~ Marc Bowit’s not about capturing what everyone else saw, it’s about creating what no-one else could see
After a lot of hard work, leaning on contacts, bizarre lucky breaks and almost too much persistence, I’ve found myself on the longest assignment of my career. Over the next 10 months from November 2011 to July 2012 I will be traveling with the Volvo Ocean Race, around the world, following the worlds fastest yachts during their race around the globe. I feel like the dog who’s always chasing cars, except this time he caught it.
Shoots dont come much crazier than this. The idea, find the longest tar road in the world & conquer it with the smallest, most unlikely of cars. The road down under covers not only the width, but also breadth of a continent, 7000 km, west to east, south to north across Australia. And this in one of the smallest cars you get, the Suzuki Swift. Journalist Waldo van der Waal and I spent every daylight hour there was, and then some, jammed into the surprisingly comfortable car as we travelled for six days from Perth to Cairns. The only time the Swift felt small was in the shadows of the sixty five meter road trains…
Radio stations phones were ringing off the hook in Cape Town when Red Bull’s F1 car fired up at 5am on the slopes of Table Mountain. Red Bull were looking for shots of their car in iconic Cape Town locations and word of me got to them. Check out the pics in the Cars gallery.
3 months after the volcano Eyjafjallajokull crippled Europe I travelled to Iceland with Toyota to shoot their Arctic Truck. The scale of the geological destruction by the volcano was incomprehensible, would have loved to have seen her during the eruption. Iceland is still being created and judging by the geysers, glaciers, volcanos and icebergs still rumbling it’ll probably look different when I go back there one day. Definitely my top destination.
Returning to home life in Cape Town after 6 weeks on the road has been great. Just being able to cook in your own kitchen is a novelty. The boats have sailed into Cape Town and it was business as usual. Alicante to SA was a boat breaker, toughest on record, three of the six boats retiring from the leg. Selfishly it made for great stories and opened a few doors of opportunity. But working on The Volvo in your home port where normal life pulls on your sleeves of responsibility has been hard, and as nice as it is to be home it’ll be easier once the race gets on the water and we all head off again. The boats head for Abu Dhabi next, should be there just in time for the New Year.
6 weeks have passed since arriving in Alicante Spain, the home town of the Volvo Ocean Race, and looking at the tiny bruises on my forearms I’m reminded how good it’s been. Each day I walked into the ultra modern HQ of this world famous race I pinched myself fearing this was just the best dream of life. Leaving the family for so long was hard, but the distractions made the time bolt. For a sailor, photographer, cameraman, producer it can’t get better than this. Tomorrow the race starts just outside our “home” in Alicante, and the six boats will head for my real home, Cape Town. It’ll probably be strange having the race in such familiar surroundings, but before that happens being home for 4 weeks is going to be great.
KIA South Africa took our car show to Portugal at the end of August to play with their brand new Rio. Couldn’t resist trekking the KIA “Rio” across the Tagus River to the statue of Christ, inspired by the real Rio’s statue of christ.
Much of August was spent doing stills and video for the launch of Suzuki’s first foray into the medium sedan segment, the Kizashi. Multiple cold fronts and pouring rain made for an interesting and stressful shoot, but as Captain Haddock says, “All’s well that ends well” click for video
