Howdy - I wandered over to the brown-ness of Woking town centre knowing that a professional road-race competition would brighten things up a bit.
The race series called the "Tour Series" runs at 10 city-centre locations around the UK and features teams of professional riders. The race runs for 5 laps plus 1 hour which is a bit weird but there you go.
Access for photography was easy as pie as the crowd was allowed right up to the barriers. Having a monster 300mm 2.8 lens did have some advantages though in areas that were particularly busy. I'm really missing a 70-200 at the moment. The 300 was great to get in close though, and I decided I'd shoot to fill the frame as much as possible. I also did some wide angle panned stuff in close at a hairpin - you can see those and the rest here.
As per usual, the mission is to get "the other shot" rather than a standard bicycle racing picture. With the sun low in the evening sky there were some interesting lighting possibilities available. Also I was constantly looking for a good background or interesting vantage point that other photographers hadn't spotted.
#1 utilising a shaft of sunlight between two buildings to light just one rider. Underexposing by 1 stop.
#2 Slow shutter to get streaks of colour. Had to get on top of a car park for this.
#3 Same shot but with better panning
#4 It's always good to get in close and blind the poor buggers. Here a slow shutter with flash gets motion but also freezes the action at the same time.
#5 Hard work
#6 Winner
Good fun photography - highly recommended if the series comes near you.
Tobers
The race series called the "Tour Series" runs at 10 city-centre locations around the UK and features teams of professional riders. The race runs for 5 laps plus 1 hour which is a bit weird but there you go.
Access for photography was easy as pie as the crowd was allowed right up to the barriers. Having a monster 300mm 2.8 lens did have some advantages though in areas that were particularly busy. I'm really missing a 70-200 at the moment. The 300 was great to get in close though, and I decided I'd shoot to fill the frame as much as possible. I also did some wide angle panned stuff in close at a hairpin - you can see those and the rest here.
As per usual, the mission is to get "the other shot" rather than a standard bicycle racing picture. With the sun low in the evening sky there were some interesting lighting possibilities available. Also I was constantly looking for a good background or interesting vantage point that other photographers hadn't spotted.
#1 utilising a shaft of sunlight between two buildings to light just one rider. Underexposing by 1 stop.
#2 Slow shutter to get streaks of colour. Had to get on top of a car park for this.
#3 Same shot but with better panning
#4 It's always good to get in close and blind the poor buggers. Here a slow shutter with flash gets motion but also freezes the action at the same time.
#5 Hard work
#6 Winner
Good fun photography - highly recommended if the series comes near you.
Tobers
