Friday, May 25, 2012

Watching fast women




























































































































Early yesterday evening I walked six city blocks over to the Boise Depot to watch (and photograph) a professional bicycle race - the prologue for the Exergy ladies professional cycling tour. Last February I blogged about Finding images that show what you mean. I’d mentioned that showing motion in still images isn’t straightforward. My goal was to use a shutter speed  just slow enough for the wheels to blur - while still having the rider clearly in focus. I had fun photographing them flying by on their radical racing bikes. Above I’ve included images of ladies from three US teams (Colavita/ESPNW, Optum Pro Cycling, and TIBCO), and Topsport Vlaanderen(Belgium), the Canadian National Team, and Team Specialized Lululemann (Germany). There were two TV video crews on motorcycles too.
 
It was a time-trials race over a two-mile course that first went south from Julia Davis Park on Capitol Boulevard and climbed 82 feet up  to the front of the Depot, turned around, and went back downhill. Weather was almost perfect - sunny, with a temperature of 61 F, and wind of less than 5 miles per hour. In a time-trial the cyclists traverse the course individually and just race against the clock. The other four stages of this tour are road races which will be more exciting to watch. 

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