Behind the Lens – Premier Version

When we commission photographers to produce the images to use in our magazine features we typically expect to receive anything up to 50 images from them. This large selection then gets filtered down to a final collection of maybe 12 or so to be laid out in the feature alongside the text. This is a process done in house and away from the eyes of the person behind the lens. The selection criteria is guided by the text, which may or may not be also produced by the photographer, and often the physical constraints of the design and the number of pages assigned to the feature. The end result is often a situation where the photographer will be convinced we’ve laid out the wrong images at the wrong size – it is the lot of the humble freelancer that their art is often ignored and those dreadful people driving the desks never pick the best images.

Well, we thought we’d put that injustice right by allowing the photographers themselves to pick out their top 20 images some of out published features and tell us a bit about each image to boot. Here, we asked Nathan Hughes to pick the correct 20 images from our Return of the Goat King article from Singletrack Issue 103.

About The Photographer

Nathan Hughes
Age: 28
Hometown: Oxford, UK
Current home: Dresden, Germany
Hobbies: Skiing, biking & photos

Instagram: @nathhhughesphoto
Website: nathhhughes.tumblr

As a downhill fan since ’99 my career in mountain bike photography was late to kick in, beginning with a baptism of fire at the 2013 World Cup season. My first job was to report on the racing at Fort William for Pinkbike… I didn’t shoot raw, I couldn’t use Lightroom and I didn’t sleep for more than 2 hours over the 4 days. I think they really wanted me just as a writer; they had enough photographers, but I did my best to ignore that and keep taking pictures anyway even though I was asleep on my feet. Since then I’ve managed to get on top of things slightly, although the World Cup can still take years off a person’s life! Nowadays each season I try to organize one or two travel stories to far away places, cover all the DH racing, get to Crankworx, shoot the Rampage, visit a couple of industry HQs and make a few stories in some of Europe’s big bike resorts in between. A main resolution for me this year is to ride more; partly to enjoy being alive, partly to get deeper into the adventure and find better stories to tell! When there’s a lift or shuttle, I ride a Trek Session 8, a Slash 9.8 when it’s flat or for photo missions and since I met Timo Pritzel on the Saalbach shoot, his signature Propain hardtail for the pump track. Can’t wait to get them all very dirty again once the snow’s gone!

Singletrack Return of the Goat King Extra – By Nathan Hughes

Great Expectations

I first met old time Bavarian BMX star, turned MTB pro, Tibor Simai at his home from home of Saalbach, Austria in Autumn 2014. We made a shoot which could be described as ‘rare’… The reason being that just about everything went totally great. Unbelievably. Yes it’s pretty true that behind your average double page spread in a given bike magazine is a backstory of considerable inconvenience, inadequate solar illumination, navigation fails, sponsor incorrect ‘somethings’, palpable stress and in some extreme cases, shouting at a level well above mere compensation for the howling wind. Thankfully the camera does lie after all and we photographers get away with making everyone who wasn’t present on said trip, very inspired, green-eyed or both. Anyway, the point is the year before things had gone swimmingly in a very short window of opportunity. We made it to the perfect spot for a killer sunset, the next morning nailed an early bird with an incredible sunrise and finished that afternoon, finding some great features to shoot the remaining action… all the while getting on famously and genuinely enjoying our bike riding. Now Autumn 2015 and the shots were cropping up on all the billboards and bike shops in town along with a new problem – that of ‘great expectations’. We had to do it all again, only all ‘different’ and worse still… ‘better’. Here goes nothing…

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Click the images for a larger version

Hannah Dobson

Managing Editor

I came to Singletrack having decided there must be more to life than meetings. I like all bikes, but especially unusual ones. More than bikes, I like what bikes do. I think that they link people and places; that cycling creates a connection between us and our environment; bikes create communities; deliver freedom; bring joy; and improve fitness. They're environmentally friendly and create friendly environments. I try to write about all these things in the hope that others might discover the joy of bikes too.

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