Otherwise known as “The Trials and Tribulations of working in editorial journalism”
It may come as a surprise to you, but not all features are shot the day before a publication goes to print – shocking, I know! Usually a feature is shot weeks or sometimes even months before a press deadline, which in itself is a good few weeks before the publication will hit newstands (obviously I’m talking about the world of print here – the internet moves so much faster). Some features are timeless, and this isn’t a problem – some images can appear anytime in the next year or so and will still be current and thus perfectly valid.
But what happens when you shoot a feature with a high profile athlete (with associated high profile sponsors), and then for various reasons the article and images don’t see the light of day for nearly a year afterwards, during which time said athlete has not only switched out the majority of their sponsors, but started their own bike company?
As you might have guessed, this recently happened to me. Well, I say recently, but the images were actually shot back in June 2018, and have only now made their way into issue 124 of Singletrack Magazine. It was a stunning week of riding and shooting – on the Monday I kicked things off with a shoot for Aussie Grit, then Chipps joined me on Tuesday and we spent an epic afternoon with Dan Atherton at his then yet to be announced Dyfi Bike Park. The light was firing, and Dan is an insanely talented rider who was a joy to shoot – he’d spot a feature, ask what you wanted, and proceed to rip through it, making the most audacious moves look ever so easy and oh so stylish. I came away from the shoot with some of the greatest images I’d taken and was buzzing. I processed the images, sent them off to the team in the office, and then came the wait…
Then, early in 2019, The Athertons announced their departure from Trek Factory Racing, at which point I might have made a slightly panicked phone call to the office, asking if the feature was ever going to make an appearance.
“Don’t worry, it’s in the next issue…”
“But what of the images? The bike? We can’t just go photoshopping the Trek logo out of everything can we.”
“It’s ok, the focus has shifted to the community in Dyfi so the bike isn’t really an issue”
All of which means a couple of killer images that feature Dan’s Trek quite prominently, ended up on the cutting room floor, but that just gives me the perfect excuse to share those with you here, along with a few personal favourites. Enjoy.
