Archive for the ‘Publications’ Category

Your Still Camera Also Does Great Video!

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Match Race St. Moritz 2009One of my favorite images of this year…do we need to see the before andafter or is it just better this way?

Today Nikon announced the new Nikon D3s. I was expecting a new semi pro camera something between the D3x and the D700, a high resolution camera with with aprox. 20 megapixel at a affordable price.

Dreamer..the D3s is a 12.1 megapixel camera with great ISO values. The big surprise was, it takes video. Why not,  this is the ongoing discussion in the mediacenters at big events. All photographers are talking about the two worlds getting closer to each other. Honestly I’m not so sure.

Recently at an event the organizer hired a film crew who  worked on the water and up in the air without gyroscope. I never getseasick no matter how big the waves are but the outcome by watching this movie I almost got seasick, this TV crew was simply useless.  Now everyone believes that videos out of the still camera will change the market. I’m really questioning that.

I doo like changes and I take changes as a chance to do business but this time I have my doubts. Today in the yachting photography we are trying out so new angles to get more dynamics in to the images (have a look at this one), when I used the D3x in Singapore for the Volvo Ocean race felt the freedom to crop the image and this was a real new way of working. I didn’t bought the D3x as I believe it’s simply too expensive to go out on the saltwater with such a camera. This explains why I’m waiting for the Nikon semipro with 20 megapixel.

For the home/family use a camera doing also video is great but do we really need that in the PRO world? Are the good still moment similar as the good video moments? I think not. For the daily use on websites and agencies for the press this may be a solution. Two weeks ago Lynn, Daniel and I we just finished the book of the Voiles de Saint-Tropez and we have been very hard on us to choose the images for the book. Many of them are unique moments where the before and after doesn’t really matters. It’s rather a split moment captured who also gives you a bit of interpretation freedom about the before or the after who makes the image better.

Question: What is more sensual a beautiful women completely naked or dressed with a shirt where you can’t see anything but imagination goes wild?. Isn’t a video different from sill image? Browsing in the web about video and the still discussion I found a post from APhotoEditor he believes that top shots with a good headline are more successful as videos. On top it takes much longer to get the video edited and up on the web as a image.

What do you think about this?

Juerg

New Book Classic and Modern Yachts in Saint-Tropezrdre the

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

After 2 weeks shooting the classic yachts on the cote azur…here is my best image, enjoy….
See the book online

Order the book online

New Book: CLASSIC and MODERN YACHTS in SAINT-TROPEZ

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

PARTNERS IN TRADITON – CLASSIC and MODERN YACHTS in SAINT-TROPEZ

Saint-Tropez, France (September 26, 2009) –Yachting photographers, Juerg Kaufmann and Daniel Forster, and sailing writer, Lynn Fitzpatrick, have teamed up to produce a coffee table book of Les de Saint-Tropez entitled PARTNERS IN TRADITON – CLASSIC and MODERN YACHTS in SAINT-TROPEZ. The book will be packed will stunning images and highlights of the yachts, people and atmosphere of the event.

The regattabook’s development can be followed online at regattabook.com. Each day we will reveal the images that the team will publish.

The 10th anniversary of the event will be exceptional. This year, Les Voiles celebrates the 100th year anniversary of Tuiga and her sistership, Mariska. Many of the world’s most beautiful traditional yachts such as Elenora, Cambria, Shamrock and Moonbeam will ply the same waters as the stylish Wallys. Additionally, all five of Eric Tabarly’s Pen Duick yachts will be assembled in the marina and raced during the day.

The regattabook will capture the essence of the event – the excitement, the venue, the yachts, the organizers, the partners, the characters and personalities that sail these boats. From the quiet of first light to the cacophony of 300 boats leaving port and the Mistral whistling through the rigging, the regattabook will enable you to live vicariously and remember a decade of regattas marking the close of the summer sailing season in the Mediterranean.

2010 Classic Yacht Calendar

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Voiles des St. tropez classic boats

Last year I did my first calendar with images from the Olympic games. Many of my readers are enjoying the calendar every day now.

Now it’s time to plan the 2010 calendars. Yes we do two, a racing calendar with Swiss and international regatta images and the classic calendar. The images are chosen and together with the editor Sailing Media we publish it, the focus of the exclusive black and white images is the famous Belle Classe, some of the yachts are Tuiga, Mariquita and a few more.

Have a look at the images:

Louis Vuitton Pacific Series Book

Friday, March 13th, 2009

bookcover

Together with Lynn Fitzpatrick we managed to publish the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series Book within hours of the prize giving for the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, a coffee table book with a foreword by regatta organizer, Bruno Troublé, will be available for distribution.

With just the right balance of prose from sailing journalist, Lynn Fitzpatrick, and some of my best images. The book is the perfect keepsake for everyone attending this historic match racing event in Auckland, NZ. For those who were not present for five days of practice and 16 days of exciting match racing between world renown skippers, helmsmen, tacticians and crew from 10 teams representing 9 countries, this photo journal allows you to live vicariously.

Order the book online here

See more about the book

The brain defines the limit

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Patrouilles des Glacier 2008 Tele Blanche

Can you imagine to do 51 km in the alps with a altitude difference of 4000m in temperatures ranging from 5 to – 15 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 Bertol 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 20 kg backpack containing cameras, lenses etc.

With the limited view it was hard to estimate the distance to the summit 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 – 12 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 happend 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 that the 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.

Enjoy the images

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 coming down isn’t easy too with a heavy backpack.