Events

Feb

2024

Mt Buller

I seem to be running around a lot at the moment. A couple of weeks ago I was in Thredbo for Cannonball then back in Sydney for a shoot with Bikes Online, then back south to Mt Buller in Victoria for the Rocky Trail Superflow. Now, I’m back in Sydney for a couple of quick shoots but I will be on the road again soon. Not that I am complaining, I love getting away from Sydney. Maybe though, I should just plan things a bit better and stay away rather than bouncing up and down the East Coast.

Mt Buller is always a favourite. Well, anywhere in the mountains is always a favourite for me. The Australian Alps have a unique and distinct flavour, a remoteness, an easy place to get lost. Even standing in the village of Mt Buller (which isn’t very remote) and looking out across the surrounding hills you know there are a lot of areas where you could get lost and not be seen again.

I even managed to get up one morning and go out to take a few sunrise shots. Not something I do too often these days. While not the most colourful of sunrises smoke from bushfires filled all the valleys around Mt Buller and gave it a beautiful softness and an eerie charm.

Looking up at Mt Buller

Rocky Trail Entertainment Superflow, Mt Buller, Victoria, 2024

Rocky Trail Entertainment Superflow, Mt Buller, Victoria, 2024

Feb

2024

A decade of Cannonball

This year was the 10th anniversary of the Thredbo Cannonball. For us, I think, it was the seventh year shooting the event under the guise of Outer Image. It’s been great to see this event go from strength to strength and has become the premier MTB event in Australia attracting athletes from all across the continent and even from abroad.

It is always a hectic week of work shooting the Cannonball Festival for Gil and me with a solid five days of shooting and doing our best to get the images tagged, edited and uploaded each night after the day’s activities. If we don’t, the stockpile of images tends to grow larger and larger as the week goes on. This year we delivered around 7500 images to the competitors on behalf of Thredbo Mountain Bike.

Below is a selection of images that I took over the week. But the full gallery is over on the Outer Image website.

Thredbo. Cannonball, 2024

Thredbo. Cannonball, 2024

Thredbo. Cannonball, 2024

Thredbo. Cannonball, 2024

Feb

2020

Shimano GP Orange

Back out on track again with Outer Image and kicked the season off with a trip out west to Orange for Rocky Trail Entertainment‘s first round of the Shimano GP

I made a quick stop in the Blue Mountains World Heritage area to see some of the devastation brought on by the recent fires. It was a complete burn-through leaving only tree stumps everywhere. Seeing houses in still standing in amongst all this carnage is a testament to the amazing work of the volunteer bush firefighters. I hope to get back up there shortly for a better look around.

Two locations I like shooting mountain biking are amongst green ferns and in pine forests (sometimes I think I am in the wrong country) When the light is right in the pines then it can be beautiful. Plus as an added bonus pine needles are a lot more comfortable to lay around on than the native scrub usually. Kinross forest is a nice forest and there is a lot more there for me to explore. It’s a shame it’s all due to be lopped this year but that’s what the plantation is for. And I would much rather they chop that than some of the old-growth they talk about chopping.

Swing over to the Outer Image website to see the full gallery. Next up, Thredbo Super Enduro. See you there!!!

Rocky Trail Entertainment's Shimano GP, Orange, 2020

Rocky Trail Entertainment's Shimano GP, Orange, 2020

Rocky Trail Entertainment's Shimano GP, Orange, 2020

Rocky Trail Entertainment's Shimano GP, Orange, 2020

Looking out across the fields to Bathurst

Jan

2020

Airborne

After taking breaks from the camera I like to get out and shoot for a bit before I pick it up again for a job. It doesn’t have to be anything too complex or challenging. It’s so that while I am shooting, operating the camera controls just become second nature again and I don’t have to think about things too much. I think about composition and exposure, aperture and such but not about which dial do I need to turn in which direction to change my settings, it all just flows automatically.

And with my first job locked in for this coming weekend, so it was I took myself to Maroubra yesterday for a day at the beach shooting the Red Bull Airborne. They may have been small waves but they were still getting some airtime in.

I also got to play around with my 500mm lens. It’s not a lens that sees the light of day too much. It can be a little slow to focus and a little too big for the things I normally shoot. Plus you need a lot of light. It’s perfect for surfing, especially when it’s mounted on a cropped sensor

Dec

2019

Cannonball ’19

Another year almost over and once again rounding out the events for us over at Outer Image was the huge Cannonball MTB Festival held at Thredbo each year. I think this is the 3rd year that we have now shot Cannonball for Thredbo MTB and Red Bull Australia. Each year we see the event just keep growing. This year there were around 1000 riders competing in the 5 events over the 4 days, All Mountain, the Flow, Pumptrack Challenge, Whip Wars and the Australian Open Downhill

BTS

For us, this is a big event. It’s not just the 5 days shooting trackside where everyone sees us but it is also the hours of work that goes on behind the scenes in order to get the images out each day to the competitors. We routinely went to bed no earlier than 1am each day (if we were lucky) and arose at 6.30am ready for a quick breakfast and to head back out on the track to do it all again. It’s a long weekend but it’s so much fun.

Below are a few of my favourite images from my weekend rolling in the dust. You can find the full gallery over on the Outer Image website

Sep

2019

SF Round 4: Ourimbah

Last week we shot the Shimano GP on a dusty trail at Ourimbah MTB park but this week, after a week of rain conditions had changed a little bit. After all the rain of the previous week, one might have expected the tracks at Ourimbah MTB park to be a muddy mess unfit for riding but they shed the water very well…….for the most part

Sunday cleared nicely for the next round of the Fox Superflow. Almost 200 riders came out for the event to brave the conditions. But while there was a couple of mud pits on the lower sections the track where water had pooled the further up I went the drier the track got and conditions were pretty tacky. By midday, things were drying nicely and towards the end of the day, I even could see dust peaking through the layer of surface mud. Suffice to stay I stayed around the upper sections so even though I was getting damp lying on the ground (the things we do to get the best angle) I wasn’t getting covered in mud as well from passing riders.

All in all a good day trackside in the sun after the rain. The main issue for the day would be the number of mosquitos that seemed to have hatched in the rains of the last week. Always carry a good repellent or a chameleon.