Ode aan Marianne Timmer

Good news update; Marianne missed the Vancouver Olympics but announced that she will extend her skating career another year. Most skating fans already know this, but there you have it. Hopefully (for me) I get another chance at shooting her in action!
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Damn.. Marianne Timmer was ready for her swan song this Olympic year. She trained her ass off all summer and was ready to go out on top. Unfortunately, she fractured her foot in an unlucky fall early on in the racing season. Everyone expected her to retire after this injury, but she fought through it. Amazingly, she recovered enough to fight for a place on the Olympic team but there was not enough time to get herself super fit for the comeback. Vancouver is about the start and she missed her final chance to defend her Olympic title. I followed the comeback. Very sad to see that she did not make it. Happy to see she went down fighting! I have a feeling she is not yet finished with speed skating. Here's one of my favorite photo's we shot together last summer.

Ireen Wüst

Odlo asked me to shoot portraits of TVM Olympic speed-skater Ireen Wüst. She's busy prepping her Olympic year, so we had just a few good hours with her on a Monday morning after a long race weekend. She was gracious enough to work with us as we scrambled through our set-ups. We managed 3 scenes in just under 4 hours. Here's one.

 styling: Philip Deliever | make-up: Dainora Dulcyte | assisting: Levi Verspeek

Sven Kramer

The Sven Kramer 'Brood Daar Zit Wat In' campaign is kicking off. Agency Keesie and Voorlichtingbureau Brood are leading the campaign. Look for the posters and ads around Holland if you happen to be a Dutch reader.

design: Moritz von Graevenitz, Jeroen van As | styling: Philip Deliever | make-up: Anna Speller 

The 'making of' is rough cut movie of the photoshoot. Click on the HD option to watch at the highest quality. We shot @ Angel Studio in Amsterdam. Great place to work.

making of from AG Photography. cameraman: Levi Verspeek

RTL Boulevard (TV) aired a short segment about Sven Kramer and the BROOD campaign. I think they said they liked the poster. All good! Click on the picture to the watch the show:   RTL Boulevard with Sven Kramer

Sven Kramer signs posters at the Euromast National Schoolontbijt Evenement.

AEGON NK Afstanden 2009

I joined the sports photo press pool for a day of hard work at the Dutch Speedskating Nations. Respect for the photographers who do this kind of work day in day out.

Sven Kramer racing the 1500m

 Ireen Wüst getting ready for the 1500 meter

Sven Kramer

Can't say much about the actual shoot as the campaign still needs to launch. I can say something about the man. Amazing presence and so bloody fit. Standing next to him I kept thinking 'damn... I need to work on my posture'. It was good fun to work together. We ended up having to push everyone pretty hard to get the images we needed for the client. I'll post more images from the actual campaign once it goes public.

Photo by Elmer van der Marel

The tiny looking camera in my hands is really not that small. This shoot is going out the door as an 'Abri' or A0 size poster campaign all over the Netherlands. Shot properly the canon 5D MK2 with 50mm 1.2L can handle even these print sizes with ease. 

The 2010 winter Olympics are coming and he has set some big goals for himself. I'll be watching.

DSB BANK SPEED SKATING TEAM

Edit: DSB Bank went under in part due to the credit crisis. Ironic as I mentioned below about the crisis unfolding on the day we did this shoot!

Before you ask, 'where the hell are the speed skates'? I'll answer you. This was cross training photo shoot. The DSB bank team is co-sponsored by Under Armour. We shot three athletes in half a day; Marianne Timmer, Annette Gerritsen, en Mark Tuitert. It was my first time working with speed skaters so we had to feel it out a bit to figure worked. We had the athletes run through their usual training routines in under my big lights.

Design by Moritz von Graevenitz: Speed Skater Mart Tuitert in Action

Gear used for this shoot; Profoto strobes and a Canon 1Ds MK3 with a EF 50 1.2L. This lens holds it's own under big strobes. I love it. Only downside is the slow auto focus which can be a pain in the butt when shooting movement. The athletes came at me for some photos and the slow focus got in the way a few times.

Elmer van de Marel assisted for this shoot. Elmer is a photojournalist. He works for various Amsterdam newpapers. Check out his site. This shoot happened in September as the credit crisis was unfolding. Papers were calling him screaming for images. Once we got things under control he made a run to the Amsterdam version of Wall Street and took some great pictures of stock brokers staring bored and depressed at their computer screens. At least the news paper editors were happy.

Annette Gerritsen in Action.

The key to getting this kind of photography to work is all in the eyes. Athletes know how to move. Most of them have been doing the same moves since they childhood. What they do not do every day is stand in front of a photographer in a big studio with lots of light. Getting the eyes 'working' in takes time, coaching, and a bit of luck. You have to be very aware how far you can push things. In most cases we are not going all out in the training. For one, I don't need it to get the photo and secondly I don't want to hurt anyone! It took Annette (and myself) some time to get it right. When she did, we got some great shots. Mark Tuitert was pretty much a natural from the first photo. Marianne Timmer held her own as well.

Athlete Marianne Timmer flashing her eyes.


design by Mendo - photo curtacy of USG

Here's a Perry Sport storefront window with one of the final designs.