I’m back in the studio after a trip to Hawaii with Julie. On our trip, we swam in the ocean, trained on the bike, ate very fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, made photos and paintings and shared daily stories with friends at sunset.

One of the stories we told on the beach was when Julie and I took a snorkel trip with our friend Sarah, her sister, Carrie and her husband Jim, on the Kohala Divers boat.

We were finishing up at the first dive spot. Julie and I were still in the water making our way to the boat’s ladder, when someone spotted a whale near by. A few of the chilled divers jumped back in the water to try to see the whale up close. After a futile search, everyone but Julie and I got back in the boat. We were about to do the same when Sarah whistled loudly getting my attention. I looked back at the boat and she pointed over our heads to the south and yelled, “Right there!”. The whale had turned around and was heading straight for us. I yelled, “It’s coming right at us!” and started the GoPro, checked to see the red indicator light on the back and watched for the whale. Julie was just behind me on my right. I kicked a flipper once more, right in her face. Slowly, from out of the blue, came one shadow, then two, heading our way. Julie was squealing through her snorkel. The first whale went under me by about 10 feet. I’m thinking that it could easily launch me with its huge tail, so be it. It took about four seconds to go by, showing just how large it was.

The second Humpback started to cross over the other and seemed to be heading to the surface, where I was floating. it looked at me and changed its course, veering slightly to my left. A baby whale was hidden on the shoreline side of the female. As they moved past us, I could feel the wake of these great creatures. The group moved beyond the bow of the boat, where many of our mates had jumped back in. Julie and I could not believe we just saw three Humpback whales swim a matter of a few feet away from us. We got back to the boat in near hysterics where we were congratulated by the crew and our friends. This was a very rare experience. I tried to not be too excited in front our boat mates, because I knew they wished it was them. Woohoo!!! We swam with whales!!!

Watch the video clip of Julie and I with the whale on my Bob Huff Photo FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bob-Huff-Photo/353270141541

Aloha

Bob

I realized that I have not updated the blog in a year, and that was a look back. Well, things have been happening; Interbike, BRAIN Dealer Tours, photo shoots, art shows, a printmaking workshop in Italy, bike rides, races and more. Being in the moment, having FB and Instagram, gets in the way of working on blog writing. I will try harder.

Cheers,
Bob

Four of us went to the Classics.

Here is the photo gallery from that trip:
http://bobhuffphoto.com/Classics_2012_Gallery/

We watched the Tour of Flanders on the Patterburg, three kilometers from where we park the RV. The Patterburg climb was an awesome venue to see the race, panoramic views of the course, plenty of food and beer tents and good people.

There is great riding between Gent and Oudenaarde. The Ronde Museum in Oudenaarde is a must see. Refuel in the cafe.
http://www.oudenaarde.be/en/visitors/what-todo/Cycling/Tour_of_Flanders_Centre/index.html

For Paris/Roubaix, we camped near Cysoing in the heart of pays du nord. There were pavé sectors every where, and if you ride the day before the race, the course is marked and you may ride with pros. The Forest of Arenberg is the most impressive place to ride a bike.
We watched the race in the bar in the sports complex that house the Roubaix Velodrome and when the riders were getting close, we went into the Velodrome to see the finish. Spectacular!

That was an amazing trip.
Cheers,
Huffy

Tomorrow afternoon, I will be on a flight to Amsterdam with three of my friends. We are going to the spring classics of Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix. This will be an “epic” adventure for sure. Four guys in an RV, PU. Four bikes, two Classic races and hundreds of Belgian beers to taste.

Follow our journey, I’ll post as often as possible.
Cheers,
Huffy

I had the opportunity to photograph my friend and fellow cyclist, Mark Reber. Mark is off to Italy soon, to ride the L’Eroica, 203 kilometers of classic strada bianca roads in Tuscany. Since the ride is about celebrating the glory of classic italian cycling, I wanted to approach the shoot as if it were shot back in the day, shooting with the Hasselblad and the 4×5 view camera. The old Poloriad failed for proofing so the light meter and digital SLR with a 50mm would do fine.

Yesterday, I ran the 2,1/4 rolls and the 4×5 test sheets. It was fun to be in the darkroom and the film came out very good. My many years of film proccesing came rushing back with the smell of the chemistry.

Here is the link to the digital gallery: http://bobhuffphoto.com/L’Eroica_Reber/
I will post the scanned film images soon.

Enjoy!
Bob

I had the pleasure of riding with the new owner of a Rapha Continental and one of the builders (Ira Ryan). Seeing the bike in action after shooting it in studio for http://www.rapha.cc/bicycle/, confirms my take on it. It’s one fine machine for all around hard riding.

Shooting on rides with the iPhone is a blast! The effects of motion adds a fun twist in the images.

Huffy

I published a book from last year’s Tour de France and here is the link to the pdf. Enjoy!

http://bobhuffphoto.com/TDF2010.pdf

Huffy

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So, I made a last minute decision to go to Austin Texas for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.  I wanted to see my friends in the business and make some new connections. It was a good decision. I had awesome time hanging with the Chris King family, the Rapha team, The Vanilla Workshop boys, Ira, Tony and Ben. I also met super cool and talented people in the industry. The host city of Austin and folks at Mellow Johnny’s were very arm and welcoming.

The show brings together exhibitors and fans, often they are one in the same so, there was a lot of love going around the show. There is competion to make it interesting with judges, winners and I guess, losers.

The community at the show is so supportive of one another. The suport comes in sharing of info, vendors and evan physical labor. Most of the attendees come to the show to see their friends, showing their wares is “almost” secondary. Many exhibitors I spoke with, are torn about the time energy and expense it takes to attend NAHBS but really enjoy attending. They hope to get some return on the investment in the weeks after the show in the form of orders and deposits.

The craftsmanship is amazing! The hall was full of talented people who love what they do. The exhibitors bring their finest bikes or bike related  goods. Some exhibitors bring their customers’ bikes. the new owners have to wait till the show is over to receive their bikes. The builder has timed the creation of their latest cycle to satisfy their customer and be a “show bike”. These bikes are handled with great care and are exquisite. It is very cool when the bike can be handed off at shows end, like I witnessed when Ira Ryan passed his awesome road bike over to Matt, the new owner. A beautiful thing… The prizes for craftsmanship are given out at the end of day Sunday and everyone is physiqued for the winners.

The show is a heck of a lot of work. The exhibitors set up a meaningful booth in a few hours. Grab some food and head to the events of the evening/night. Get up early and chat with anyone and everyone all day. Eat. Attend the events that evenings events.  Repeat two more times. Then, it’s break down time. These people work hard. Since they are mostly sole-proprietors, they want to do the packing-out work themselves and this gets very interesting. The hall has a crew that are hired to do move crates, but the show folks just want to take care of it themselves and also, want avoid any added fees. The hall does what it can to help and the exhibitors appreciate it, but there is a fine line they walk where the rules of needs and wants, free and fee. All in all, they seam to get the work done without too much animosity, from what I observed.

I really enjoyed the show and plan to attend next years rendition in Sacramento. Please check out the NAHBS website for more info on the 2011 and 2012 shows. http://www.2011.handmadebicycleshow.com/

See you soon.

Huffy

Sometime after finalizing Hawaii plans with Julie, I saw a posting about the North American Handmade Bike Show in Austin. It seamed so far away and having been away for weeks, I thought, “NAH”. But after returning from the Big Island, I felt the need to see my Bike Geek People and make some new contacts. Besides, I’ve really wanted to visit Austin and LiveStrong. Then there are our friends that recently moved there. Unfortunately, Julie is really busy and will not be going. She wont miss the constant, “bike, bike, camera, camera.” anyway.

So, I decided last night to make the arrangements, with help from Julie and friends, I pick up Tony Pereira at 4:30 am.

Time for dinner and packing.

Ciao,

Huffy

This last weekend, I was not feeling up for cyclocross racing but I did want to see my friends and watch the suffering. I took the opportunity to shoot some images of the action. With the” little things” art show coming up, it would be good to get some film images that could possibly work out an idea of putting CX racing photos on wood rounds. My favorite film stock is and has been for years, Kodak, Tri-X and I usually have a roll or two around. There was one in the x-ray bag, so, off to the races.

HFV was out in force, minus a few regulars. Good to see friends and share in some Ninkasi under the awesome new team tents.

The B’s and Single-speed’s were on course and I started shooting right away. Before long, the reality of a finite image bank was obvious. A roll of 36 exposures goes fast. Frame #32 already? I took plenty of muddy action shots, now I have to plan for wanted shots; a detail, portrait and water. Shooting with the iPhone till I see the shot, making my way around the course finishing up with a glorious mud puddle shot of Eric T.

The film was run at Citizens with high rez scans. I think there is some good stuff for the wood rounds and the scans with a little work, make for some pretty fun digital shots.

Enjoy!

Huffy