It's back!

This summer has been one of the busiest of my professional life so far, hence the scarcity of updates, so, to make up for that, here's a big bumper one.

First off was the Evans King of the Downs, shot for their in-store catalogue. I rode this a couple of years ago, a great route, although I binned it at half time due to some of the worst weather I've ever experienced on the bike. Not so this year: the sun was shining and a great day was had by all.

Following this, there was the Fred Whitton Challenge, the article for which appeared in last month's Cycling Plus Magazine. This was a beast of an event and a pleasure to photograph. Big respect to everyone who finished.

And there's much more to follow, including a gig shot in the pitch black with an infrared camera, and lots and lots of bicycles. Give me a moment to catch my breath...

Rest in Peace, Xavier Tondo

Yesterday, I heard the news that Xavier Tondo had died as a result of a tragic domestic accident. I met Xavi briefly at the Tour of Lombardy last year, where I was shooting behind the scenes at Cervelo Test Team's final race together, and he was to be their protected rider. I didn't speak to him for very long, but all I can say is that he seemed like an honest, genuine and likeable guy. Rest in peace, Xavi, and my thoughts are with your family and friends.

Interview!

You can read an interview with me right now on the Newsgrape site! Here's the link right here

Chris Pink, who wrote the article, is far more interesting and inspiring an individual than me. I hope I'll never have to go through what he went through, but he's come out the other side with an amazing positive attitude. Something which I'm not sure I could say about myself if I ever found myself in the circumstances he found himself in. More on Chris soon...

The Lion of Flanders

That's me in the purple t-shirt just there. I find it kind of hilarious that I'm sat there with a bank of photographers surrounded by probably not far off of half a million pounds' worth of camera equipment, and I'm there with the little Ricoh 35-S I bought second hand for £20. Loads of frames were shot that day, on both film and digi, and loads of people were interviewed for the article due in Pro Cycling. From speaking to the locals, I found out all sorts of interesting things, both about the race, the Flemish people and the town of Geraardsbergen. Look out for the article, but don't hold your breath, it may be some time...

Even got an upgrade on the hire car for the weekend. Sort of felt like a salesman in this thing, though. All I needed was a suit jacket hung up on a coathanger in the back seat.

Say Hello to My Little Friend...

The other day I went down to Mr Cad in Croydon with the aim of coming back with an old, cheap rangefinder to take with me to the Tour of Flanders, and came back with this: a Ricoh 35-S. A snip at a mere £20. I took it with me everywhere for a weekend, loaded with one roll of Ilford Delta 100, to test it out, see if it was in full working order, and for a bit of fun. Here's some of the shots. Flanders should look great on this little beauty...

Velodrome!

All my kit laid out ready...

On Monday I was off shooting for Cycling Plus's next issue at Newport Velodrome. It was a long day, with a 5am wake-up call at a friend's house in Bristol to get to the Velodrome for 8am, ready to start shooting at 9am, and finishing up at 12pm. Here's a word of advice: carrying around somewhere in the region of 70lbs of kit, divided between an enormous great Peli Case (well, Storm Case, but it seems that peli have gone and done a Hoover and become a generic brand name...) up and down the stairs of various London Underground stations is very hard work indeed.

The shoot was a challenging one involving lighting almost an entire side of the banking of the track and the four riders on it. Stay tuned to their next issue out in April to see the results.

Belated first post of the year...

Many apologies for the coverage gap, it's been a busy couple of months.

First off, look at what I've made: a slideshow of images from the Cervelo Tour of Lombardy article I shot for Pro Cycling back in October.

Cervelo Test Team, Giro Di Lombardia from Tom Simpson on Vimeo.

Next, there was a shoot in December for NME, this was of The Big Pink for their Albums of 2011 issue. Here's what the cover looks like:


Here's what the page looked like:


And here's my favourite image from the shoot:

These were shot at the Miloco studio in Elephant and Castle where they were recording their second album. The shoot was very short notice, but luckily I live very close by and was able to get there in time. The set up's not very difficult to guess: just the one light in a 60" umbrella, and that's just out of shot (massive light source, right next to the subject = super soft light). The amount of furniture moved to get this background behind them was enormous, pretty much an entire sitting-room's worth, including a massive widescreen CRT television and some platinum discs off the wall (if you look carefully you can see the stains that they've left). Big thanks to the studio assistant who helped me with the shifting of stuff.