How To Shoot a Twilight Criterium

If you live in a larger city, there is a chance at least one weekend a year, a mass of people in tight britches on wheels will invade your town, and if you’re working for a local paper… well, you don’t get that weekend off. A step aside from the usual “Look! pictures!” post, I’ve decided to write a How-To of sorts, with pictures.

This weekend was the annual Twilight Criterium, which is a huge professional cycling event race and festival thing here in Athens, which might be (as my roommate contends) one of the largest non-football party events downtown all year. Four photogs from the Red & Black covered it (you can see R&B coverage here for photos and here for story).

How To Shoot a Bike Race (illustrated)

Covering large events like this you’ll battle large crowds, crappy parking, a rather disorganized media tent (if you can even find it), long hours, non-friendly cyclists, over-friendly cyclists, parades and (by Saturday night) hordes of intoxicated individuals who think you’re PicMan! and you’re only purpose in life, other than to throw stuff at, is to take their pictures as they make possibly derogatory hand gestures. Whee!

Sarcasm aside, covering large events can be a lot of fun. Covering this sort of thing can be a pain in the butt if you’re the only shooter for your publication, but even if there are four of you, it’s helpful to have a sort of mental checklist of photos to get. I try to also include some off-beat sort of shots, because you can only take pictures of people riding in circles for so long without getting bored.

Here’s my List of Eleven Shots to Get, in no particular order of importance…

List:

1. The Safe Shot

(the guy is ringing a bell, by the way)

This is called the safe shot because it’s something that still tells the story and you can run if half the United States explodes before you go to press that night and your huge photo spread magically turns into one picture.

2. The Crowd

A crowd this big, there is bound to be something or someone interesting. If you can, layer information to provide some contrast or humorous juxtaposition of elements. Or just wait for a guy in a bear suit to ride by.

3. The Pan

9:48 p.m. ISO 1600 f/2.8 @ 1/60 sec w/ Canon Zoom EF 70-200 1:2.8 L

Be prepared to explain a “pan” shot, because if you do it enough, someone is going to want to know what in the world you’re doing.

4. The Blur.

10:09 p.m. ISO 3200 f/4 @ 1/40 sec on a Canon Zoom EF 17-40 1:4 L

Blurs are great for showing motion and for making boring shots (like when you have to take pictures of buildings) slightly less boring. These can actually get rather difficult at night when you’re smashed up against a guard rail, you’ve broken your fastest lens and you loaned your strobe to your editor, who left hers in her trunk. I don’t recommend breaking lenses on assignment, or lending editors your strobes unless you know where they are going to be in 30 minutes so you can get it back.

5. The Guy You Work With

If possible, get a picture of a person you work with – best when they’re not looking – so you can give it a silly caption and hang it up at the office the next day – also when they’re not looking.

(note: Kelley Wegel, upcoming R&B Photo Editor, has a sitting malfunction on the hand rail during a photo exercise in documentary photo class in March. — It’s not during the race, but it amuses me, and I think it illustrates the type of shot I’m talking about better than any I took Saturday).

6. The Cute Kid Being Cute / The Not Quite As Cute Kid Doing Something Mischievous

Some editors love kid shots. Some love shots of people eating. I interned at this paper once where a particular editor would practically pee himself if you brought him a picture of a kid eating. Even better if it was near a church. Note: Usually these editors are “Words People.”

Personally I prefer the Not Quite As Cute Kid Doing Something Mischievous version. Kids will be kids, and there will always be a kid who makes faces at the pace car or something like that. This is fun, but I don’t recommend spending much time on it.

7. The Crash!

The adrenalin highlight for photogs at bike races – The Wipeout. It’s bound to happen at least once – especially if the cyclists are doing 80 laps around four streets downtown. It might happen 10 feet in front of you. Annnd it might happen 10 feet in front of you when you’re panning in low light situation, which looks something like this:

9:24:23 p.m. ISO 800 f/2.8 @ 1/15 sec. Canon EF 70-200mm 1:2.8 L
(note on exposure: I still hadn’t nailed the pan at this point)

9:24:23 p.m.

9:24:24 p.m.

Don’t panic and screw up the shutter speed while they’re getting up (which looks something like this):

9:24:39 same @ 1/5 sec. ….Butterfingers.

And always stick around to make sure everyone is OK

ISO 1600 f/2.8 @ 1/60 sec.

8. The Candid Participant

Candid participant shots are great, because if timed right, you can learn a lot about a person, and how he or she may feel about certain things – or race officials – without having to ask, when they might not tell you anyway.

9. The Doing Something Not During The Race

Closely related to the Candid Participant. At events, sometimes people part of the event do things not during the height of event action.

ISO 200 f/14 @ 1/4 sec. Canon Zoom EF 17-40mm 1:4 L

10. The Winner

Ideally, you might want the winner’s face. I was crammed like a sardine, and I knew Josh had that angle covered, so I wasn’t too worried about my position. He got a really nice shot, which is on the R&B and here.

11. The After

If you have the time, it’s a good idea to hang around after it’s all said and done to see what happens.

So there you have it. And of course, it’s good to get a good visual variety – variety of subjects; horizontals and verticals; long, medium and closeup shots. If I’ve left anything painfully obvious out, somebody smack me and let me know. Um…Remember don’t break your lenses *cough*, be sure to tried the fried oreos, have fun and be careful not to get nearly run over (Josh…).

Happy shooting.