Brandywell
When I think of the TT course, the Mountain always springs to mind. It is at once dangerous, majestic and mythical. Manx folklore holds that the dense fog that so often plagues the Mountain section is thanks to the ' Mantle of Mona' - a 'cloak' thrown over the island by sea god Manannan to hide it from outsiders.
Riders filmed racing across this epic stretch of track always look so graceful, and so unbelievably fast. My fascination with the Mountain section also stems from my dad's famous ' TT laps .. : Ever since I was a kid, he'd take us around in the car, and on this section, with no speed limit, he would really put his foot down (in spite of the vehicle) while casually relaying the racing line of every twist and tum.
A 1980s Skoda Rapide, Renault Traffic van, old Mere, Corsa and a Lexus are among the many vehicles in which we've raced through this section - often leaving the Fire blade boy racers for dust. And while I'm into my third decade of Noel's TT Tours, they are no less terrifying.
Brandywell was one of the first shots we took of the Milestones series, mainly because, for no particular reason whatsoever, we always ended up at Brandywell at 4.30am.
We never knew why but what we did know, was that nine times out of 10 it was bloody freezing and impossibly foggy. So the Brandywell routine became something of a ritual and it went like this: accidentally end up at Brandywell, realise the weather is utterly dreadful and all sit squashed in the Berlingo drinking infinite amounts of tea (Shaz's role would soon include 'catering manager') while waiting for the weather.
Shaz always drew the short straw, squashed in the back of the Berlingo, often with a mannequin leg poking in her ear or some dreadfully uncomfortable object beneath her posterior. We even developed our own songs to pass the time, including Shaz's own Cold Toast on the Mountain - a bluegrass number - and Smoke on the Mountain, sang to the tune of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water.
There are lots of historical stories relating to Brandywell, which is the highest point of the TT course. And most of these are relating to its topography: it's often here where many a rider has run out of fuel, including Phillip McCallen in 1996. Leading the race on his 250cc Honda, McCallen ran out of fuel at Brandywell and free-wheeled for five miles to Hilberry, where he finally stopped. Had he not run out of juice the 250cc race would have been his fifth victory of the 1996 TT.
We filled a jerrycan with water, in order to give it some stability and I balanced on it in the middle of the road. This was possibly the riskiest shot we did, given the fact there is no speed limit and this was, after all, a live road. Added to this - and this is not something you could possibly know unless you've been naked on the Mountain section ... - the shell grip surface is quite painful to run on bare-footed.
Miraculously, however, we managed to shoot this on a glorious morning. I soon learned that photographers cherish the 'Golden Hour' - dawn - for good reason: the light really is heavenly.
This was also one of the few shots that finished up exactly as it I had sketched it out. And the light was so good we just kept shooting: I tried just about every possible position while balancing on the jerrycan: leg out, leg up, leg forward, leg sideways, back hunched, back arched, you name it. There are hundreds of versions of this shot.