I wouldn’t know what “the third kind” stands for as I never saw the movie but by any means this was a close encounter with this year’s Tour de France. “I vaguely remember lots of shouting and the loud noise of bicycles crashing into the asphalt right as they passed” was the sentence I prepared for this blog upon realizing just how close it was going to be, but I haven’t had to use it. It would have brought me instant world fame as a photographer and I figure that kind of makes it yet another missed opportunity.

I shot yet another event for Ford Motor Company (previous ones shown here and here) and while one could argue Ford’s hotness, people attending were more than impressed by the new models presented and their new EcoBoost engine. All I can say is it’s pretty tough hanging out of a car to shoot another one passing you at around 140 km/h.

Say what you will about French President Nicolas Sarkozy, just don’t criticize his smashing Sarkozettes or you’ll have to deal with me. You’ve already met Rachida Dati, so now I present the beautiful Mrs (alas, fellows) Rama Yade, Secretary of State for Human Rights, with whom I shook hands today. Besides doing an excellent job, I noticed she has remained a very amiable person. Suffice it to say I won’t be washing my hands for a long time (something I obviously haven’t done since April 2007).

Perhaps I should explain what I was doing on a speedboat in Rotterdam: Ford introduced its brand new nifty little Ka to its dealer network and chose me to photograph things again. Same disclaimer: I still drive Volvo; as it’s built on a Ford platform and sports a Peugeot diesel engine I figure I can do all events of most major car manufacturers.

Imagine sitting on a speedboat, racing across the waters of the port of Rotterdam at more than 80 km/h (for the American readers: more than 50 mph), camera in hand, not strapped in, boat jumping up, down, left and right when you hit the waves, terribly hung-over, taking images of another boat. Got the picture? That’s what I call fun. And a “quickie”.

I’m simply rehashing relatively old stuff here (relatively as in: compared to my age) but still thought the image was worth it. I’ve started development of v3.0 of this website which should be ready by the end of this year. Nothing too fancy but I promise you can comment on my blog entries. That is: unless you’ll only comment on me rehashing old stuff.

I love shooting in clubs: merry people, steady beat, kinky lighting and oh so tough to capture. Yesterday the Collège néerlandais was for one night transformed into a hip club with eight Dutch deejays – quite a big export product nowadays – playing from dusk till dawn. I can’t help but wonder what Dudok, its architect, would say about that…

Ingredients: again Disneyland Paris, in this image ‘only’ one Ford Fiesta, one great show and no less than 200 representatives of Ford dealers in the Netherlands. Today the day the new Ford Fiesta was unveiled to them, I was the photographer and this was without a doubt the most professionally organised event I’ve ever witnessed. Disclaimer: I drive Volvo.

Ingredients: a parking lot, Disneyland Paris, no less than 250 new Ford Fiestas, a rising sun and one photographer: me. In short: heaven, from a photographers point of view that is as I’m sure the likes of Volkswagen or Peugeot think otherwise. One of the many images I took is shown above. More to follow soon on this page.

I woke up at 05:30 to attend a private early morning tour of the International Agricultural Show in Paris. This is the main agricultural event of the year with daily visits of ministers and presidential wannabees. No other visitors were allowed in at this time so we could enjoy the preparations for the day while avoiding getting some 739 varieties of shit on our suits. Breakfast of course included steak and red wine: this is France after all.