time to grind usa pro cycling challenge

Time to Grind USA Pro Cycling Challenge

Vail, Colorado. 2011 saw the inaugural running of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge- arguably the state’s greatest professional road race ever! For photographers, shooting pro cycling events has to be one of the best opportunities to capture images that are usually only available to the élite sports photographers and picture warehouses, i.e. Getty Images, etc. A figurative comparison would be an enthusiast photographer being allowed to set up and shoot on the 50 yard line of a NFL football or NBA Basketball game. Their simply is no other professional sport where you, as a photographer, can be inches away from the subject superstar athletes as with pro cycling- and we all know getting in close makes for great pics!

This amazing opportunity, to get up close to your subject (and I mean really close), lends itself to discussing the above image. Notwithstanding the image’s reversed colors, which is something I truly enjoy playing with until I get a desired effect, I could literally reach out and touch these guys as they raced by. It is my experience and something I struggle with often, that photographers want to use their big glass. I captured this image with my Nikkor 300mm/2.8 VRII lens (big/expensive glass) and although I was fairly successful at creating the desired effect, compressing the peloton while focusing in on a single rider (somewhere in the middle) with the foreground and backgrounds blurred (without manipulating for a shallow depth of field; this pic was shot at an aperture of f/8; 1/1000 sec.; and, ISO 400), the image could just as easily been shot using a 85mm prime/telephoto set to a larger aperture, i.e. using a lens that’s 1/10 the cost of what’s been used here.

The point to be considered here is this, despite seeing every professional photographer lugging around two huge lenses at nearly every professional sporting event, the enthusiast photographer with any decent mid telephoto prime or zoom with a large aperture f/1.4 – f/2.8 can create the above effect- because with pro cycling, they can get close to their subject (unlike other/similar compression techniques used in landscape photography where subjects are often shot at great distances). What you do with your images’ color, well that’s another matter altogether!

Doug Mayhew | Madographer

My journey into the arts, and more particularly photography, began as a young boy shooting the iconic Kodak 110. I went on to shoot my grandfather's Zeiss Icon, my father's Nikkormat, and in high school the wonderful Nikon FE2. During that period of time I studied and became proficient in traditional wet darkroom disciplines... processing my own film, printing, and developing those prints using several chemical techniques. For most of today's work I shoot Nikon's most venerable digital cameras and latest exotic glass. I supplement what you could call my "normal gear" with an assortment of equally compelling, though often more suited, specialized cameras & lenses depending on the subject and outcome I'm wanting to achieve. In truth, cameras are nothing more than tools, the tools through which I endeavor to create and capture original imagery. I am an artist. I photograph that which speaks to me. My visual storytelling is an extension of that process; writing about what I see, the imagery experience and what is envisioned has proven equally rewarding... though itself not necessary. As a professional I pull from various artistic genres and focus my efforts on the process of creating original imagery that captures the essence of the client and their project. When shooting for myself, there are no boundaries to what my eye sees nor constraints to what I create. Conversely, recreating others' work, but with a twist, is something I guard against. Madography is the artistic process of pre-visualizing original imagery; that imageries' subsequent development, creation, and exhibition inby and through both analog or digital, motion or still, art mediums. The Madographer is an artist, a manipulator of light and arranger of composition... in essence, a visual storyteller. Studio Madography strives to provide our clientele with compelling original imagery, that is our goal! Our commercial studio located in the Vail Valley provides for traditional portraiture sittings, dramatically lit headshots, and the necessarily controlled environment required for precise product & copy work. Madography specializes, however, in offering customized on-site production solutions to address our clienteles' unique imagery needs… and in doing so, elevate both the creative process and end product for the client. Our starting commercial fees are listed in conjunction with their respective disciplines and are easily found under the commercial tab located in the menu bar of this website. Custom project pricing is determined on a per project basis-- whereby offering the greatest value for every dollar invested. Our clients can take comfort in knowing that our team of dedicated professionals will do everything possible to provide exceptional original imagery at a reasonable price... we go the extra mile not only to earn your business, but keep you coming back again and again and again. Doug Mayhew | Madographer American artist, photographer, cinematographer, writer...

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