will be 18 x 11 inch prints in a card mount and backing board. These are available for immediate shipping at a cost of £150.00 plus postage.

The only one that is missing from the selection at the moment is Troy Bayliss from 2001. This is mainly due to my own indecision. I have a few races worth of transparencies to look through and will update the gallery soon.

Aside from motorcycle racing I will have some cycling images, shots from around the race tracks, landscape and one off events that I have covered. There will be regular updates as time goes by so there will always be something new to view.

At the moment work is mainly confined to the office. The weather in the central belt of Scotland over the last few days has been a bit cold for this time of year but has made for some nice views. Next stop for me I think will be Portimao in January for the first official test of the Superbike season. However, I may have a little surprise as well with something a bit different.


Enjoy the festive season.

Winter

It has been a wee while since I posted anything. Things have been steadily busy through the summer and autumn with the second half of the Superbike World Championship, a visit to the Tour de France in July and thankfully some holidays.

Time is now spent doing some smaller commercial jobs and putting together some plans for 2011. I have also been looking at changing my equipment. I considered the 'Paint it Black' scheme with Nikon but the incentives offered by them through Calumet weren't worth it. I might live to regret not changing as I have just seen the prices of the new Canon lenses. I don't know whether the inner working of the new 300mm f2.8 are diamond encrusted but there must be something special for it to double in price to £7400.00. I know the exchange rate in the UK is rubbish at the moment but such a price hike I think is ridiculous.

I have therefore chosen to go the other way and bought a new pinhole Holga. I can't wait to get out and play around with it. will be interesting to see what I get.

The other thing that is taking up a little bit of time at the moment is preparing a website through Photoshelter. I get so many requests from people to buy prints that I thought it would be easier to make it a little bit easier all round. The site is coming along now and will be linked to geebeeimages.com. There will be a whole mix of work from the motorcycling and cycling work I do to interesting little projects that I have worked on over the last few years.

For the time being it is getting cold at home. The weather man mentioned 'substantial accumulations' I think some snowy landscapes are on the way.

Working Hard

The last few weeks have been busy with the WSBK season getting into full swing. In between Superbike races I have been shooting bicycle racing and a road test for RiDE magazine.


The World Superbike season has entered a period where the races come thick and fast with Valencia, Assen, Monza, Kyalami and Miller in the USA spread over just 8 weeks. That will take us to the half way point of the season and a chance for everyone to draw breath.

The racing so far has been incredibly close with race 2 at Assen last week being the highlight. After the second round in Portimao I thought that the season was shaping up to be a two man battle between Leon Haslam and Max Biaggi. In Assen, Jonathan Rea put the Honda on the top step of the podium in successive races for the first time in his career, Troy Corser finally got the BMW fighting at the sharp end and James Toseland seemed to have got to grips with his Yamaha R1 and overcome his early season injuries to have a second and a third place. Whilst Haslam retained the lead in the Championship the pack is now chasing hard and it will be a good fight to see who can come out on top

Since the start of the year I have also been doing a bit of work with Leon Haslam. We have been preparing the first of a series of review books for his sponsors. The first issue has been done and distributed with good reviews so far. We are hoping to put a package together to make a limited number available to buy and hope to announce something soon.

At the start of the month I covered a couple of days of the Tour Doon Hame cycle race. This was the second round of the UK Premier Calendar series and based in Dumfries. The first couple of days the field raced a circuit to the south of Dumfries and day 3 headed north over the hills of Nithsdale. I headed out on the stage on the third day and the weather was miserable with heavy drizzle on the top of the hills and a tough head wind on the way back towards Dumfries. Chris Newton of Rapha Condor Sharp led for the three days. On the third day Jack Bauer of the Endura team broke away and was the leader on the road for around 30kms. The Rapha Condor Sharp Team worked really hard to bring him back. In the end Bauer won the stage by 5 seconds but Newton won overall. The hard effort of the last 20 kms showed on the faces of Newton and team mate Kristian House at the finish.





















The miserable weather made it difficult to decide where to take pictures on the stage. There were a couple of spots that I knew there would be a good view had the weather been clear but with the clouds being so low it didn't look so good. I ended up running around a bit not knowing what to do. I stopped at one place where there was a little burn in full flow but I couldn't get it to work before the race appeared. Thankfully someone had popped off the front to make the picture a bit more interesting.


It was good to shoot something different from motorcycle racing even though it still involved racing on two wheels. With my own passion for cycling I am always a bit in awe of the power and speed of professional riders. But it is also a really nice sport to photograph and I hope to do more in the future.

Just before heading to Assen I shot a road test for RiDE Magazine. The weather forecast as usual was the main topic of conversation at the start of the job with heavy snow showers forecast in the north west of Scotland. In the end we had a couple of good days where the sun shone with the hills and mountains north of Trossachs being dusted with snow.

The last few days have been spent getting things in order for next month. It is all motorbikes from start to finish and nearly every day as well. I have a road test to shoot for Fast Bikes Magazine, three WSBK races in Italy, South Africa and USA and a 6 day shoot with Triumph. After all that I am hoping June is going to be a quite month.

As always I will be updating my web galleries at www.geebeeimages.com and posting bits and pieces on my Facebook page.

I think I have finally worked it out.

After many days of trying I think I have finally managed to update my blog. New updates coming but a quick thanks to the geeks who changed everything.

Off we go again

The World Superbike season has just started and I am worn out already! Jet lag doesn't play well with me anymore.

The 10 days away were good nonetheless. Having been to Phillip Island countless times it is always a little difficult to find inspiration for new work. Thanks to a project from Triumph I was always looking to keep the photography fresh over the whole time I was away. Hopefully I succeeded.

Despite what people said there appeared to be a lot less people at the race this year. There are a few places where the background of the photographs show a sparse crowd and gaps along the trackside fence. The fans missed a pretty impressive Superbike race 2. It eventually went to Carlos Checa after a race long, 6 way battle where the lead changed 4 or 5 times. Hopefully the competition will stay that close for the rest of the season.

As for work it was the usual early season stuff with lots of stock photography for press kits, brochures and posters. The slight frustration for me is that these shoots always seem to take place in a short space of time. There is never an opportunity to spend time on lighting or anything creative.

One thing that never fails to impress in Phillip Island is the night sky. This year I was sharing a house with fellow photographers Andrew Wheeler and Eric Malherbe. Whilst Andrew was preparing one of his legendary meals Eric and I took a stroll out into the dark to shoot the sky. This image is Eric under the Milky Way. It was a bit too bright with the moon, almost a full moon, but I quite like this for a quick 10 minute effort before heading for food and beer.

From here I have a small press event for Triumph to shoot in the next week or so and then it is off to Portugal for the next round of WSBK at Portimao. That will the see the season really kick up a gear with the races coming thick and fast all the way till the start of June. I will of course post some more pictures and comments as I go.

Keep up to date with everything on Facebook or at www.geebeeimages.com.

Almost over again.

It has been a busy few weeks after getting back to work in September. The broken leg still hasn't healed properly but it isn't slowing me down. Since the start of last month I have covered WSBK races in Germany, Italy and France; the Tour of Britain cycle race and have done a couple of magazine features.

It has been interesting to do a couple of new things. I had never been to Nurburgring and it is always interesting to visit a new track. The weather wasn't great and the crowd wasn't so big but there are some nice places to shoot, all spoiled a bit by some 'F1' fencing and over zealous marshalls. I went on track without my photographers vest and wasn't allowed to return to the press office to get it until I was reprimanded by the race director. Only in Germany!

The Tour of Britain was good. It was the first time I had followed a cycle race properly for work and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was happy with what I shot over the four days I was on the road and have had images published in Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport magazine. I think in the winter I will do a bit more cycling with the Track Championships at Manchester and some team get togethers at the start of the year.

The last couple of WSBK races at Imola and Magny Cours were good as well. There was a problem with the track on Friday at Imola where the riders felt the track was too slippy and unsafe. After a few hours of hanging around whilst the track was washed and then dried the bikes went out at about 5pm. It meant that they were still on track at 6:30pm when the sun was setting behind the trees and there was a unique opportunity to capture race action in the 'golden hour'.

The rest of this month will be taken up with the last race of the WSBK season. Haga and Spies go into the race in a winner takes all position so it should be an eventful race in some way. The week after will see first of all a bunch a journos testing the race bikes followed by the teams trying out their new riders for the first time. All told it is going to be busy. Like always I hope the weather will stay fair.

Once that is done it will be back home to finish off my new website and start on some new projects for the winter and next year. Watch this space for a couple of interesting things coming out. That will be the season over again. Where did it go? It will be February before we know it and the WSBK entourage will be heading down to Australia for the first race. I must be getting old!

Back to work.

After a long summer of recovery from a broken leg, it is back to work this week.

First off is a shoot for a trade magazine. This should be good as it will be based around Glasgow. I am looking forward to working on my home patch and have a few ideas of what to do and where to go. I just need to keep my fingers crossed for some decent weather.


On Thursday next week it will be WSBK duties once more with Round 11 of the Championship at Nurburgring in Germany. I haven't been to the new Nurburgring so I am looking forward to the challenge. It will be interesting to see how things shake up after the summer break.

I have spent the last couple of months going through some archive work and sorting out a new website for my personal work. This should be up and running soon at www.geebeeimages.com. It will have a few galleries of racing work but lots more too. For now here is a blast from the past. Probably the best WSBK race I have watched. Colin Edwards and Troy Bayliss came to the last round of the series at Imola in 2002 in a 'winner takes all' position. In the end Colin came out on top but we haven't really seen anything like it since in WSBK. Maybe Noriyuki and Ben will save something for Portimao.