Santander Cycles spin-up class at The Shard
One of the fun things about being a commercial photographer is that you never know what you are going to be asked to photograph next! This week I was 300 metres up in the air, in the Viewing Gallery at The Shard in London, the tallest building in the EU.
My brief was to photograph Europe’s highest spinning class at the top of The Shard. An invited group of journalists and bloggers took part in the spin class to launch Santander Cycles’ “Summer of Cycling“. This is a series of events being held across London this summer to get people cycling.
Santander Cycles spin-up class at The Shard – exercise with a view
The event was quite early in the day – I had to be at The Shard at 6.45am to get ready for the shoot, which meant leaving home at 5am! Still, all in a good cause. I have to admire the stamina of the guys and gals who gamely took part in the spin class. Those weren’t lightweight exercise bikes they were actual “Boris bikes” brought all the way up to the top of the Shard and mounted on rollers.
The weather was slightly hazy and the sun was still low, so I used a bit of fill-flash to light up faces from time to time. There wasn’t all that much room to move around in between the ranks of cycles, but we managed!
I always enjoy doing these kinds of commercial shoots because they are unscripted and I have to work hard to get the angles and expressions and details that the client needs. It’s a buzz working at speed in contrast to a more unhurried studio shoot where you have time to fine-tune each image and do lots of retakes.
It was a really fun event and has (almost) inspired me to get my mountain bike out of retirement!
So here’s my selection of images from the shoot – enjoy!
My photos of the event have been featured in the London press and on quite a few blogs and websites:
Many thanks to Santander Cycles and Laura Bradley of Sidhu & Simon for asking me to document such a fun event!