Tour Series — Canary Wharf

CanaryWharfWEB1, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

These are a couple of pics from the Tour Series race  Canary Wharf last night. I shot some stuff for Cycling Weekly which will hopefully be appearing in next week's issue. Grab a copy if you want to see more!
It was a funny old race on a boring circuit, and I can't say it was that enjoyable to watch but I'll reserve judgment till I see it on TV.
What was interesting is just how much cycling has gained mainstream appeal, especially amongst monied City Boys. There were plenty out watching and my insiders at Evans Cycles tell me the store in Canary Wharf had one of its best days ever on Tour Series day. The bike biz is booming.
Top shot is lit with two flashes, one high rght, one low left. Bottom shot is 70-200 with a too low shutter speed.

CanaryWharfWEB2, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

Secret Suburban Singletrack

Croydon might be a dump in a lot of ways, but the singletrack is surprisingly good, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

Working in Croydon might lack the glamour of working in central London, (not that you become a mountain bike journalist for the glamour or to work in a swanky office), but what the town centre lacks in charm it almost makes up for with secret suburban singletrack. It's not amazing by any means but for a blast after work on the singlespeed, it's perfect. You wont find trails like these between central London and where I live in Dulwich either.

More secret suburban singletrack - on my way to work, late, as usual, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

Night Riding

AnnaComposite, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

On Wednesday I went out riding with Anna Glowinski from www.ananichoola.co.uk and Team Mulebar Girls to take some shots of her riding her new Whyte E120 whilst using the lights the team have recently received from Exposure Lights. The problem of doing night-ridig shots at this time of year is you have to hang around in the woods for so long for it to actually get dark. By the time we'd got the shots and I'd ridden the 30mins home, it was 11 o'clock. I was knackered the next day!
The riding shot was a 15sec exposure with two flashes triggered by radio triggers, triggered manually as Anna came past. So: set the shutter running, then hit the flash at the right time to get the best shape. I did it like this so I could get the light trails all the way through the shot, with the rider in the middle of the trails.
The portrait was shot with a lensbaby 3g - a budget tilt-shift lens - and one flash. I'm undecided about this - the majority of me likes it though. I like the way the lens isolates the name of the bike and Anna's face, and they're the important bits after all. Let me know what you think and post a comment!

More fashion stuff

Shot some fashion stuff at the weekend for Laura's styling portfolio, all on film with the Bronica. Love that thing - magical.

9, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

11, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

5, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

I am not Andy Wardman

Andy Wardman is Scottish, he works for Forestry doing MTB related stuff. He also rides cross. Yeah, his name is pretty similar to mine - I've often mistaken him for me when I'm looking through the cross results, and wonderd how I managed to come top 5 in a Scottish Series race... — but we are very much different people who have never met, despite (or maybe because) living in a somewhat parallel universes.
This self-filmed video is excellent. I found it thanks to Dave Haygarth and his UKCyclocross.com site. Enjoy!

Local trails ala cx from Andy Wardman on Vimeo.