I probably shouldn’t have been surprised this morning when news popped up in my Instagram feed to the effect that Andrew Wheeler was recently found dead in his Austin TX home. He was only 60, but had been experiencing health issues after a stroke and, of all things, a fucking spider bite.
From @wratbike on Instagram
Andrew was best-known as a MotoGP photographer. He attended most of the races—maybe even all of them—for quite a few years beginning in the early 2000s, shooting photos under contract for big-time sponsors.
His work was not typical fare because his perspectives were literally and figuratively different from most race photographers’. He shot from too close or too far, too high or too low, composing images that could be read as abstract art or landscapes first, and documentation of a motorcycle race or racer only a few seconds later.
I remember visiting him in Capitola. He brought up an image on his computer monitor that he was particularly pleased with. I think he’d shot it in Spain, but I don’t recall the race, year, or racer. Anyway, it was a spectacular skyscape; 95% of the frame was a cloud formation shot with an ultra-wide-angle lens. But sure enough, a band at the bottom of the frame grounded the composition and there was a MotoGP racer railing along there, towards the edge of the frame. The motorcycle couldn’t have occupied more than 0.05% of the total pixel count.
When he wasn’t traveling to races, he shot magazine stuff. We became friends over the course of collaborating on stories for Road Racer X magazine, where the editor, Chris Jonnum, appreciated the artful Wheeler. Andrew also illustrated stories I wrote for Bike (UK), and some stuff that I wrote for online pubs.
Andrew was probably the only MotoGP photographer who could understood why, while shooting a feature for Bike magazine in San Francisco, we’d stop at City Lights Bookstore.
He was an English émigré. He liked motorcycles and had ridden in England. But the impression that I had was that he’d essentially given up bikes after an incident in which he was beaten up by bike thieves.
UPDATE: After I wrote this, David Emmett (aka @motomatters) wrote that Andrew stopped riding after a very bad motorcycle crash involving a drunk driver. David’s recollections of Andrew are fresher than mine and I suspect he’s right and I’m wrong. I may have conflated another Andrew story which is very possible, because over and above my mists-of-time issues there was probably a lot of wine involved in the telling and listening. Friends of Andrew or anyone who wants to know him better after the fact should definitely also read David’s In Memoriam, on motomatters.com.
Years later, he got an Indian Scout which showed up frequently in his social media feed. That would have been a good machine for him as he was a bit, ah, vertically challenged. His physique, pleasant demeanor, gourmandise, and accent always put me in the mind of hobbits. He would have made a great hobbit. Although he no longer had the horse by the time I knew him, he had a beautiful German Shepherd named Thor that was equally close to his heart.
He loved to cook. He was good at it and loved being a host. He didn’t generally stay in hotels on the MotoGP circuit. Instead, he found AirBnB-type short-term rentals with kitchens. He flew in a few days early, shopped for local foods, and then spent evenings victualing other members of the MotoGP circus.
If he ever told me what he did before becoming a photographer, I don’t remember it. But I do remember how he became a photographer, and it had nothing to do with bikes. He and his then-wife Emily had a horse that foundered. This is a serious veterinary crisis for a horse that usually results in them being euthanized.
They couldn’t bear to put their horse down; the treatment involved being with the horse around the clock for months, ensuring that it did not put weight on the affected hoof. To kill time in the barn, Andrew began taking photos of horses. They were good, and he either got or was given the idea of becoming a professional photographer. On a whim, he attended a car race at Laguna Seca, which was nearby. When those images came out surprisingly well, he was off to the races. (Sorry, I can’t help myself.)
Emily died in 2014 after a grueling, drawn-out, and public fight with cancer. She had her own career (I think she was an ESL teacher) but she often accompanied Andrew to races where she sat in the press room cataloging images as he shot them. Everyone in MotoGP knew she was sick. She loved Valentino Rossi and at one point Andrew took a picture of Rossi holding a sign that read, “Get well Emily.” Number 46 might have been, “The Doctor” but he had no cure.
This is a mark of how much those two were appreciated in the MotoGP paddock: when Andrew could not attend races because he had to stay home and care for her, other photographers took pictures on Andrew’s behalf and uploaded them to his site, so that he could fulfill his contracts with sponsors.
Before she died, she wrote forthrightly about another struggle, with depression, that had long predated her cancer. I always sensed an undercurrent of melancholy in Andrew, too. It would be a cliché to describe that as common amongst creative people, I guess. But most clichés are clichés because there’s an element of truth to them.
Andrew wrote that the last thing she said to him was, “We’re both going to be OK, OK?” The better part of a decade later, I cannot think of that sentence without choking up.
As I was looking through some old emails to find a few of his photos, I came across one from 2008 in which he wrote, out of the blue…
You know, life is too short sometimes not to say how you feel....
Emily and I live by this rule, sometimes it's not always want you want to hear but other times it's exactly what you want to hear.
All I want to say is I'm glad and extremely happy that we met, and that we could possibly do some seriously good work together.
I think we kind’a did.
I rarely saw him after I moved to Kansas City although we traded emails and messages for a while, and I kept track of him on Twitter and Instagram. I don’t know if he ever remarried but I know he dated. I guess he rebounded as well as he could as we gradually fell out of touch.
I didn’t realize that he’d relocated to Austin, and only learned of his recent stroke when I caught a random Instagram post about it. He wasn’t quite old enough to qualify for Medicare and as far as I know had always been a freelancer; I doubt if he had anything resembling meaningful health or disability insurance. When the stroke left him partially paralyzed and off-balance, he put up a GoFundMe. That sucks.
Andrew’s death was reported to authorities by a friend, Rachel Wilkens (aka “Rocky Wingwalker” and @wratbike on IG). By the sound of things, she was basically doing a welfare check on poor Andrew. His pets were incredibly dear to him and he would be relieved to know that she rescued Widget, his cat.
I’ll leave the last word to her. She posted this on Instagram:
It is with a huge amount of sadness and the heaviest heart I have to inform our friends and loved ones of Andrew’s passing.
Andrew was the kindest and sweetest man and he was my best friend. I found him this morning in his home.
To the best of our knowledge and abilities to reconstruct the timeline, Andrew passed sometime between Monday and Wednesday.
Please understand that we believe this was due to his ongoing medical issues following the move to Texas and the subsequent spider bite that plagued him horribly. The struggle for him to regain balance was insurmountable but he was trying until the end to hang on and get through it regardless.
All the arrangements are tbd. I’m in contact w the lovely Rebecca and Deborah. I suggest that no additional Go-Fund Me donations are made as we may not be able to access them. Another opportunity will be provided soon should you wish to contribute but we are just now sorting things out.
Andrew is with his beloved Emily now.
A stylin’ pic of another notably nice guy, Jake Zemke, that Andrew shot at Monza WSBK in 2009.