p.1 #1 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
The "Granogue" Cyclocross race is held on "one" of the local Dupont Estates in Montchanin Delaware. This is a race put on by several of our local teams that will draw many of the top cyclocross racers in the country. Although we downgraded from a C1 status to C2 (less series points for the pros), it still draws top names. I actually have been racing more this year myself and shooting much less and that was the plan for the Granogue race, but I had been sick all week with the flu so I decided not to race and photograph the entire day.
Leading up to Saturdays race, it had been raining pretty much all week which continued thru on race day....which lead to pretty much EPIC cyclocross racing conditions. This had to be one of the most exciting races to watch.
Culling thru the 2000 images I had taken on the day It was very difficult to pick out "favorites" as in these type of conditions....prettty much all of the images had a story. Speaking of stories, here is one - What is one of the, what I will call "stupidest" things you have done for camera gear in a rush? I know I was going to be shooting with my D700/300 2.8 combo most of the day and with the rain would use the ThinkTank Hydrophobia. Unfortunately I only had an eyepiece for the rain cover for my D300. I've used the Hydrophobia on the D700 before without the eyepiece and although it was workable, it was a royal pain in the a$$ after 5 minutes. So on Wednesday I decided I needed to get the eyepiece for the D700. After finding it online, I was going to have to pay $25-30 for expedited shipping which I thought was crazy. Thursday I call all around and finally found a camerashop "in the area" that was a ThinkTank dealer that had one in stock so I had them hold one for me. Friday, I make the 1 1/2hr one way drive to pick up a $35 eyepiece. I was laughing at myself the entire drive.
....anyway, here are some photos for C&C. Sorry for the more than 10 rule, but this was a day of images that there were really so many that I thinked turned out pretty decent. Also take a look at the slide show I'm running on my home page www.MLKimages.com of some of my favorite images of the day. I actually converted all of these favorites to B&W and the slide show runs with the B&W image first fading into the same image in color. Just wanteed to try something a bit different.
p.1 #4 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
flyingpoint wrote:
Michael -
These are fabulous.
Were the banners around the course a "special" shade of red or did you crank up the pp?
The red banners are just that - "red", but in my Lightroom Preset (I shoot RAW) I may have a bit too much on the red side (typical Nikon though). I have no + Saturation applied and just a small amount of Vivid. Sometimes I'll tone down the red on individual images, but on these I just applied my standard Preser and did some quick 20 second adjustments in LR - didn't take the time to tone down the red.
p.1 #6 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
Great stuff Michael,
I saw a few of my college buddies from Rutgers in your gallery who were down there to race. I'm looking forward to getting out for the HPCX event on November 1st.
I really like your style. You've gotta be shooting from the ground to get those angles.
p.1 #7 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
WLSchnee wrote:
Great stuff Michael,
I saw a few of my college buddies from Rutgers in your gallery who were down there to race. I'm looking forward to getting out for the HPCX event on November 1st.
I really like your style. You've gotta be shooting from the ground to get those angles.
-Will
Will, you are correct.
I shoot probably 98% of the time laying flat on the ground or down in some sort of ditch (if I can find them). I was pretty muddy after shooting this race spending hours rolling around in the mud.
p.1 #12 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
Numbers 2, 3, 10, and 11 really stick out to me as the best quality, clarity, story telling pictures that you have. The rest are great pictures but don't have the same amount of pop that the rest of them have. They were all great images...good job!!
p.1 #14 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
awesome photos. i shoot cross every weekend here in seattle, but believe it or not, we still haven't enough rain for a muddy cross race even with all my rain dancing.
p.1 #19 · EPIC Cyclocross racing...mud, mud and more mud
Quite stunning images. Some of the best D700 captures I have seen.
#10 and #11 are an advertisers dream
If I could be negative at all it would be #2 #3 and #5 are a little too centered
