What’s going on

A large highlining project recently took place in the Blue Mountains near Sydney. It was an attempt to set and walk Australia’s longest and highest highline. The line came in at around 70m long and at its highest point was about 220m high.  As is normal for the Blue Mountains the line took place in spectacular surroundings.

By the end of the weekend the line was walked but not all in one go so unfortunately the line remains classed as unfinished. I’m sure another attempt will be made on it soon and hopefully then we will see some closure.

Below is a selection of images from the weekend.

A damp weekend greeted riders for last weekend’s Rollercoaster and Downhill State Championships at Thredbo. With the mountain bike season drawing to a close for the winter down at Thredbo the decision was made to run the races in the rain anyway. Including the training runs on the Friday the event runs over three consecutive days. Gil and I arrived early on Saturday morning and missed what was proclaimed as a very wet and soggy training session on Friday. Many bike were still hosting a fine decoration of mud though come Saturday morning.

On Saturday the training runs for both the Rollercoaster and the Downhill continued through the morning. The first section of the Rollercoaster track needed to be closed due to an excess of mud and water, it was ankle deep in places. In the afternoon the Rollercoaster got underway. By then the rain had eased a bit.  We started shooting at the top then made our way slowly down. Gil covering many of the tight switchbacks on the tracks and me shooting more out in the open. Since we were shooting more for fun we had a good play around with angles and panning shots. Not good if you want to read competitors numbers but fun for us anyways.

After heavy rain overnight all that remained was a couple of low lying clouds which burnt of quickly leaving Sunday to the blue skies. A few training runs in the morning and then straight into the downhill in the afternoon. Both Gil and I shot around the top section of mud and rock gardens. I found myself a great little spot and barely moved for the entire race.

It was the usual dominant faces that took the podiums minus the exceptions that are away for the world cup races at the moment. South Africa was held on the Saturday night while we were down there. 

The full gallery of images can be found here on the OuterImage website.

And now for something completely different (at least for me so far) Fire-twirling and the art thereof. Last night I was invited along to a fire-twirling meet on the Northern Beaches. It is something that has always impressed me so I jumped at the chance. I was both intrigued and beguiled by the display of talent. I approached it as a test shoot as I had very few ideas of how to go about it. When I looked at the internet the images I mostly saw were a blaze of orange on black or faces aglow. I wanted to do something different and to be honest I am not sure I achieved what I set out to do though I did get a couple where I think I scratched the surface.  But as I said. it was a test run to get ideas of angles and settings and of these I got plenty. Next time I will step it up a bit. and look for some new angle.

The Cannonball in Thredbo is a new race on the circuit. Its a weekend event that is held on the flow track and also on the downhill course. I made the trip down there with Gil my colleague from OuterImage though we were not covering it in any official capacity. The night we arrived in the mountains it snowed and everything was covered in a beautiful blanket of white. Instead of hurrying to Thredbo for the race Gil and I took our time moving through the mountains and shooting landscapes while we had this unique chance. Gil stopped for a bit of fly fishing and I used the time to snap off a few frames of him which I shall share with you at a later date.

It was great to be back in the mountains. Riding up and down the lift and taking in all the scenery. And then to combine it all with the chance to shoot such a cool race, bliss!!

I went down to Greenvalleys Freeride Mountain Bike Park last Sunday. The boys had set up a big old gap jump over a creek and were threatening to hit it. Unfortunately by the time I got down to Greenvalleys a change in the weather had moved in bringing strong winds with it making the Creek Gap a dangerous prospect. Instead we walked part of a new downhill track and did some shots on there.  Looking like it is shaping up to be a great track.