fast boys in Lycra

Here are a few of my fave shots from Saturday's CU crit. My student did really well there and I took a ton of photos. I don't know what to say about many of these besides I was experimenting with a few different techniques and just trying to figure out the camera. I converted the first one to black & white because I had a brain fart and somehow toggled the white balance to tungsten. When that happens it's really tough to fix.


Same deal with this one, except I also missed the focal plane a bit. I liked the composition and subject tho, so I tried out a new faux-lomo recipe in Photoshop that works pretty well. Doesn't look much like a real one, but it has a somewhat vintage feel.


Caught this kid with a panning shot as he took a flyer off the front. Makes a super nice subject, since you can see the chase all blurred out in the background around the corner.


Switching from the telephoto to the wideangle on this course makes for some super rewarding scenery shots... despite the many, many light poles in the background. Makes for mad barrel distortion, too, with my cheapy Sigma 18-50mm wideangle zoom. In this shot the distortion actually kind of lends itself to the whole feel of the shot, at least I think so.


These guys were flat out hauling. Check out the facial expressions. It never gets easier, you just go faster.


I was just farting around trying something new with aperture priority, stopped down to about f/16 or so and caught this awesome shot of Dave Towle, the emcee, framed by Catherine Powers as she soloed off the front for the win in the women's race.


I really worked on the panning technique on Saturday. I was surprised how many good shots I got, especially since I was framing up pretty tight. These are hard because you're shooting small aperture, slow shutter, and you miss a ton of shots, but between the auto-advance feature on the Nikon and just good karma, I really lucked out.


I liked this one a ton despite the missed focus because to me it really represnts what being in the middle of a breakaway at speed feels like. Kinda dizzy and blurry and painful and exciting all at once.


Last but not least, another wideangle 'beauty shot' of Arapahoe Peak with the B race in the foreground.

It's snowing today and I have Richard Ashcroft's new track rolling thru the speakers. I think I'll brew myself up a hot cup of tea and do a bit of online shopping.

Cheers,

LFR