Cycling

The Halfords Tour of Britain made its second visit to Chester city centre last week for round nine and I went along for a chance to play and practice at photographing sport and action. I watched the race last year but there was a torrential downpour about 10 minutes before the start and a big dark cloud made the whole city centre photographically very dark. This year was a fine summer evening and having more idea about what to expect I was able to plan some possible shooting angles in advance.


As with last year, a large number of both professional and serious amateur photographers were positioned on the outside of the tight turn at The Cross for the circuit to head up Northgate street towards the start & finish line. This was also the position for one of the TV cameras who tend to always get the best spots but this year I wanted to do something different.
The photos from the outside of the turn allowed for using a long lens looking towards the Eastgate Clock and again, most photographers in that area had lenses of the 200mm plus length. I arrived about one hour before the race was due to start and positioned myself on the inside of the corner with a wide angle 14mm lens. No other photographers joined me on my side of the circuit which meant I was bound to be getting something different to everyone else.


I used the warm up laps for the riders to get my panning technique warmed up and set everything on the camera to manual - focus set manually to about 1 meter in front, exposure set to manual and a small amount of fill in flash set to manual. When the race was underway, the riders would pass me so quickly that I soon realised that to actually be looking through the viewfinder while pressing the shutter was pointless and I was able to pan with the action much more accurately by just aiming in the approximate direction of one of the riders and panning with them as quickly as possible.


For something different, I then held the camera on the floor looking under the crash barrier and again panned in the cyclist's general direction as they passed. In order to convey the speed of the event and also how close the cyclists are to the crowds on the corner, I then held the camera over my head as high as possible and as still as possible and let the action blur slightly as it passed beneath me.


For all four of these photographs I wasn't looking through the viewfinder while any of them were being taken, I'd just pre-visualised the type of photograph I was after and let the camera do it's job. In all four photographs the sense of speed, movement and proximity is achieved by being at a vantage point that no other photographer seemed to want to be.