It was a cold day, waiting on the photo boat for the race committee to start the race, then speeding around like devils at 50 miles/h following the boats after the start (now I know how fast is Hydroptere).

5 Miles in to the race we had to stop and after a short break off again full speed for almost 20 minutes towards the gybing mark. Once there we had to wait a bit.  My Iphone was playing Jean Michel Jarre, with the big lenses we saw them on the horizon coming closer and closer,  they seemed slow.
Soon we realized that they aren’t. My song wasn’t over and BMWO followed by the umpire boat gybed allready at the mark. Right after comes Alinghi 5:  The cup is gone from Switzerland.

Jürg

PS: The photo of Alinghi 5 was taken on the same leg as the BMWO photo, on the way to the finish after the gybe.

The race was way out, Alinghi on port and BMWO on Starboard entry, first cross dialup and penalty…..BMWO with the wing sails higher and faster on the beat almost 10 degrees and deeper and faster on the run almost 30 degrees.
Tomorrow is another day, forcast 2 knots. Alinghi keep saying we are fast with light wind…let’s see if we have a race tomorrow and who knows maybe we have a third race too…
Good evening from Valencia
Juerg

First day in Valencia, it doesn’t seem that in less than 3 days there will be the 33rd Americas cup. Plenty of activity going on, tv trucks cables, noise etc. The harbor is busy but no AC boat’s. BMWO is in the commercial harbor and Alinghi 5 is under the tent.

On the top of the Varadero building you can find 2 SNG flags and a big sign “Mediacenter” at the entrance. Even here lot’s of preparation activities going on. Nearby the Alinghi base, impressive building, shop is open, music plays.

We are used to those prevent activities, for a typical regatta that what’s normally happen but for the cup it’s a bit a strange feeling.
Another thing: The weather forecast for February 8th announce 5 knots of wind in the morning, will this be the Alinghi day or does the wing from BMWO will impress us all?

I’m looking forward to see what’s happening in the next days.

Jürg

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

Since a while Daniel Forster and me we started to work together on projects, this give us the chance to cover more complex shootings easier such as for example the 33rd Americas cup.

The distances are so big it’s impossible to shoot at the start and then being on time also at the weather mark. So during the 33rd America’s cup we will share the positions on the race course with the goal to give a better coverage to our customers.

The size and speed of the boats is also a bit of a challenge. For those who shoot in their free time try to go on the street and take a picture of a car moving towards you with 50 – 60 km/h maybe even more, you have to be quite fast with framing and the focus to get a sharp picture. Another point are the distances that’s why we will be using the big long lenses. For the cup Nikon Switzerland give me the chance to use their 500mm lens with VRII function. I really curious too see the difference. by the way the lenses it selves is 3.5 Kg plus 1.2 Kg the camera this means holding up almost 5 Kg.

Sometimes I think back at the Olympic Games where we got  Chinese agency photographers used to work in the football stadiums with tripods, coming on board with tripods and monopods. Very quickly they realized that this is of no use as the boats are moving too much. Some even got seasick but that’s another story.

Please come and visit our new website www.go4image.com especially for the 33rd Americas cup we made a gallery with Daniels images of the last 10 America’s cup going back more than 30 years to Newport 1977 until the images we will start to publish next week.

Jürg

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