Nick Sanders - 'The Incredible Ride' Mini Review

NIck Sanders with his DVD and book at Motorcycle Live

If you are into motorbikes and like an adventure or two then surely you have heard of Nick Sanders.

If you haven’t heard of him you must have been hiding under a stone for most of your life, maybe one of the stones Nick describes in his new book and DVD ‘The Incredible Ride’

The Incredible Ride is about Nicks record attempt of the first double-transit of the length of the Americas on board his Yamaha XT1200Z Super Tenere an amazing 14,650 miles from Alaska to Argentina then back again alone!

The book and DVD complement each other perfectly to tell the story of this amazing journey with the book interspersed with over 100 fantastic pictures of his sleep deprived journey.

Unlike other stories of this genre, Nicks DVD and book are low key but fascinating like being told the story by your favourite uncle rather than a blockbuster, big budget title but this approach is very refreshing and made me unable to put the book down.

He has endured extreme temperatures, gunmen, bandits, ice sheets  and very little sleep all within a record breaking time of 45 days and 23 hours.

And most importantly he got to meet WING NUT!

But instead of reading this mini review go online and buy them from

http://www.nicksanders.com/2011/incredible_ride.html

Another great shoot with Emma Cops

Last weekend it was time to have another trip up to Bristol to meet up with Simon Pow and take the gorgeous Emma Cops along for more shoots.

Saturday was a charity car shoot that Si had planned previously and Emma provided that extra touch of glamour to proceedings, lots of expensive cars and Emma what is there not to like.

Then as the sun was setting, simon made use of a field opposite where the car shoot was help to get some fantastic shots of Emma who was freezing cold and tired but as professional as ever and you would never know it was the middle of October in a cold field!

Check out Simons site HERE

After too many drinks around Simons house and a very late night (early morning) it was my turn to do some pictures with the help of Simons portable lighting.

Yet again Emma was very obliging and we got some great fifties style shoots on another glorious sunny day.

Here is an example

A massive thank you to Simon and Emma and of course Simons othe half Helen for a great weekend and great hospitality.

You can see all of the pictures on my website


WWW.DARRENSKIDMOREPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Wow what a weekend!

I am normally the slob type and happy to get up at lunchtime at the weekend.

This weekend just gone certainly wasn't the case!

Friday: Day booked off work to cover the Northampton Balloon Festival. Up at 5.30am and out by 6am to get the first balloon launch of the weekend, got some nice pics of them taking off on a pleasent morning luckily from just outside my house.
Spot of breakfast and off over to the actual balloon festival itself which wasn't really busy as it was still a weekday but still plenty going on to photograph. Quick sneaky pint mid afternoon then ready for the main evening launch then back home to do my normal weekend of being a slob!

Saturday: Up again at 5.30am with the plan to head back to the Ballon Festival to get pics of the balloons taking off from the actual festival site. Looked outside, saw the weather wasn't looking too great and didn't expect any balloons to be going up so just laid in bed only to hear, 20 minutes later, the noise of balloons burners as they drifted past. Oh well theres always tomorrow.
Cup of tea and jump in the car to go to do a studio shoot with the lovely Amy Green who was an absolute pleasure to work with and we had some good fun, she even told me I was hot! Unfortunately she meant the overweight, unfit, sweaty kind of hot!!! Pictures up on my website soon, of Amy you will be pleased to know.
After the shoot it was straight home, bite to eat, then back over to the ballon festival ready for the evening launch and night time balloon glow. Then back home for about 10pm to try and catch up on a bit of slobbyness before bed.

Sunday: Up yet again at 5.30am, weather was poor, didn't expect balloons to be going up, snooze, hear balloons flying by. D'oh
Cup of tea, jump in car (bit of repetition going on here, don't you think) and off to V Festival at Weston Park as I was very fortunate to get a press pass for it.
What a fantastic day! Hanging around in the VIP area until an act came on then escorted to the pit area to take pictures, then back to the VIP area until the next act.
Lots of dashing to and from different stages but worth every minute and the media crew were absolutely fantastic.
Managed to photograph loads of acts and had an awesome day.

Sunday, 11:30pm: Arrive home, copy pics from memory cards to computer then collapse onto bed.

Getting up at 7.00am for work on Monday morning felt like a lie in. Waking up on Tuesday at 8am when I am meant to be in the office for 8am, not so good

But I wouldn't have changed anything about the weekend at all.

But this weekend the plan is to go back to my normal 'Slob' routine.

Pics of Amy will be up soon

Pics of V Festival can be found at:

http://www.darrenskidmorephotography.com/vfest

New Event at Santa Pod - Dragstalgia

On Saturday I went to the new event for 2001, Dragstalgia at Santa Pod.

Unfortunately it was p**sing down when I arrived and I spent all morning in the media center with the odd venture out for a few pics around the showground.

But come about 3pm the rainclouds were replaced with blue sky and the track was dry enough for the cars to start running and it was a great sight to see all the old style dragsters running down the quarter mile strip.

As well as the time trials though we were also provided with the always great spectacle of a memorial flypast by a spitfire which suddenly appeared over the track and made several passes.

Then with the sun slowly setting it was time for the cacklefest. This is where dragsters were lined up down the middle of the track and revved for all they were worth popping and 'cackling' away.

Then came the highlight of the show, the Flaming Burnout!

Due to health and safety madness this is a very rare sight and certainly something I haven't seen before.

It is very simple - The burnout box or 'bleach box' which is the area before the start line where racers perform a burnout to warm and clean their tyres, is doused with petrol and also the tyres of the car and evrything is ignited! The driver then performs a burnout which produces a spectacular sight.

This picture explains it much better than any words can

Although I only stayed for one pint (driving) the night was ended with Rockabilly bands and a burlesque show which went on until 2am.

I will definitely be going to Dragstalgia 2012

Many more pictures on my website http://www.darrenskidmorephotography.com/dragstalgia

New Toys

This month my bank account was looking pretty healthy (surprisingly) so I decided to buy a new toy

The Yongnuo Yn-560 is a great manual flash for the money, its almost identical to the Canon Speedlite 580 EX II but at a fraction of the cost, I am very tempted to buy another.

But wait now I have that flash as well as my 580 EX II and Nikon SB 28 I now dont have enough receivers! (Reaches for debit card again!)

So I am also now the owner of a set of 4 Yongnuo RF-603 Transceivers

Being transceivers rather than seperate triggers and receivers is very handy because if something goes wrong with one of them I just use another as the trigger. They are autosensing so as soon as I put one on a flash and the other on a camera, a quick press of the test button lets them talk to each other and assign the camera one as the trigger and the other(s) as receivers. Range is over 225 meters outdoors which is as far as you could want in most situations.

I will be expecting a Christmas card from Yongnuo this year!

Now I am off to play with my new toys.

Off to Mod Nats!

Time to get the camera gear ready for a weekend at what is now one of the biggest modified car shows of the season Modified Nationals

Its always good to catch up with friends and have a beer or two (or three)

Hope to see you there

A couple of pretty busy weekends and met a few celebrities

I know I know I am crap at updating this blog, so I'm sorry, OK? Happy now?

Anyway hope everybosy had a good Easter and enjoyed the extra bank holiday, cheers Will and Kate. Harry pull your finger out so we can have another one soon!

I was fairly busy over the Easter weekend and this last weekend covering Easter Thunderball at Santa Pod and Truckfest at the East of England Showground

Both weekends provided the opportunity to get some up close pics of the following celebrities

Lucy Pargeter - Chastity Dingle from Emmerdale
Gemma Merna - Carmel Valentine from Hollyoaks
Martin 'Wolfie' Adams - World darts champ
Alex Deborski from Ice Road Truckers
Naughty Norman and Fireman Sam!!!!
Lacey Turner - Stacey Slater from Eastenders
Special mention has to go to Samantha Womack (née Janus) - Ronnie Mitchell from Eastenders who I absolutely fancied the pants off when she was in Game On and she still looks might fine now!

You can see the pics on my website http://www.darrenskidmorephotography.com/ under the Events section

But here is one of the lovely Samantha :)

Catch up with you all soon