Something a little different this month.
Back in 2012, I’d just finished my degree in photojournalism and the London Olympics were around the corner. At university, everyone else on my course wanted to cover politics and wars. All I wanted to do was photograph sport.
My best mate from uni had a contact at Garmin and landed a gig shooting the 2012 Tour de France. There was no way I was missing out, so I offered to help as a driver and second photographer, on one condition: he also got me accredited to photograph the Tour.
Bradley Wiggins was leading Team Sky, with Mark Cavendish as their sprinter, and it felt like British cycling was on the verge of something massive.
We made it to France in my 2006 Renault Clio and managed to blag me a driver’s accreditation. Our car was accredited too, meaning we could drive on closed roads to get ahead of the race and capture the riders. The plan involved a map of France, a breakdown of each stage and a Garmin sat nav that was pretty useless with all the road closures.
We soon realised there was a pecking order among the photographers. The best spots went to the big agencies, and for everyone else, getting a good position meant getting there first and having big elbows.
By the final stage, Bradley was in yellow and Mark had already won three stages. We knew there was a chance he could make it four on the Champs-Élysées, with Bradley leading him out for the sprint.
With our low-level accreditation, we decided the best chance of getting the shot was to sack off the rest of the stage and get to the finish line first thing in the morning. We arrived before anyone else, even security.
Then we waited. Eight hours, one small bottle of water and absolutely no sun cream. We were 22 and hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Finally, the Tour arrived on the Champs-Élysées. Seven laps later, I could see Bradley leading Mark around the final corner. Everything came together. Mark won the stage, his fourth of the Tour, while Bradley became the first British man to win the Tour de France.
The image of Mark means a lot to me. It was the first time I really made my own luck. I had an idea of what I wanted to capture and put myself in the right place to make it happen.
Those images helped me land a job as a photographer at a wire agency called Sport Pix, which eventually led me to where I am today.
Fast-forward 14 years, and I had the chance to spend a whole day shooting a campaign with Mark for Speediance. During a break, I told him this story, including the bit about spending eight hours in the sun with no sun cream. We instantly had a laugh and something to talk about, and the rest of the shoot was seamless.
Fourteen years ago, I was driving around France trying to work out where to stand to photograph Mark. This time around, I got to spend the day with a British cycling legend, with him looking to me for direction.
