Getty stock photo shoot

I was fortunate to be included in a stock photo shoot on Easter Sunday 2008 with Getty Images at the bobsled track in Park City, Utah. I wasn't even supposed to be there, but they made a last minute decision to include a separate two man sled crew in the shoot. I spent my first season in Lake Placid doing both bobsled and skeleton, but my bob skills were a bit rusty. I was also a bit cautious as it was the two week anniversary of my appendectomy.



The art director for the shoot, Stephen Schauer, posted an excellent entry ("Operation Snowflake") on Getty's blog that describes just about every aspect of the shoot in some detail. In addition to a good read, there are photos from behind the scenes and also a few from the actual shoot. Ryan McVay was the lead photographer, and he was supported by a great crew who were really down to earth and friendly. Amy Uratsu was in charge of everything else such as catering, logistics, procurement, wardrobe, you name it. The shoot was a great experience, and it was fun to literally be the last person through the finish line for the season. After the shoot, they closed the track down until next winter.

POV video from late February training

Without further ado, I give you POV footage from the GoProCamera Helmet Hero camera. Two of them at the same time actually. These cameras are brilliant, and so is the company! The cameras are durable and produce fantastic quality video. Of course, YouTube compresses it pretty severely, but you can check stills from the original video below (minor jpeg compression).



(Click for the full sized images)
The ice was relatively slow this day, and you can see there is a good bit of snow on the track.


Even with slower ice, I am still moving just shy of 80 mph here and you can clearly see my coach with a video camera.

When using the cameras in the cold, it is critical to use lithium batteries. NiMH batteries lose their mojo rapidly in the cold, and alkaline are even worse. Even with the lithium batteries, I made a point of keeping them as warm as possible right up to the moment I used them because I didn't have the luxury of further ice time for retakes.

Here is a frontal shot of my jury rigged mountings.

I used the bike helmet adapter to mount the rear camera to my saddle, and you can see why the video is crooked. The front camera is actually attached to the flat plastic from the display case, which I covered with my sled covering and bound with a piece of wire for good measure. The track crew does not like to find debris in the track and they are wary of POV cams because they often become expensive debris. I was pleased with how secure the hardware remained after several runs and happily left zero debris in my wake. My deepest sympathies in advance if you are able to knock a Hero camera off of your helmet while biking, because doing so will likely cause great trauma to your head.

Yes, I cover my sled in a yoga mat. One of the great things about these cameras is how easy they are to activate. Even wearing gloves, it took only a few seconds at the line to press the power button and then hit record.



I received these cameras from GoPro back in early December just before leaving for Italy. I was totally excited to put them to use, but I couldn't use them while forerunning for the World Cup. Then I had zero chance in Italy because every run I took was either official training or competition. When I came home, literally every training session took place at night right up to America's Cup. Again, no electronic gear is allowed during cup training or competitions. I left less than two hours after the AC races to fly to Munich and again, we had zero runs outside of those for official training and competition. St Moritz would have been such a cool track to film, so I will have to go back when I am not racing. I found myself already into February without any opportunities to film, and of course our training sessions were once again all at night right up until a few days before our final ice time here in Park City for Western Regionals. I was able to get five runs shot - two on the first day and three on the second. During both attempts on my first day I managed to shove the front camera with my shoulder so that by turn four it was looking down at the ice. I adjusted the frontal camera position for day two and things worked much better.

Even though my noggin gets in the way here and there, I think it turned out pretty good. Maybe it's just in my head, but I was surprised at how the aft camera seemed to convey the speed more than the front. I tried a few different video hosts, but YouTube has recently upped their compression quality level and it seems to be better than either Google Video or Blogger.

Some other videos

Utah Winter Games - Park City - Jan 20 2007
Start
Curve 6

I am not exactly sure who took these, but they did a great job! I will post the info if I find out.

Nick Vienneau - US Skeleton Team Trials - Training Runs - Lake Placid, NY - 2007

This is a copy of a video I put on Google Video comprised of clips from training runs in Lake Placid. Of special intereset is the purple Spyder suit I use for training...