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Category Archives: Outdoor
Christo Redentor
One morning the customer I was shooting for in Rio told me, you have to go up there and shoot the “Christo Redentor”. After the racing days we had only cloudy days and only 2 of them left before flying home. In a good moment with the clouds disappearing I grabbed a taxi and off we go. 100 Reais up and down and 25 Reais to get in..and guess what happend up on the Corcovado? The clouds where back.
Sometimes you need to invent something, the original picture was very dull no contrast and lot of grey light.
Click on the image to see more pictures of Rio inclusive some of the famous Copacabana.
Juerg
Also posted in Travel, Yachting
Tagged Brasil, Brazil, challenge, Christo Redentor, respect, Rio, Travelling, Yachting
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Always look twice
Yesterday on flight back from the Audi Medup in Cagliari I found this picture. It’s a sunset on the Hirzel one of my favorite shooting place. Right after the shooting the picture didn’t made it in to the selection of the day, would have almost deleted it, sometimes you really need to look twice before you see the real beauty.
While you where sleeping
It doesn’t need to be the Caribbean or some other well known place. Close to Zurich we have a place called Hirzel, it’s a landscape with many small hills and on each hill you will find a tree.
It’s a tradition that the farmer who owns the small hill plants a tree on top of it his first born son. The result is a stunning landscape. Specially during sunrise or sunset.
A few days ago I did the third shooting in on the Hirzel, as we had a warm and dry wind blowing over the hills we got a clear view and a stunning sunrise.
Note:
A few days ago someone told me image is pimped…I told him, get up early in the morning and you will find it out.
6am on the Hirzel
Photoshooting out of the helicopter
Photo from Bruno Huber / Pilot Tiziano Ponti
This has always been a bit a dream to me as it represents a milestone in my learning curve. Not that I have hundreds of hours of experience but in the last two weeks I was up there twice. There are many big guys who know better than me , however I’m happy to share my expirience.
Besides being a great feeling sitting in a chopper with to open door, legs out, headset on and having a excellent position to take pictures I also feel a certain pressure and responsibility of what we are doing.
Time counts so there is no much time to touch setting on the camera and every image should be the one. Sure with the digital cameras you can soot as much as you like but the composition must be ok, the deep of field must fit your image and it have to be sharp.
Over the past I made a little checklist to make sure I don’t forget anything:
1: Expected images and flight plan agreed with the pilot and other photographers
2: Warm cloth, harness on, hooked in, position tested, headset on and working
3: One camera around the neck(70 -200mm lens), the other connected to the chopper (normally the body with the big lens 300mm as this is less used)
4: Settings: ISO value ~250, AF mode, VR on active, lens aperture 6, shutter single, focus priority (it’s a good starting point as the shutter speed should be high)
5: Ready to take off
6: Mental walk trough images composition (normally before shooting you have a few minutes and I use this time concentrate about my expected images)
A few months ago I bought my own climbing harness for top mast shootings and this turned out to be a good deal. I feel comfortable and I can get ready quickly. Sometimes jumping in the chopper and fixing everything has to be efficient.
The shooting itself is always a great experience, I think it’s one of the best photo shooting experience possible, you just go to the position where you need by talking with the pilot.
Vibration is one of the subject who I haven’t really solved, in every shooting I get great images with a outstanding composition but not sharp, specially when I start to work too much with the deep of field by going up with the aperture however I think that the VR functions on my Nikon lens is a big help.
If someone have some more good tipp’s let me know.
Take care and enjoy your airtime
Jürg
Also posted in Yachting
Tagged go4image, go4image.com, Helicopter, Helishooting, Imaging, photo, teamwork, Yachting
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The brain defines the limit
Can you imagine to do 51 km in the alps with a altitude difference of 4000m in temperatures ranging from 5 to – 20 degrees?
Maybe yes if you are well trained but the guys I could follow with my camera they do it in less than 6 ½ hours! No I’m not joking this is serious.
We tock the helicopter from Arolla up to the Col de Bertole at 3000metres. The walk up to the 3700meter summit of the Tete Blanche was everything else as a walk in the park, at least for me with my almost 15 kg backpack containing cameras, lenses etc.
With the limited view due to the storm, it was hard to estimate the distance to the summit as we could not see it, and the last few hundred meters where never ending, the air got thinner, my legs weaker and the my backpack with the cameras heavier.
After a while I started to count the steps, every 60 steps a I started again and again just to motivate myself to get up there.
It was a wonderful moment when my guide Norbert Zurwerra shouted: “There is the summit”.
Up on the summit we found a big military tent and you can’t imagine the surprised faces of this mountaineers when a stranger drops in with the excuse we are here to do a few pictures.
After a coffee we could relax for a few hours but at 1.30 in the morning with the wind blowing at 80 km/m at minus – 20 degrees we got out of the tent.
Until this moment I had no idea what I’m going to see in a few minutes, all happened very fast, get the camera of the bag, set up the flash do a few shots to verify the settings and here they are, running as we can down in the valley but here we are at 3700 meters.
What was even more amazing considering that Tete Blanche is not the end of the trail but they still had two more summits before it goes down to Verbier.
The definition of being fit became a complete new dimension. Until this moment I was sure to be fit and comfortable with my health.
How much do they train to get this level of fitness? At least 40’000 meters in altitude difference. With 50 weekends /year you know what they are doing in their freetime.
Now I’m back home sitting in front of my notebook writing this post with some small frost damages on the right cheek and ear. This is the end of the post as I want to go jogging a bit.I’m not planning to do the Patrouille des Glaciers in 2 years as participant. As photographer would be great and hopefully again with Norbert Zurwerra as guide, and next time I want to carry the heavy photo equipment up to the Tete Blanche without counting.
Jürg
PS: I almost forgot to say, It’s important to reach the summit but It’s even more important to come down safe. As the weather was still too bad for the helicopter, we did the way back to Arolla on our ski. Going up is hard but skiing down isn’t easy too with a heavy backpack.
Also posted in Photography
Tagged Alpinismus, Alps, Arolla, Col de Bertol, limit, motivation, Patrouille des Glacier, PDG, summit, Swiss army, Tete Blanche, Valais, Verbier, Wallis
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how much can you improve teamwork
Teambuilding for match race teams
Maybe you wonder why I’m writing about teambuilding for match racing teams. Probably the correct title would be: how much more can you improve teamwork.
Since we all saw the Alinghi team working as one perfect team during the America’s Cup, at least in the 2003 Cup, everybody knows that you require a high level of teamwork to perform in a boat.
Imagine now you get engaged by two top match race teams to improve their teamwork. As an example a normal good crew on a 30 foot boat takes about 15 -20 seconds to hoist the spinnaker, those guys sailing in the top 50 and 30 of the world ranking list do it in less than 12 seconds and they are not happy.
Therefore it is quite a challenge to support these 2 teams, what kind of advice would you give them, how do you advise them on areas to improve without compromising the already high level of teamwork?
The main area for improvement that I helped them to apply was communication between the team and the decision making processes. This can be applied on an overall tactical level but also in, for example, the hectic pre-start period.
The learning curve is never over and there is always room to improve, which is clear after such a training session.
We divided the training into 3 main steps:
- Assessment: Know your strengths and weaknesses
- Agreement: Of the strengths and weaknesses
- Improvement: Apply this new knowledge
At the end the spinnaker came up in less than 10 seconds which was an improvement but the major change was in the communication between the team, there was almost no shouting on board, they all knew what they had to do and how to talk to each other.
You may ask yourselves why is communication so important? Imagine you are sitting in a meeting with 20 knots of wind and big waves crashing over the table. How do you make joint decisions in no time often without clear communication channels, but be working seamlessly and instinctively as a team with the same goals and desired outcomes? That’s where teamwork comes into play.
Sailing, like many team sports, can be an excellent tool for focusing attention on teamwork. If there is a misunderstanding about roles and responsibilities you find out within seconds, not days, weeks or even possibly months later as often demonstrated in the business world.
Tagged Coaching, communication, how to, improve teamwork, improvement, motivation, performance, performance improvement, Sailing, team, teamwork, teamwork improvement
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40 feet catamaranes sailing in Lugano
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQcGPe0aTRg&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1&hl=en]
I know today is the 1st of April and it’s my birthday. Allmost 40 years of jokes I have been told in this day every year.
Now there is a story to tell, End of May from Friday 30.5 until Sunday 1st of June the world best extreme 40 sailing teams will sail against Alinghi and Team Origin is part of the event to.
To get a feeling of what will happen in Lugano in these days look at the video
Tagged AC, Alinghi, America's Cup, ishares cup, Lugano, multihull, OC events, Oracle, racemanagement, regatta, Sailing, spectacular, switzerland, Tessin, Ticino, volvo ocean race
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Final rush for the Lugano Nautica
Years ago in the IT business we did some expositions, every times it was an incredible amount of tasks and things to organize. Next week I will display 30 pictures at the Lugano Nautica and you know what noting changed, sometimes i’m asking mysleve this is simply the challenge when you do an exposition.
Today I got the images, the team from Fujifilm Switzerland did a great job, i like the quality of the photos.
Now the truck is on the way to Lugano with the photo’s and I’m really looking forward to unpack them in Lugano beginning of next week.
In the mean time we will upload all the images displayed in Lugano on the Lumobox Gallery, portal for professional photographers from Fujifilm Switzerland.
During the days in Lugano, the beautiful Pamela will help me a bit
Now let’s hope that the promotion effort done in the last weeks bring us a few good visitors.
See the images displayed in Lugano
See you in Lugano
Jürg
Tagged boats, Lugano, Lugano nautica, nautic, photo, switzerland
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What happend in January
I think I was a bit lazy in the last month at least I did not post any news, the phone call from a good friend this morning saying…where in the world are you and what are you doing? Is probably the sign to do a bit more.
In January I was travelling a photo-shooting I Laos, I love that country. All this national protected areas are great to go and discover the still today plenty of untouched Asiaand no crime at all.
The last trekking was unforgettable, in central Laos close to the Vietnam border we spend a few days trekking from one village to the other, all of them from an ethnic minority called Kamoung.
The image below give you an impression about how they life.
Just after I came back home I jumped again in the plane to Manaco, sailing rules training for the Swiss Sailing Youth Team.
A bit of hearing training and on the water we played the good old team race game to apply the right of way rules.
I like to do the team race exercise during trainings, first off all you can practice rules in a funny way as the goal is not anymore to win but not to have the fourth position in the race if you do 2 teams of 2 boats.
Now I’m back in Switzerland and I working on 3 main projects, setting up the Laser Europa Cup 2008 for Lugano, then the Lugano Nautica where some of my sailing photos will be exposed and the with great pleasure we can finally start the preparation of a great sailing event which will be hold again in Lugano with some big 40 ft multihull. But details about that in a few days.
Tagged Travel
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The first cover page
There is a first time for everything, today with a great pleasure I bought the sailing magazine SwissBoat Yachting and guess what? It’s my first cover page with Temenos a few hours after the start of the Barceloan world race taken out of the helicopter.
Thank’s to Daniel, the pilot in Barcelona and the Temenos team.
See more Temenos images from the Barcelona world race
Read more about Temenos boat.
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Coaching Sailing Rules
Today I will join the Swiss Sailing Team in Magglingen and we will spend a 2 days and talk about rules. After several discussions with sailors involved in the Olympic selection, Swiss and some of other Nationalities we realized the knowledge of the medal race details (Addendum Q) is quite poor even among some the top world class sailors aspiring for a medals at the games.
Interesting fact considering that federations and sailors invest a lot of recourses to get sailors to the medal race, and once they are there the hardly understand the rules of the game. Some months ago I was involved with a similar session for another Olympic sailing team, we did the ISAF medal race Quiz which contains about 20 questions. Most of the sailors got right from 7 to 13…..
Normal racing rules will also be discussed and for sure will also talk about rule 42, I think it’s becoming a bit of an emotional issue. The rule 42 is clearly described however there is still some room for interpretation and some judges go harder on the subject as others which may create a bit confusion.
It’s a great way to work with sailors and learn more about their concerns and point of view , will be really curious what will be the key lesson learned for them and me.
Jürg
Tagged coacing rules, games, hearing, improvement, medal race, olympic, olympics, performance, rules advisor, Sailing
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Should I stay or should I go ?
Photo (c) Jürg Kaufmann / Dominique Wavre getting ready to go
Do you rember the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” from The Clash.
Right now I’m in Barcelona and tomorrow is the start of the Barcelona World Race, 2 persons non stop racing around the world in 60 ft racing yachts. Probably a year ago these guys where thinking about going for the race.
There is no doubt this guys they go in to the adventure.
Last year in these day this was the question for me, should I keep running around as IT Management consultant having every end of month a secure check or should I go and life the passion of photography and sailing?
Some say: stay in your old job some say do it!
Since there I’m sailing and taking pictures, mostly on sailing events? And it starts to pay off, some of my images taken yesterday here in Barcelona are displayed today on many famous sailing websites.
Now the question comes up again…Guess waht? I keep going….
Enjoy the pictures:
and thank you for all of you telling me to do it.
Jürg
Tagged Travel
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America's Cup: There is no winner
Photo courtesy of (c) Martin Gilles-Raget
33rd America’s Cup just entered in the startbox
What a situation, we just had the most interesting cup since ever with great races and since months two big guys of our sailing world are demonstrating their power.
Saturday GGYC came up with a new press release telling that Alinghi is not quite open to find a amicable settlement…
Sunday Alinghi came up saying we want to find a solution, we are ready to meet monday morning in New York….
Hard to belive, who is right who is wrong, that’s up to the judge of the New York court to decide, but I have a strong feeling that one of these two teams will come out as a looser. Is it SNG or GGYC?
Wee will se…
Probably the 33rd cup just entered the start box and the boats instead of a nice and calm dial up they just crossed each other with contact.
Now the question is did yellow (Alinghi) altered the course and infringe rule 16 or did blue failed to keep clear by rule 10….this time it’s not an umpire call but the court of New York.
Must be a quite hopeless task to go back to the team a say, guys we lost in court but now we go a win on the water….lets hope that the cup itseleve will not be the looser.
Good luck
Jürg
I'm in love
She is tall, has class, a speechless beauty born almost a century ago, here name is Mariquita.
Last weekend I had a special sailing experience, no it’s not about match racing no particular move just normal sailing but on a very special boat. Was in the jury for the Monaco Classic Week and as on-board observer you have plenty of opportunities to take good shots and enjoy the seamless class of this boats. On the first day I was on Wayward an typical schooner and the last day I spend on Mariquita, a real treasure.
To see more of here, click on the picture
Jürg
Do you like a sandwich?
Since the tour de France a la voile a lot of things happened and I think it’s time to update a bit.
Why is the title about sandwich? Keep reading and you will see.
Right after the tour having alomst every day baguette sandwiches I went to Marseille the beautiful harbor in south of France to the extreme 40 catamarans for some photo shooting, usless to say thet we had baguette sandwiches on the water.
It was the first time I traveled with the TGV, the fast train in France, and I think it’s probably more efficient as the plan, It goes over 300 Km/h…guess what, you get sandwiches on board. Unfortunately I had to leave Marseille the day of strong wind, so no real action pictures.
After Marseille the grade 1 match race in Ravenna the Trofeo Trombini as umpire.It’s every year a high light spending a few days on the Adriatic sea, specially the pasta for lunch on the water cocked on Mr. Trombini’s boat. During this days I got up early one day to enjoy the sunrise on the beach, will do more of those things in the future.
The next event was the match race Europeans in Poland Sopot, have been there already last year as umpire and as expected the organizers did a really outstanding job for this event.We sailed in front of the VIP Hospitality area which is a long pier as long as the up and downwind leg. Any idea what we got for lunch?
This year It looks like I will be over 150 days on the water and I really start to hate sandwiches.
Now I’m back home having salad and vegetable after 10 days in Palma for the copa del rey as tactician on the IMS Thomas Sabo. Was there with a few friends from Zurich eating sandwich for lunch on the boat. We did a 12th overall in the IMS class where the Spanish crews feel really at home.
The Spanish federation seemed to be so surprised with our result and we got an invitation for the IMS Worlds in September providing us also a boat, if it’s a fast boat we will go.
Palma was hot in many senses and a lot of sun, for sure the next event will be a bit cooler: St. Moritz for the Alinghi Swiss Tour final. There we will need a bit more than shorts and t-shirt and hopefully we don’t get again sandwiches on the water for lunch.
Jürg
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Tour de France a la voile with the camera
Photo © Juerg Kaufmann
Tour de France a la voile, it’s one of the sailing events I always thought about. In May I got the call whether I can join the jury for a few legs, and off we go.The Jury is not very active during the day and especially on the offshore legs, so I take all my camera gear in my bag. Actually since a few months the camera bag got bigger as the other bag. I followed a few legs in the north of France with strong winds and rough conditions. What I saw there in terms of sailing is impressive; imagine racing on the beat for hours in rough sea and the boats are just a few boat lengths away from each other. Enjoy the pictures….
Tagged Travel
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Multihull Sailing
Photo © Juerg Kaufmann
This weekend I hade the chance to sail the Bol d’or regatta on one of the extreme 40Catamaran and shooting some pictures. We left the harbor at 7.30 in the morning and by 20.00 we where back in the Club in Geneva. The speed of these boats is simply amazing, all build in carbon, it’s really close to the flying feeling. Compared to the local D35 the extreme40 are a bit heavier with a smaller sail surface, and they are not sailing a code zero kite what the D35 do and therefore a bit faster in low wind.The design concept is simpler as the D35 and therefore transportable. Next weekend the Extreme40 will sail the round the island race in Cows and then heading down to Marseille, maybe I will make it to Marseille right after the tour de France a la voile and see these carbon speed weapons in offshore action.
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Commenting the LVC Final on TV
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Photo (c) Chris Cameron
First 3 races of the LVC Final are over, Emirates Team New Zealand is leading 3:0 against Luna Rossa the Italian team. I the TV Studio from the Televisione Svizzera Italiana we are commenting every day this races, it a great pleasure to work with professionals like Giordano De Lucia journalist from the TV and Flavio Favini, Mascalzone Latino’s helmsmen.
For me it’s the first time commenting life on tv a sailing regatta. It’s not so easy to talk all the time, as umpire we are trained to describe a situation based on the rules within a few words, not missing any rules relevant part and not talking more as necessary, here in the TV it’s all different.
Imagine the spectators if they here “Luna rossa on port give way and ETNZ starboard right of way” not considering to use all our sailing slang words such as “rolling over” situation of yesterday in during the pre-start after the long dial up….ups again one of this words. Anyway Dial up is when both boats are heat to wind and not moving at all, really boring to watch for non sailors and the talking we do makes it hopfully “inetresting”.
Today we have a day off and from Tuesday onwards we will be again in the box commenting the races. I’m sure that Luna Rossa in the mean time is working hard to reflect and regroup there team.
Ragazzi we payed the ticket for 9 races come back on Tuesday and win the match!
Juerg
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Lucky Moment
Photo (c) Juerg Kaufmann
A few days ago I was in Geneva at the GP Chopard, regatta sailed with Decision 35 catamarans. It turned out to be lucky weekend, the boat called AXIOM almost capsized over the bow in front of us. The sailing magazine Swissboat will publish this picture on a double page format in the next edition, and on the internet in 24h we got 10’000 visitors looking at it. See more pictures
Tagged Travel
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A bit of America's Cup history
During the Lugano leg of the UBS Alinghi Swiss Tour 2007 I was asked to held a presentation about America’s Cup and matchrace at my home club the Circolo Velico lago di Lugano for UBS.
Since years we are hearing the famous storys about the cup like “There is no second, Ma’am” etc. With this information you can’t fill up a room anymore, background information or not so known interesting details about the last editions back to the early days and for sure an analyse of the current LVC standing are hot topics today. We also had a life connection with Alinghi in Valencia, Franceso Rapetti a crew member of Alinghi responded to some questions like how many calories per day you need (5000) or what’s about this new keel gosship “can’t give an answer on that”. The room was full and even the Televisione Svizzera Italiana was there with a camera team, by the way the guys I will work with during the LVC final, where we will comment life the final phase of the challenger selection process. It was a pleasure to do it, specally as I’m not around a lot this year in my home club with all the races scheduled.
Juerg
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