Night photograph of a person sitting behind a blue sign along 7th Avenue near Madison Square Garden on a summer evening in downtown New York.
On our last night in Manhattan we needed pizza – we bracketed our visit with New York pizza on the first and last night. (We had lots of great food in between, but that is perhaps a story for another post.) So we headed out of our hotel and up 7th Avenue near twilight. My son – who shoots old film cameras these days – and I grabbed our cameras to see what we could shoot. Keeping things simple, I just stuck a 50mm lens on my camera, cranked the ISO, and shot quickly as we moved through the crowds. Nearby there was a building with a “sign” that moved blue text up and down the front of a building and across part of the sidewalk. Sitting behind a section of the garish sign I saw this man sitting quietly.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
Mark Renshaw leads out Mark Cavendish with J.J. Haedo in pursuit 200 meters from the finish line in Sacrmento – Stage One, 2010 Amgen Tour of California.
I shot this photograph at about the 200 meter mark near the finish of stage one of the 2010 Amgen Tour of California professional bicycle stage race in Sacramento, California. While it is exciting to be at the finish line – though just about impossible given the crowds – bicycle racing fans can see a lot of amazing action before the finish line, especially this close to a group sprint finish.
I thought about calling this photograph “How It Is Done.” While Cavendish is a phenomenal sprinter, he is even more of a threat given the discipline and power of his Columbia HTC team. The end of this race was an object lesson in how this works. The Nevada City to Sacramento stage was viewed as a “sprinter’s stage” ahead of time. With only one climb of consequence on a route that was mostly downhill or flat, it wasn’t likely that anyone would get away and stay away until the end, and that turned out to be the case. The peloton rolled into Sacramento largely intact, which is a setup for a battle between the sprinters.
The race ended with four laps on a large loop around the capitol grounds before the final sprint. From the first lap it was clear that Columbia-HTC was setting Cavendish up for the sprint. The team was at the front with Cavendish drafting a paceline of five his teammates, each of whom was prepared to push until he couldn’t continue in order to deliver Cavendish to the finish line in the last 100 meters where he would be ready to jump. On each lap the HTC group became smaller as team members finished their pulls at the front and dropped off. When I made this photograph slightly more than 200 meters from the end, Mark Renshaw, head down, was pulling with everything he had to get Cavendish to the finish. A second later he began to pull to the side and Cavendish pulled through with J.J. Haedo (seen at far left) of Saxobank trying to overtake Cavendish… unsuccessfully.
This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
I decided to try a little web-publishing experiment with part 2 of my series of posts on photographing Death Valley National Park – I’m sharing the draft publicly as I write it. I decided to try this for several reasons.
It is prime DeVa photography season now and for the next couple of months, and some people may find the information useful before I’m ready to release the final version.
There are lots of you who have DeVa experience of your own, and perhaps your comments and feedback may improve the post.
Maybe, just maybe, someone might be interested in watching the evolution of the post. I can flatter myself, right? :-)
The group drafts a motorcycle in the early laps of a women’s keirin event at the American Velodrome Challenge, Hellyer Park Velodrome, San Jose, California.
Just so people don’t start to think that I can only make blurry photographs of bicycle racing, here is a more straight-ahead bike racing shot from a preliminary round in the women’s keirin race at the American Velodrome Challenge. (I think this photo also demonstrates that the light does matter in sports photography, too – this was just just as the sun was about to drop below the horizon, so the light is golden and warm.) Here the group is being "motor-paces" by the fellow on the motorcycle for the first few laps as the riders remain in his draft and he gradually brings them up to speed. After a few paced laps the motorcycle pulls off and there is a very short, intense, and high speed finish.
This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
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