Cyclocross - 2nd time shooting

jimqjr

This is an interesting sport...I think if it was raining, muddy, had sand pits, or water holes, something besides dry hard dirt there would be a lot more excitement at least to photograph. It was a windy dusty day. The faces and the acrobats of this specific event were fun. Hope you enjoy. CC's are always welcome.
1


2


3 Just trying to get back on the bike before the pack catches you.


4 Some how I am not sure the tongue helped keep the chain on.


5 I think everyone makes the same face when they jump on the seat...it's gotta hurt


6 The hair takes the prize for the day.


7 This guy is a true champion and gives it his all!


8 I am sure when the chain broke he didn't say a pleasant word

Hope you enjoy - CC's are always welcome.

jhefti

Wow, really nice composition and facial expressions! It looks like you got a good location and were using enough telephoto to isolate the subject well. A really nice set.

I have only two suggestions:

1. A little more variety in angle and position would give the overall set more interest. Not faulting the angle you used, just suggesting some variety.

2. The skin tones are a little too saturated and red-shifted. I'll guess that you just bumped up the saturation slider and uniformly increased the saturation of all colors. I might suggest selectively increasing the saturation by using the HSL menu, and just push the colors of the clothes and equipment.

jimqjr

Yea, kinda screwed up. Prior to shooting cyclocross I was using my camera for work related things and was shoting in landscape color space so it tossed the saturations out of wack and then I shot in jpg so I had alot of color. Some of the shots are in raw which doesn't care about the color settings. I also have a color shift when loading on smug and facebook and it is always to the red side. I can look at the colors in light room and then load them and bang red. Not enough time to focus on shooting let alone figure out what or why the color shift, gotta work to make a living these days.
I was spending time with the wife and she just wanted to sit so we sat in one spot watched a couple of races and I took a few pictures. These days that's how I do it.
There were about 7 other photogs running around so I am sure they captured the event. I would rather wait for something good to happen in one spot than run around trying to be where something happens and not be ready. My odds are better of getting one good picture. Different strokes for different folks.
The choices for this event were few, there was a stair climb, the angles for getting good shots were poor, there were three places to dismount from the bikes one into the sun, the stairs and this one the rest of the race was in an open field going through a maze of hard packed dirt and one down hill on a paved road and other than sitting waiting for a crash around a corner this location showed the best explaination of cyclocross to me.
Thanks for the reply and the comments
The stair climb

jimqjr

Thanks to Tim, I learned that when posting on line I should change my color space to SRGB. Learn something new everyday. I am sure that will help with the color switch and also taking the camera out of the landscape color space would be make a difference on the over saturated colors. Thanks for the helpful advice.
Here are a couple more photos from the event with variation hope you like these:

1 Mad Cat cycles - getting a little air.


2 Getting ready for the stairs


3 Racing on the pavement - the different aspects of cyclocross


4 Pure Determination


5 The race was at the LangTwins Winery


Enjoy the shots.

jhefti

Definite improvement on the WB and color, even in those shots in which the color was deliberately altered for effect--good job!

I know what you mean about color shifting when posting. Facebook is the worst offender, even when done in sRGB! I long ago gave up on using FB for anything other than family snapshots (and of course links to my real galleries).

Regarding position, more often than not I use your approach of picking a good spot and hoping for a few keepers, so I guess I was a bit hypocritical in my previous post. I always feel conflicted though: I want a gallery to tell the whole story of the event, but want to make sure I have a few keepers to sell to the media. Haven't figured out the magic balance in this respect...