Posted by Cleggy on Aug 5, 2010 in
PR
Issue #97 (August 2010) of Irish Racer Magazine hit the Shop Shelves this morning. This is the Ulster Grand Prix preview issue and it also features the Laverty Brothers (Eugene Laverty, John Laverty, Michael Laverty), a remarkable story of Three Brothers from Northern Ireland all competing at a very high level in Motorcycle racing (one vying to be Supersport World Champion this year!).
Also within the pages of this Months Irish Racer magazine is features on Simon Andrews, Michael Pearson, Sandor Bitter, David Haire, Ulster Grand Prix and Manx Grand Prix previews and the usual Monthly columns from the likes of Jonathan Rea.
It has been another excellent issue for myself in that I have Twenty of my Photographs published in the Magazine this Month including the front cover Photograph from a recent Photo shoot of the Laverty Brothers.
Tags: David Haire, Eugene Laverty, Irish Racer Magazine, John Laverty, Jonathan Rea, Manx Grand Prix, Michael Laverty, Michael Pearson, Motorcycle racing, Northern Ireland, Photographs, Sandor Bitter, Simon Andrews, Supersport, Ulster Grand Prix, World Champion
Posted by Cleggy on Jun 26, 2010 in
Motocross
With no ‘proper’ bike racing on this weekend in Ireland, and no personal shoots booked I could have sat at home and watched some of the World Cup on the telly, or went to Kirkistown for Kart racing, or Rasharkin for a Hill climb. In the end I plumped to risk the Camera gear at yet another Motocross racing event, this time in Downpatrick.
Setting off from home it was dull and starting to Rain and the forecast was also for Rain but it never came to anything and it actually turned out another warm sunny day.
Motocross differs from tarmac based Motorcycle racing in that the layout of the bikes at the start of the race are not staggered down the length of the grid. In Motocross racing all the bikes are arranged in a line with the front wheels up against a starting gate which drops at the start of the race.
It is then a hectic, mad dash to get through the first corner before everyone else with mud, dust, and stones kicked up everywhere, the first corner of the opening lap of the race is fraut with danger but usually they all make it through safely.
All the soft mud gets pushed to the outside of the corners and forms what is known as a berm, the fast riders can really attack the berms and carry a lot of speed through the corner the rear wheels of their bikes kicking up more mud, more dust, more stones. With all the stones flying about its all too easy to get hit by one of them, I lost count of the amount of stones that struck my body today.
Motocross racing just wouldn’t be Motocross without a few big jumps.
So next weekend its back to Photographing pure road racing at the Skerries road races near Ballbriggan in County Dublin. You can be sure there will be a few shouts of “Oiii ya can’t stand there” not something you hear at the more relaxed Motocross scene. I could get used to shooting Motocross……………if it wasn’t for the mud, the dust, and the stones!
Tags: Downpatrick, Motocross, Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing
Posted by Cleggy on Mar 25, 2010 in
Announcements
I have uploaded a small selection of Photographs from Saturday’s Irish Clubmans Championship Motorcycle racing action from Bishopscourt Race Circuit to my online shop.
Tags: Bishopscourt, Irish Clubmans Championship, Motorcycle racing, Photographs
Posted by Cleggy on Mar 21, 2010 in
Bike Racing The 2010 Irish Short Circuit Motorcycle Racing season got underway yesterday at Bishopscourt for the opening round of the Irish Clubmans Championship. A dull start with a Wet Track from overnight Rain got things off to a subdued start but the Sun came out, the Track dried up and every Race ran in dry conditions.
Included in the programme was Two open Races for ‘the big boys‘ the competitors in the Irish Superbike Championship. This was an opportunity for them to get some track time on their bikes before their own championships get underway at the same venue over the Easter Weekend.
The Two open races served up the best and fastest racing of the day providing good action for Photography.
Portadown’s Marshall Neill is one of Ireland’s under-rated racers who normally competes in the British Superstock Championship. For 2010 Marshall will be racing at home in the Irish Superbike Championships with the odd race ‘across the water’. Marshall’s first race of the day saw him have a minor crash but he showed what he was made of in Race Two by winning. There is a lot of racing to go before the 2010 Irish Superbike Champion is crowned, but already Marshall Neill is looking like a contender.
Marshall Neill leads Denver Robb, Kirk Jamison, Brian McCormack and Richard Rea at Bishopscourt
James Dickson #16 in the middle of the pack at the start of the second Open Race
Tags: Bishopscourt, Brian McCormack, Denver Robb, Irish Clubmans Championship, Irish Superbike Championship, James Dickson, Kirk Jamison, Marshall Neill, Motorcycle racing, Richard Rea
Posted by Cleggy on Mar 14, 2010 in
PR
So today I drove down to the County Fermanagh lakelands to do a wee shoot with the lovely Julianne Elliott, big sister to Josh Elliott the teenage rising star of Irish Motorcycle Racing who will be competing on the World championship stage in 2010. Whilst there I also shot some images to be used throughout this season for Josh’s press releases.
The Weather had been good all week and luckily today was equally as nice, though quite cool temperatures due to the stiff breeze. I arrived at my destination at approximately half past Two which gave us ample time to have a natter and scout out a few locations for doing some shots whilst the Sun was still high and the light harsh.
Our first shooting location was in the grounds of Florence Court House a National Trust property.
I used shallow depth of field from a wide aperture to focus the attention on Julianne.
1/1250th f3.5 85mm
A shady Woodland area provided a great setting for this next image.
1/2000th f2.8 85mm
1/2500th f5 85mm
One remote flash helped balance the exposure with the ambient light for this image of Josh sitting on a Cannon with Florence Court House behind him.
1/100th f8 55mm
We then travelled a short distance to Enniskillen Town to take create some images in the location of Enniskillen Castle. By now the sun was providing much warmer light, though still quite harsh and I had to use remote Nikon SB800 flashes to balance the exposure.
If you would like me to do a Photo shoot with you, get in touch and we can discuss a location and fee.
Tags: County Fermanagh, Enniskillen, Enniskillen Castle, Fermanagh, Florence Court, Florence Court House, Josh Elliott, Julianne Elliott, Motorcycle racing, Nikon, Nikon SB800, SB800
Posted by Cleggy on Feb 27, 2010 in
Bike Racing,
PR
Bushmill’s CCTV Engineer Coyles Wright sounded me out a few months ago about doing a few Photographs of the new Race Team that he was putting together to contest the Irish Motorcycle racing championships. All the pieces of the jigsaw fell in to place and a date was set to do the shoot.
The evening before the shoot (last night) Coyles sent me a text message panicking about the heavy Snow that was falling up his part of the Country but we agreed to go ahead with the shoot and luckily the next morning (today) dawned without a major fall of Snow. With the forecast for a bright afternoon I was confident the shoot would go ahead as planned.
Coyles choice of location for the shoot was the famous ‘Dark Trees’ near Armoy which have been Photographed my numerous Photographers over the years. I immediately started thinking about the location and whether to try and shoot it all available ambient light or to introduce some flash light to the Photographs and whether or not everyday traffic would be an issue. If using flash I knew I would need to be able to hide the flashes and light stands so that they did not intrude in to the scene.
Coyles assured me it was a quiet Road with very little traffic, but on the day we were constantly having to push the bikes to one side to allow the free flow of traffic. I initially fired off a few frames using just the available light, but I soon realised that it was not illuminating both race bikes and riders evenly which was then my cue to extend the light stands and power up the Nikon SB800 flashes.
1/250th f5.6 AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED
The addition of some artificial flash light and a tighter composition made for a much stronger image.
Because these images were shot specifically for a press release to be sent to the Biking press I knew that a ‘mugshot’ of each racer would also be required.
Coyles Wright
Michael McKinley
Below is a lighting diagram explaining how these images were created.
Tags: AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED, Armoy, Bushmills, Coleraine, Coyles Wright, Irish, Michael McKinley, Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing, Nikon, Photographs, SB800