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.