Please note both the above photos have been taken using special techniques to focus on the action.
Hope you like them? It was a great day and great conditions producing fast hard racing.
Gomez was amazing yet again and with only a one week gap between races it shows he has alot of stamina also. I think he would be hard to beat over a 70.3 non-drafting event.
here is another interesting one:
Terenzo Bozzone about to leap onto his seat.
Wish I captured the next split second; he let go of his handle bars and leaped into the air to land on the seat. Have never seen someone mount a bike like this and it was very effective.
Does anyone else out there let go of their handle bars to leap onto the bike seat??
I really appreciate the feedback. Yeah I will go easy on the zoomed in action shots with only the central subject in focus.
Any other feedback will be great.
The photos are taken for artistic and in a media promotion style. Have been offered a job photographing all the athletes in an ironman but at this stage am more interested in just trying to get interesting action images.
Yes, from an artistic point of view they are interesting (still makes me dizzy though) but they’re not the kind of shots people would buy IMHO. Personally, I still don’t understand why photographers don’t just offer up a plain side shot - there’s one race I do where the guy does this and those are the best type of shots IMHO.
From what I’ve seen of you photos, I hope you get the job of photographing IM New Zealand. The official photos on offer this year were rubbish and overpriced. Most people I checked had multiple virtually identical ones of themselves on the run, and just one on the bike. The official CD is 75EUR (US$120) for about 7 photos of yourself including duplicates, and doesn’t even seem to include photos of the overall race such as the swim start.
I know some of the people who run the photography for the ironman events in this part of the world and have no problem passing this feedback onto them.
If I word it right am sure they will be happy enough. But am sure some people have given them feedback already.
I also had a look at the photos of the one ironman I did this year and wasn’t excited by them at all.
Am interested in the post suggesting a different layout. Can you expand on what you think would be better? The slideshow system used by triathlon.org is very good but want ‘TriathlonShots’ to be set out differently.
Thanks again for all the replies and hope you check back after the Japan ITU race as there should be some images from it also.
I think i have seen many elite guys leaping onto their bikes in a similar manner but it probably takes a lot of practice and a high risk T1 induced sterilization. By the way, i don’t know why the pictures with special focus should make one dizzy, for me they don’t and they are great. Very good pics indeed.
have been up close to a number of ITU races in the past 2 years and can honestly say I haven’t noted anyone letting go of the bike handle bars and leaping onto it.
But I may have missed it, and think it will be interesting to capture it in photos.
Here is a link to this weeks men and womans ITU racing from Japan:
Flying mounts are the norm in ITU races. It takes a little bit of practice but isn’t too difficult to master. I do it WHILE holding onto my handlebars though. I’ve heard of people doing it no hands but haven’t quite worked up the courage to try it.
I would buy your photos in a heartbeat. Only issue I had with the photos with effect is (I think you mentioned this), is the unfocused focal point. The object needs to be extremely sharp to not blur out into the effected background. Your photo of the two guys riding(one on a BMC, the other had zipp 404’s) was a prime example of a well done effect. In all actuality, as long as the object is well focused, the background effect can easily be done in photoshop.
