My favorite photos from the 33rd America's Cup

20/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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.

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on tv

18/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ac4bK7g4vw&hl=de&fs=1]
It was sure one of my highlights during the 33rd America’s Cup having a professional TV crew following me during 1 day shooting. The TSI is the Televisione Svizzera Italiana the Italian part of Switzerland where I grew up, unfortunately because of all this travelling for sailing I spend too little time at home.
The portrait went on TV the 13th of February during the news, it’s impressive to hear from the TV crew that at least 100’000 person saw it.
Grazie TSI
Jürg

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Congratulations to BMWO

15/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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They left the harbour and raced: BMWO 1 Alinghi 0

13/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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

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Will they ever leave the harbor to race?

10/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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raison d'etre ?

05/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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Valencia is getting ready

05/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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

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Christo Redentor

01/02/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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

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Getting Ready for the Cup

30/01/2010 by JK | Comments Off

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

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Your Still Camera Also Does Great Video!

14/10/2009 by JK | Comments Off

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

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New Book Classic and Modern Yachts in Saint-Tropezrdre the

07/10/2009 by JK | Comments Off

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

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New Book: CLASSIC and MODERN YACHTS in SAINT-TROPEZ

26/09/2009 by JK | Comments Off

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.

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Ladycat

22/09/2009 by JK | Comments Off

What to do with a grey day? Add a bit of color

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Photoshooting with Karin Jaggi

23/08/2009 by JK | Comments Off

Last week I had the chance to spend 2 days with Karin Jaggi 27 times windsurf world champion in Turkey Alacati on the PWA Tour. I didn’t know what to expect although I had some clear ideas about the images I want to bring home.

How will it be? With so many titles is she still cool? Yes she is cool very cooperative. You would say she could be simply the neighbor.

During the shootings you could really see how professional she became in all this years. Especially whily using the underwater camera. Karin keept gybing around me whiteout getting tired at all, at this was aftre a day racing .
Windsurf itself is so photogenic that I’m wondering why we don’t see more of those images.  Maybe I’m getting a bit tiered of shooting sailing and windsurf gave me this feeling of something new to discover with the camera.
Have a look at the images:

Shooting with Karin
Racing images from the PWA Tour

Thank you Karin, it was great.

Juerg

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2010 Classic Yacht Calendar

29/07/2009 by JK | Comments Off

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:

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Always look twice

27/07/2009 by JK | Comments Off

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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.

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Back to Thun for a few days

04/06/2009 by JK | Comments Off

It’s quite some time ago since I have been in Thun, it’s a interesting feeling walking around here in this town. Thun is my birth town and in some way it’s a home.
With all the travel we do, did you never asked yourseles where is home?
Good night
Juerg

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While you where sleeping

26/04/2009 by JK | Comments Off

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

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No salt no waves instead light and shadows

11/04/2009 by JK | Comments Off

Walser House in Serneus Klosters SwitzerlandSometimes I do complain about the waves and the salt on the camera. A few weeks ago I had the chance catch in images the work of the talented architect Bruno Huber from Lugano. Here the challenges are light and shadows, corners etc. It’s an old Walser house in Klosters, Serneus build around the 1700 century…don’t miss the sauna and the whirlpool…
(click the image to see more)

Juerg

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sail off into the sunset

09/04/2009 by JK | Comments Off

2009 Palma Sunset at the Princess Sofia Regatta

Posted in Travel, Yachting
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