After Sophies.model had a great photo shoot the previous day in Novi Sad, it was time to try and repeat the success we had with a shoot in the Belgrade Arena carpark with local photographer Predrag.
Predrag wanted to keep it bike themed and was also very keen to shoot some couple’s pictures. This was new territory for me and thankfully I was allowed to keep my helmet on. This would no doubt save Predrag a lot of post work later!
However, things did no start well. As we were pulling into the Arena car-park on our motorcycles, we both hit some unmarked roadworks. Sophie had quite a wobble and managed to get her foot down before losing the bike. I on the other hand, was not so fortunate and launched my bike onto its side and slid down the road for a few meters, ripping my visor and intercom from my helmet.
A Great Triumph
Apart from a couple of grazes and having the wind knocked out of me, I was fine and my bike gear had done its job. After Sophie helped me pick the bike up that was on loan from Triumph Motorcycles in Budapest and I finished fixing bits and bobs back on to my helmet again, we carried on with our tour of the arena car-parks in search of Predrag, who was waiting patiently at the south entrance.
Predrag had the idea of going up to the next carpark level to get footage with the cityscape in the background. A great idea with the exception that the upper level was currently being used as the local driving school, this was going to be interesting.
Model Mayhem
We parked the bikes in what we thought was an out of the way place and proceeded with the couples part of the shoot. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing and much prefer being on the other side of the camera! After what felt like an eternity, my part was done and I could get on with documenting my crash and photographing the damage to the bike to send to Triumph, who I’m sure are going to be over the moon about a bike that was supposed to be in a movie the following weekend. Let’s hope it’s a disaster movie!
Remember the out of the way spot that we parked the bikes? Well it seems they weren’t so out of the way. What we had actually done, was park our bikes in the lane that everyone uses to drive around the outside of the driving school course. The learner drivers did an outstanding job of maneuvering around our bikes, helmets and more importantly me. I had enough scrapes and bruises for one day! I suppose the distraction of Sophie posing for pictures amid a driving school course would be good practice for the student’s concentration in a real-world situation. Well, that’s what I kept telling myself.
Move along, nothing to see!
Eventually, the security guards decided that it was time to move me along or at least, a little more out of the way. This just happened to coincide with the exact same moment that Sophie finished her photo-shoot, which the guards had also been avidly watching, quite the coincidence right!
On the level below, we had noticed a car wash and decided to give the bikes a going over in preparation for setting off the next day on our Balkan tour. Operating the washing machinery was a bit like the blind leading the blind. We pressed a bunch of buttons and ended up with the bikes covered in a bright pink cross between foam and liquid marshmallow! This was not the look I was going for!
Finally, we hit the right button and were able rid ourselves of the pink blobs that had become our bikes and return them once again to their former, if not slightly scratched, glory.
Gaffer tape fixes everything… if you remember to bring it
Back at our apartment I grabbed my tool bag and headed down to the garage to make a few cosmetic repairs to my borrowed 2023 Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro (queue manly sobbing here).
My very masculine matt jet black gaffer tape will fix everything. However, opening my tool bag, I soon learned that I had left my manly tape at home and all I had available was some very bright green and yellow striped electrician’s tape. This was not a subtle colour to say the least and there was every chance a passer-by may notice my handy work at its best. When I say passer-by, obviously I mean anyone within 800 meters of my bike that was now sporting its own Priscilla Queen of the Dessert vibe.
When I returned the bike a week later to Noel at Triumph Motorcycles Budapest, on seeing my repairs, I believe his exact words were, “subtle, you can hardly tell there is any damage at all, oh no wait, is it the bit that looks like you ran a drag queen over and left her there as a trophy?”. “Well spotted”, I replied.
If you would like to see more work from Predrag, check out his link below:
https://www.instagram.com/papi_artphotography
