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.