Tour Racers

Concept

This photo was taken during a very special day when I was present 150m before the finish line of the 2008 Tour De France on the Champs Elysis in Paris. My aim was to get a photo of the racing peloton flying past in front of our grandstand - I even managed to get one of my favorite riders, George Hincappe, in centre frame.

What a shame the photo was not sharp. With the riders flying past at 50kph or more, I just could not achieve the shutter speed I needed to stop motion. To rescue the photo, I decided to exaggerate the blur to produce a more abstract look.

Setup

Standing up on my chair in the grandstand at the finishing line of the 2008 Tour de France in Paris trying desperately toshoot past the heads and arms of the crowd in front of me ... pure chance that the framing was OK and I happened to catch legendary tour rider George Hincappe. 

Camera Setup

Canon 400D (my camera at the time) with Sigma 70-200 f2.8 at 1/500th f/6.3 ISO400 handheld. And still not enough. 

How the professional cycling photographers like the legendary Graham Watson, get sharp photos while swinging off the back of a motor bike is beyond me. All respect. 

Processing

In the middle of a series of over 1200 frames shot that day, this photo would not normally be a keeper but for the fact that I was desperate for a full-page spread of the peloton in full flight for my custom-printed Blurb book to highlight the last celebration day of the Tour, so I had to try to rescue it in Photoshop.

After trying everything to sharpen it up, I gave up and decided to go with a more abstract look - the riders "flying past in a blur of colour".

After lifting the saturation and sharpness as much as possible to bring out the bright and contrasty colours, I added a strong motion blur filter and adjusted the angle of blur to match the direction of bike travel. Then came the time-consuming task of masking the blur layer to bring back the static areas of the frame such as the background cobbles and the fence. Blur was also removed from the leading edges of the faces, bike frames, arms and legs so that these were recognisable.  Consequently, the highlights and strong colours of the jerseys and helmets are left smeared across the frame.

The photo was printed in my Blurb book - Mémoires de la France - surrounded by sharp and meaningful photos of famous riders which my non-cycling friends glance through at rapid place. But this almost-reject shot always draws pause and a passing comment.