Finding Authentic Travelers (and underwear models) in Colombia for ExOfficio's Made to Adventure Campaign

Client: ExOfficio - 2012 and 2013 marketing materials: catalogs, print ads, visual merchandising, trade show, web, email, and social media.

*Click here to see sample images and videos from the campaign

When ExOfficio asked me to produce their Made to Adventure 2012 spring/summer marketing campaign in the most authentic destination possible, I just knew I had to make it happen in Colombia. I lived in Colombia in 2009 and have been on assignment there at least once per year since 2008—it's probably my favorite country to photograph.

To extend ExOfficio's branding theme of "authenticity" beyond the destination itself, we decided not to hire models, but rather to use social media and networking along the traveler's trail to find real people on real adventures in Colombia. With two talented assistants, Kathryn Friedman and Willa Kammerer, and my friend and fixer extraordinaire, Hernan Acevedo, we set out a 10-day, 2,000+ mile road trip through the country to track down travelers that fit with ExOfficio's brand ethos in real-time. By the end of the production, we’d photographed 38 different people for the campaign—all of them were on amazing journeys and had incredible stories to tell.

The adventure took us to 14 different shoot locations--4x4-ing over 14,000 foot passes in Los Nevados National Park, walking across barren patches of sand in the Tatacoa desert, drinking Colombian rum in a string of cobbled spanish colonial towns, trekking through a valley with the tallest palm trees in the world, and chilling out on dreamy Caribbean beaches in Tayrona National Park.

The product focus was ExO's spring / summer line (including underwear).  We carried three large duffel bags full of hundreds of clothing samples in the trunk of Hernan's Subaru wagon.  The challenge was not only to look for travelers who matched the look ExO was after, but the talent also had to be the correct size and gender for the samples we were shooting in each geographic zone--eg. sun line in the desert, surf and water on the coast, Bugs Away in the jungle, urban travel in colonial towns, and cool weather and trekking garments in the Andes. It was also always a careful conversation to ask people we'd just met to consider modeling underwear.  But alas, using a mix of careful planning and serendipity as the guide, everything came together perfectly.

Here's a few images of the travelers we found for the campaign:

Mari - Found traveling on a bus through the Andes.  Profession: teacher on the Galapagos Islands. Home: Bay Area

Willa checking out a hand made guitar in Bogota. Home: New York City

Brian: Found in a hostel. His two year motorcycle road trip led to Colombia. Home: California

Audrey: Found on the street in a bohemian beach village.  She's traveled to 46 countries in the past 5 years.

Follow The Good - Short Story and 13 page photo essay: PAVED MAGAZINE

Paved Magazine's winter edition features my 13-page photo essay about India's common man cyclists.  Paved is now available as an iPad / iPhone app for anyone interested in checking out the images + short story about an epiphany brought on by a severe drug overdose, devil monkey twins, and a few words of wisdom from a sari wearing stranger while making 20,000 portraits of Indians on two wheels.

PAVED Magazine Cover - South Australia Aerial Series

Some fresh work from this year's Tour Down Under has hit the newsstands.

Paved Cover

First up, the cover shot and 10-page feature picture story/short essay for Paved Magazine (a new magazine from the makers of Bike, Powder, and Surfer) from my 2012 aerial series.

I've had many inquiries about how this this image was made--here's the lowdown.

This project was inspired after sitting next to National Geographic's aerial specialist George Steinmetz at the The International Photojournalism Festival of Perpignan in 2010.  Ever since, I've been looking for a cycling venue where I could secure a helicopter credential to execute aerial photography over a peloton.  In January of this year, the the opportunity presented itself at the UCI World Tour Event, The Tour Down Under.

Peloton and wheat fields, South Australia

I had just a few minutes per stage directly above the peloton to make the pictures for this assignment.  Each morning, the heli-pilot and I would meet in a ball field across the street from my hotel to review topo-maps of the route.  We picked target locations for the shoot and cross-referenced our take-off duration, flight speed, and the actual start time/average speed of the peloton in attempt to intercept the cyclists over these locations for quick bursts of image making.  The timing needed to be perfect--and a bit lucky.  Air traffic control granted us two to three turns (hovers) over the bunch (1,500 feet) at each intercept point before we had to turn the airspace back over to the TV choppers.  Because each stage was scheduled at mid-day--I needed to work with what I had--harsh sun and the beautifully patterned landscapes of South Australia.

Though I always think that there is room for improvement, in just a few days since publication, these images have become some of the most requested prints and editorial use licenses of any cycling-related photos in my archive.  I think more aerials are in my future.

G

Shooting bursts out of the Bell Ranger

Fall Work with New Clients

It's been a busy Fall season and busy is good in the world of visual storytellers.  With two laps around the world in the past six weeks to amazing destinations like Beijing, Emilia Romagna Italy, New York, Southern Mexico and Olympic National Park--I think that I've become time-zone agnostic.  Some of my images from these assignments are starting to publish in print and online.  Below, I've included some tear sheets from the past weeks.  Enjoy!

Gregg

New Client: Bicycling Magazine - November 11 Issue/The Ride of My Life

New Client: New York Times - October 11/Tour of Beijing

New Client: WIRED Magazine - RAW FILE/Tour de France iPhone

 

 New Client - Cyclesport UK - October Issue/Tour of Beijing Feature

 New Client: La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy - October 11/Beijing Bike Culture Feature

 

VELO Magazine: December 11/Tour of Beijing

 

La Maglia Rosa - Feature Picture Story for September's VELO/VeloNews

September's VELO Magazine (formerly VeloNews) is featuring a picture story I produced about the history of the Giro d'Italia's modern-day pink leader's jersey.  Researching the article took me into the heart and soul of the race with the sport's biggest champions, directors, and business owners--and of course, plenty o' gelato. What a fun gig indeed.

Outside Magazine. India, RadioShack and New Frontiers

The August 2011 issue of Outside Magazine back cover "Parting Shot" is an image I made of Team RadioShack during their warm-up ride for the Tour de Nasik cyclothon in India.  I'm fascinated by pro-cycling's recent push to expand into new global frontiers and am equally glad that mainstream, non-cycling magazines are willing to publish pictures of the trend.  

A Car-Free Tour de Suisse Experiment

For more photos see the VeloNews Tour de Suisse Web Galleries: Lugano Prologue and Car-Free Gallery

Last summer (while in Switzerland researching trips for the VeloNews Ultimate Ride Guide) I discovered the Swiss National Bike Network and its nine cross-country road bike routes with 82 local and regional trails covering 9,000 kilometers.  I also learned that for an extra $10 (above and beyond my train ticket), SwissRail allows travelers to toss a bike onto any Swiss train.  Wonder-twin-power-activate this rail and trail system, sprinkle some heart-thumping terrain on top, and you get a veritable Disneyworld for DIY cycling junkies.

This summer, with 1-month remaining on my annual 50% off Swiss train pass, $7+ per gallon gas prices, and an assignment to photograph several Tour de Suisse stages, I wanted to see how far I could push the Swiss transportation infrastructure.  Would it be possible to shoot the race using only trains and a bicycle?; i.e. no cars or motos.  To find out, I put this “carbon-free as possible” Tour de Suisse experiment in-motion after the stage 1 prologue in Lugano, where I aimed my bars north to Zurich and fully embraced my roots as a steel frame riding, wool sock wearing, earthy-crunchy Pacific Northwestern cycling photographer.

Rather than follow the race from point to point, I based myself in a small village near Zurich with easy access to a train station and feeder lanes to the Swiss National Bike Network.  From this hub, I could hop a train or pedal to the beginning of stages and either hang at the start or spin ahead on the Tour de Suisse race route until I found a scenic spot to shoot the passing peloton.  Next, I would catch a train to the finish or ride a National Bike Network trail back to Zurich. 

In 2010, I somehow overlooked the fact that Switzerland has no open container laws but took full advantage of Heidiland’s public beer drinking tolerance this year by rewarding myself at the end of each day’s photo-shoot with one or more Swiss brewskies.  Prime swilling locations included the grassy slope of stage 7’s 2383 meter Fluelapass and every time I used the rails to get back to my crash pad near Zurich.  In total, I managed 386 kms of cycling with 4630 meters of climbing to cover 4 stages—a far cry from what the racers hammered but much more fun than sitting in a car.

I was never alone on the trains or trails and met meet hundreds of cyclists who were also using this rail/bike combo to follow the race.  South Africans, Germans, Italians, and Swiss, by the end of the race I’d made two-wheeled friends from all over the globe.  It’s truly been a “pinch me this ain’t real” experiment. 

Here's some photography from my car-free 2011 Tour de Swiss gig:


2011 Tour de Suisse - Images by Gregg Bleakney 

Outside Magazine Pacific Coast Cycling Spread

It's nice to see mainstream mags. (i.e., beyond-niche cycling publications) pimpin' travel bike trips and destinations to their readers--so kudos to Outside for featuring this image.

This shot was made two years ago with fellow vagabundos gMack, Hall-Pass Ben, and Sir Scotty M. in the Quinault rainforest, an alternative route option for the popular Pacific Coast Cycling Trail that loops around Olympic National Park and/or the Hood Canal to Astoria, Oregon.  We landed an assignment to test cycling-specific rain gear and decided that it would be appropriate to do the testing in the rainiest place in the Lower 48 at the rainiest time of year.  As luck would have it, nary a rain drop glazed the tarmac during our 4-day shoot and I had to get creative to make it look wet when it was actually sunny and uncharacteristically super-fab November weather.

Regarding the swag test results...for me, bike travel ain't about the gear, it's about traveling differently and experiencing landscapes and people in a more intimate way than possible with a car or plane...but if you just have to know, the article on the topic by Sir Scotty M. is here.

Ditch Logic - A Podcast from the Dirtbag Diaries

 

Listen to the Podcast on Patagonia's Cleanest Line

I had a great time working on this podcast about how my two year "out in the world" bicycle trip changed my life.  I think that Fitz and Becca did a great job of keeping my thoughts in line--heck, they even got my big bro to speak without mumbling!  This, more than anything I could write in a portfolio bio section, explains my path to photojournalism.

G

Tour de India -- Road Magazine Photo-Essay

Made In Italy - Feature Story for AC Magazine

This month, Adventure Cyclist Magazine is running my semi long-form feature on the Price family bicycle touring company, ExPlus.  Most of my work for Adventure Cyclist to-date has been focused on my personal travels. Since 2010 my photographic projects have grown to include feature writing and I've found that first person format limiting (and overdone quite frankly--I bore myself sometimes).  Initially this piece was slated to run as a fairly standard travel narrative about cycling across Sardinia but I change my mind after meeting the company founder, Rick Price.  I found Rick's story of ditching a small town on the Oregon coast to pursue true love and a life of travel in Italy fascinating and decided to trash my first proposal to focus on his journey instead of my own.  Fortunately, the editors of AC were cool with this (at least as far as I know).  When I first dropped this "change of subject" think on Rick he responded, "that sounds like a bad idea...I'm not very interesting."

I disagree:)

Cover Shot and 45-Page Feature Story - What I Did Last Summer

Last May, my 11-day assignment to Sardinia accidentally turned into a dreamy four months of scouting Europe for the best routes, trip operators, hotels, and people in-the-know for VeloNews' 2011 Ultimate Ride Guide.  The issue hit the newsstands this week.

For my part, I produced articles on Italy, Switzerland, France, and Spain--45 magazine pages of reviews, short stories, and interviews in total.  I also created a photographic package and podcast for the feature(s).  I'm entirely grateful to the editors of VeloNews, who gave me tons of creative freedom and the authority to stay away from the top-10 list format (usually researched by a cubicle googler who's never done any of the stuff they are recommending) that has become so common in today's toddler attention span, search engine results driven publishing world.  In short, they let me keep it real.

Life's a boomerang.  My former career in software started at the University of Oregon where I founded a digital publishing company called WhereNext.com with a group of college buddies.  We focused on, of all things--travel guides to Europe.  I remember starting that company with dreams of stomping the streets of Europe ala Rick Steves--tracking down fresh new destinations and activities for young, independent travelers.  However, WhereNext quickly scaled to include a full staff of talented writers and as the President,  I assumed the role of working the upper floors of towering office buildings in Seattle, Angel investor meetings in Portland, and unassuming cafes in Silicon Valley to raise multiple rounds of VC funding to finance our growth.  So it was odd, though entirely fulfilling, to find myself doing what I originally set out to do after college--but with a 13 year detour.

A few pages from the article:

New Client - British Airways Magazine

En route to India a few weeks ago I had a nice surprise when I noticed the passenger sitting next to me flipping through a Twilight feature I worked on for British Air's in-flight magazine, High Life.  I forgot the photo-spread was out this month.  Later, I had a "pat myself on the back" moment when that same passenger asked me what I did for a living and I simply pointed to the image in the magazine he was reading (and the diminutive dude in the bottom corner of the image--tripod self-portrait). But before I could let my ego get carried away with itself--I was quickly reminded of my bottom of the rung coach class status by the olfactory splendor of a freshly reeking bathroom--which was conveniently located just behind my right shoulder in the triple-7's back row--which in retrospect, was a proper warm-up for the streets of India.

Quinault Rain Forest - British Airways High Life Magazine, February - 2011

Some E-Pubilished Work w/ Patagonia, British Air, and Cycling News

Three online publications are circulating some of my fresh images this quarter.  Two of them are new clients: British Airways and Cycling News. British Air pulled one of my shots of an ancient Maple Tree from Olympic National Park for a Twilight feature on their homepage, CyclingNews is using a gallery of shots of Team RadioShack and Liquigas @ the Tour of Mumbai II, and Patagonia Clothing Company is rotating an image of single-speeding through the Thar desert in Eastern India during my "India on Two Wheels" project. 

Secret Maple Tree in the Quinault, Olympic National Park

My $50 Indian-made fixie at a pit stop in the Thar desert.

RadioShack and Liquigas image gallery on the world's largest cycling web-site