Little Things - A Small Roundup

A little post to let you all know that I have added a few images from the recent test at Fontana to AutoMotoPhoto.Last month I had the pleasure of photographing Kenny Roberts Championship winning flat tracker Yamaha TZ750 at a location just south of San Francisco. It was quite the treat to see so much history all in one location. I asked if it could be started up....oh my....this 750cc two stroke flat tracker created so much noise my mind started to scramble...! Look for a feature in BIKE Magazine, a UK publication with editorial written by talented writer Mark Gardner (visit RidingMan.com).That's all from me for now...Have a nice weekend everyone.

20 Years Ago Today...

...I met my future wife to be Emily. It was quite by chance really. I was coerced into going to a small nightclub in Bath called Moles by a couple of friends, Nick and Soraya. I really didn't want to go and just wanted to go home, so I thought I'd humour them and go for a little bit then walk home after about 30 minutes or so. Well, I ended up chatting with "Emily" at the bar (she thought I looked like a criminal) and I gave her my home phone number on a small piece of paper and that was it. Emily, who was over in the UK on an educational trip from San Jose State University for a semester and was dared by a school chum to call me when this piece of paper inadvertently fell out of her wallet.

She called, and quite by chance I walked into my home and at that moment picked up the phone. At that time I couldn't for the life of me remember who was "Emily" because I think I had been enjoying the evening way to much when I handed out my phone number. Anyways, we arranged to meet at the Hatchetts (a small pub in the centre of town). Side note: Emily will tell you I was 45 minutes late for our date...(oops).To cut a long story short, 6 weeks later we flew to Paris, where I asked her to marry me.

We flew back and forth between the UK and USA for two years, wrote letters everyday (there wasn't any email or anything "E" at that time) and would phone once a week on Sundays (as it was cheap to call on Sundays). We ended up getting married on April 3rd at the Love Chapel in Lake Tahoe (no longer there) and we have been married for 18 years this coming April. I love you buddy!

Cover Shot - Roger Hayden - RoadRacerX March/April 2008

Readers! A double post today, first, I just wanted to do a "self-toot" to let folks know that this year is starting off with a bang for me as another one of my images graces the cover of another magazine. This time on the cover of March and April's 2008 RoadRacerX. The picture is of Roger Hayden taken at Daytona during the tyre tests in late November, early December...I really do like the green wheels....At least a #1 is still retained in the Hayden family camp for 2008, with Nicky losing the #1 to Casey Stoner in MotoGP.

Fontana - From Orange Cones to White Snow Capped Mountains

It's rare, but when you see it, or "them", to some degree they offsets the relative "industrial" feel of Fontana. The Speedway is built on the land once occupied by the Kaiser Steel Works. Thus, it is flat, surrounded by heavy industry and truck stops. Fontana is not Yosemite. It doesn't have the organic and natural ambiance of a racetrack such as Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham in Alabama. But, when the wind has some force behind it (which it did on Tuesday) and it's cold, and following the recent storms and the cool weather that caused snow to drop sometimes below 1500 feet, the San Gabriel Mountains that overshadow the entire valley can add a little moment of beauty. But hold onto that mental snapshot, because in a few months, the smog will make sure they hide for the rest of the year. Here's a shot of our man Neil Hodgson, surrounded by billboards, wire fencing, oranage cones and over shadowed by the snow capped mountains reminding us that nature is still here....More to come..must edit and do some puppy training...

And Now For Something Completely Different..

Finally! I can say something!

This really thrilled me. My personal goal with my job as a photographer has been to try and get the word to folks outside of the motorcycle racing world to maybe come to a race. Watch some good solid entertainment, meet the race fans that attend and see how friendly (sometimes not quietly so) they are, and how much pleasure can be had for such a small outlay. I've been trying to get that message across to those who haven't been "converted". Imagine my thrill when I was contacted by PhotoShop User Magazine and was asked to be their featured photographer in their magazine! What a thrill, a non motorcycle industry magazine wants to showcase my work, which in turn puts those images in front of many many people, many of whom might not have even seen a race bike. Imagine my (even bigger) thrill, when I was told they wanted to use one of my images for the cover!

So here it is. One of my all time favourites, a shot taken at the California Speedway, of Eric Bostrom back in 2005 when he rode with Ducati. For me I have always thought that it had a science fiction quality to it, but with it rich colours, the placement of the hands, and the blown out spectator in the uncropped version (inside the magazine) it has a "Man Who Fell To Earth" quality to it IMO.What a way to start the year!