CrossJunkie — Portrait for Cycling Active

CrossJunkie, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman. 

It's not often I get to shoot portraits, so when the opportunity came along to shoot Alan Dorrignton for a Cycling Active Magazine interview, I jumped at the chance. Alan is a huge cyclocross fan/racer/collector/enthusiast, and increasingly well known and respected internationally for his blog crossjunkie.blogspot.com/. To show that, we shot this portrait in his basement, where he stores his huge collection of wheels and tyres. We'd just got back from riding the Ronde Van Oost Lancashire, the Classics inspired ride Alan organised, thus the cycling clothing. It also meant we were pushed for time — Alan's wife was preparing lunch so we only had a couple of minutes to grab the shot.
Here's the end result http://yfrog.com/h2r6nnuj 

French National RR Champs 2011

Chavanel — too fast, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

I had a great weekend. Friday night I went to the theatre to see Gogol's The Government Inspector at the Young Vic, which was absolutely brilliant — HIGHLY reccomended.
On Saturday I raced my bike at Hillingdon, attacking the bunch with three laps to go to take 6th place. Not brilliant, but above expectations given the jetlag I've had since being in California this past week.
Then on Sunday — yesterday — I took a day trip to France to watch the French National RR Championships, a comission for Cycle Sport magazine. Sweet deal eh?!
The race was only in Boulogne, half an hour from the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais.
The race was a spectator's dream, covering 14 laps of a 13km circuit around the town. The sunshine only helped matters (and got me very sunburnt).
Sylvain Chavanel was head and shoulders above the rest, riding super aggressively in the final 50km to catch and pass about four groups on the road, before finally going solo for the last lap for the victory. What a guy, and what teeth! Chapeau!
More pics will be appearing in Cycle Sport in due course — keep your eyes peeled for that (probably in the winter apparently).

Paris for Condor

This was actually the first video I made for Condor, but it's only just gone public now. It shows the making of the Paris frame, together with its intricate bilaminate work around the headtube. These layers of steel look like lugs but aren't.
The frames are made in tiny quantities in Italy, which is where this was shot.

Mongoose Know Your Roots roadtrip, USA

I'm just back from the US, traveling round Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with Mongoose bikes, pro riders Steve Romaniuk and Amir Kabbani and MTB journalists from Australia and South Africa.
There was a lot of travelling involved but we got to do some amazing riding — especially at Angel Fire Resort — and visit some very cool places along the way.

Forest of Dean

Forest of Dean, originally uploaded by Andy Waterman.

I've not put any photos on here for ages.
I took this at the Forest of Dean last week. Such fun trails down there.

Lincoln Grand Prix — Condor Video

I shot this for Condor at the weekend. I need to buy a proper microphone... Lesson learned.

Fashion Videos: Philip Lim thumbs up

My girlfriend is a stylist so for a while now I've been keeping an eye on fashion videos with a thought at the back of my mind that we could possibly do a test shoot in the future. We've done still test shoots in the past, and while stills are great, video is something I get the impression the fashion world is only just getting to grips with, but the market is likely to grow pretty rapidly.
However, most of the videos I've seen so far are crap: either utterly impenetrable arty bollocks or say-what-you-see yawnfests.
So, I was impressed when I found this Philip Lim video on Selectism.com today. I love the way the director of photography has utilised the light, the architecture and the colour-grading to make it look properly cool and aspirational. What more does it need?

3.1 Phillip Lim "Weavers" Men's FW11 Collection from 3.1PhillipLim on Vimeo.