I knew going in that the Tour for Kika project was going to generate a lot of images. For the past ten days I've been working my way through the shoot, discovering some surprises I missed in my machine gun nightly edits and pushing the limits of my software and hardware, not to mention my eyesight.
Twenty four days of shooting in the Netherlands, Belgium and France netted 23,344 RAW images that consumed about 650 GB of disk space. My MacBook Pro's 500 GB internal drive wasn't large enough and I needed redundancy, so I took two 500 GB external G Drives and a 1 TB notebook drive along for nightly backups. My basic workflow was to copy images from my cards to the first of the 500 GB G Drives (till it was full) and make a second copy on the 1TB drive. With two copies of the images safely on disk, I'd catalog the images in Adobe Lightroom, make a quick selection and export web resolution comps for the Kika site. Provided our hotel had an internet connection I'd upload those images to drop.io, a service which hosts my client files and which I prefer over ftp. With that done, I'd clear the cards, turn out the lights and get a few hours of sleep before doing it all again the next day.
Daily totals ranged from a low of 600 images to a high of 1200. I like to think I shoot with some discretion and look for the decisive moment but when it comes to action the 1D MKIV's frame rate (10 fps), even when exercised in short bursts, really adds up
There was no time to make final editing decisions on the road. Post and pre-stage transfers made sure of that. So with the entire shoot and Lightroom catalog safely transferred to my home desktop it's been interesting to see a consistent pattern of keepers and selects emerge. I've dedicated an external eSATA drive to the collection ($120 for a 2TB drive and $45 for the enclosure) but to avoid archiving thousands of superfluous images and their alternatives I decided to do one comprehensive edit.
Using 1000 as a daily average, I've consistently kept 250 and deleted 750; one out of four. Many of the images discarded are from high-speed sequences, and there's little point in saving eight frames of a particular rider or grouping when one or two will do. Regardless of whether they are sharp or not, I keep only the best. Within the 250 keepers, only half (125) are given a star rating; meaning my selects are one out of eight or 12.5%.
Next week I'll begin layout of the Kika book, which at approximately 100 pages, will accommodate at most 200 of the 3000 selects distilled from all stages. Long odds indeed, less than 1% (.6% to be exact) will make that cut.
And the refinement doesn't stop there. As it stands there are perhaps two or three standout images for me. The best of the best, two or three frames out of 23,344. These are the images that inspire me to shoot and improve. Ultimately these rare images are my personal measure of my work.
Workflow Update
Sean asked about my Lightroom workflow. I've included a basic overview below.
On import I apply my basic meta data template (copyright etc) and a preset with minimal sharpening, noise reduction and clarity. This time I decided to get a lot more disciplined about deleting images, in the past I merely concerned myself with rating the images I liked, but now that I’m shooting all the time I can’t necessarily afford to archive thousands of rejects. More important than the wasted archive space, is the noise factor when it comes to searching for images later.
So I move through the shoot hitting X on the keyboard to flag (reject) the ones I’ll throw away, and rating the selects (one or two stars). During that process I try to stay in Develop mode, only moving to the Library to add keywords on the rated images. I don’t like Lightroom’s quick edit panel at all, so unfortunately I can’t do both steps in one mode. Lightroom really needs to lose that quick edit panel or give us the option of using the one with sliders from Develop. Scott Kelby had a post about features he’d like to see in v4.0 and that one was on the list.
Rating the images and choosing which ones to reject often involve applying a development preset, tweaking those settings then applying that treatment to each subsequent image or batch applying it via the sync button. I make use of keyboard shortcuts to copy/paste the current setting to the keyboard (shift + C / shift + v) or apply the setting from the previous image (control + alt + v). This “styled” evaluation of many images consumes a lot of time. Given the changes in body position and bike angle on almost every shot it’s not always easy to pick a clear winner without that extra work.
When I’ve processed all the images in a folder, I go to the Library and find all the rejects and delete them. Next step is to update all the meta data to the sidecar XMP files. I have turned off the preference to auto save this data, and make it a manual step at this juncture. Cmd + S. I may look at moving to the DNG format to avoid the extra XMP files floating around, but both solutions are preferable to having that valuable data reside exclusively inside the Lightroom catalog file.
It's been nearly a month and I'm not even close to breaking the surface yet. Mr. Palmer at the post has sent me a couple of friendly reminders that I'm straining the social contract that I have with all of you. Apologies for the silence, I've had a few things to sort out.
My time in France was an end and a beginning wrapped in sweet chocolate pastry. Early in the trip I decided I wasn't going back to the software design job that's kept me in tubes and kit for the past four years. I've spent a decade trying to refine the raw ore being mined in Silicon Valley... long enough to feel the effects of creative silicosis creeping in. Truth is I've never felt comfortable as an employee. A healthy paycheck is no substitute for the satisfaction of following your own ideas, which I managed to do quite successfully for thirteen years prior to being drafted by the dots @ com. I missed the excitement, the engagement and the success of that life while at the same time fully appreciating its costs. So I've resolved to suit up and get back in the game.
And if returning to the ranks of the self employed closes one circle, choosing photography as the means completes an even greater journey.
As a boy I grew up listening to my dad, photo editor at the Toronto Star, giving us the behind-the-scenes story of the day's news each night at the dinner table. We got to know all of his photographers as friends and he had some great ones: Boris Spremo, Graham Bezant, Ronnie Bull, Dick Loek, Andrew Stawicki and Frank Lennon head the list. They were all larger than life characters in a daily drama and their stories and antics could fill volumes along with their stellar photography. There's no doubt their work, most of which was in B&W, has been a major influence on my own photography and design... and there's more... my brother Craig shoots for the Toronto Sun and my recently retired uncle, Douglas was the photo editor at the Glasgow Herald. I suppose you could say that photojournalism is the family business.
It feels good to come home but now the real bootstrapping begins. I want to grow VeloDramatic Photography from those photojournalistic roots, capturing ride documentary, race and bike culture as it happens. More long-form assignments like the Tour for Kika and Specialized's Ride to Vegas are in the works, and now I can actively pursue editorial and dynamic product work for an expanded roster of industry clients and publications. I'd love a crack at a grand tour as a full-blown embedded shooter one day but that's a very exclusive club and far less glamorous than it might appear. Those guys work incredibly hard.
So the "open for business" sign is up and I'm keen to get to work anywhere the light is good and the fee is right, that includes making the most of "head on a stick" jobs, portraits and the occasional wedding (which I really enjoy having done quite a few over the years). I'll put my 25 years of design experience to work whenever possible and can take an assignment from concept creation to final print/html as needed. OK, end of marketing pitch.
This blog is going to be an important part of the mix, but it's going to take a while to put all the pieces together. The past year has been pretty spotty in terms of posting. I hope you'll bear with me and whether you're a cyclist, a photographer (or both) you'll find content here that's interesting and visually compelling.
Last Sunday I planned to shoot the pros as they circled the Champs Elysees but after a brief scout decided there was no easy way to get a good sight line down the fast side with the barriers pushed back at least 6 feet from the course. Accreditation seemed unlikely even if I could figure out where the media center was, so I decided to dump my gear at the hotel and forget about the race. Later as Juli and I walked around we discovered the team celebrations on the Champs were still underway, and all I had with me was the Canon G9. I tried to shoot a couple of images of AC and Astana but laughed at the results because of the glacial shutter lag.
That was amusing but when Frank and Andy Schleck both stopped two feet in front of me to embrace and greet friends, I really was caught with my pants down. I managed one passable portrait and resolved never to walk around with a toy camera again on a trip where I had my real gear with me (my shoulder be damned). One of these days the camera makers are going to give us something portable with the shooting performance of a DSLR.
Paris. The team, all 15 riders, made it safely to the capital yesterday. Led by the Tours own Flechage team (with klaxons ringing and lights flashing) they rode straight up the Champs Elysees ... at one point taking the full width of the grand avenue towards the Arc de Triomphe. They popped champagne corks and drained their glasses en route just like the pros. Hundreds of Parisians and tourists cheered them on as I hung out our photo car shooting like mad. At the Arc we took more photos under the bemused stares of the Gendarmes, unaccustomed to this kind of escorted arrival en masse. It was a spectacular finale to our great adventure. From there we traveled to the Anquetil Velodrome, where the Tour used to finish, for a reception with 150 friends, family, the Mayor of Rotterdam and the Dutch Ambassador. The team presented an interim check for 100,000 Euros to the Mayor for Kika.
A party followed in the evening, which was still going strong when we left it just after 1am. I've never felt so welcomed by the families and friends. Juli was there too. Wonderful to see her appear out of the crowd on the Champ Elysees and become part of our new Dutch family. I have lots to fill in when I'm home. Thanks for reading along. It was the trip of a lifetime for the riders, girlfriends/wives (so helpful), Wilfred and his Cycling Dutchman team (Wouter, Leone, Stefan, Peter, Bos and Melanie) and me. We owe a huge thank you to the men of the Flechage unit. Their 40,000 yellow arrows kept us on track right across France. Having them with us on the Champs Elysees was incredible. Also joining us were our two French compatriots who also rode the entire Tour. Finally special thoughts go out to Melanie and her little girl who was injured back home yesterday, and to teammate Joost Vastert who lost his mother to cancer a month before the Tour for Kika began. Nice to see him ride into Paris with his father and two brothers.
I love these guys and can't say enough about what they accomplished. I hope to see many of them again, this kind of bond is not easily forgotten or broken. Wilfred and I are already talking about organizing a Tour for next year, but this one will always be unique.
As you can see I'm 3 stages behind our progress. Here are some of the images from Stage 16... a monster of a day with 2 Cat 1 and 2 HC climbs over the Tourmalet and Aubisque. The boys are riding the time trial course this morning and then we have a 5.5 hour transfer to Longjumeau. I'll intercept them in one of the first towns outside Bordeaux (beautiful city).
I'm in Vielha, Spain, inconveniently typing this from the hotel lobby... the only place in the hotel with wifi. Wilfred, Wouter, Stefan and I just walked back from the cantina round the corner where we had a drink. Nice to be out in the cool night air, after another warm day in the mountains. We laughed at the lamp post now leaning precariously out front... struck first by our truck that transports the bikes followed by the the girlfriend's rental car. They apparently hit it really hard. It looks like I feel.
Last night I stayed in a charming hotel in Mirepoix, just off the town's medieval central square. It looked quite old but had a great shower, a comfy bed and the shutters opened so I could hear the cathedral bells chime 7 am (I'd already been up for an hour editing pictures). Separated from the team for a night, I went for a walk and discovered there was a concert in the cathedral. For ten Euros I got a seat in the soaring nave with what appeared to be half the town for a program of Bach, Duruflé and others.
The girlfriends are back with us and they had the music blaring from their convertible high up on the Port de Bales as the boys pushed up to the summit. All made it up and down to the finish over some pretty exposed pitches without incident. I think it would have been easier to come down on the bike than it was by car. Twice I found myself on the outside edge of a 1.5 lane road with a camper. I hate those white things.
There are many more images of the team to post, but for a change I decided to offer this one of "Ted" a Canadian riding the Tour solo with support from Steve Bauer's Touring company. It is one of my favorite images from the entire trip so far. The small size doesn't do it justice. Our team arrived at the same location a few minutes later, but somehow the larger group just doesn't have the same iconic power as the single rider and the lone tree. It's 12:30 am and roll call is at 6:30... time to call Juli, grab a shower and be in bed by 1 am. I'm running on fumes.
Yesterday I achieved something quite special for a non-riding member of the team, I was given the dubious honor of the coureur balai (CB) jersey. The translation doesn't make great sense but basically it means "driver of the broom wagon" Each evening as the team discusses the next day's stage, one rider is awarded the CB orange jersey for some form of stupidity or mistake. Forgetting kit, falling off your bike etc. I managed to get the CB by slow-motion sliding the Mercedes into a ditch. A French truck driver, Spanish tourists with rope and the better part of the team had me back on the road in 20 minutes. No harm, no foul, but I was a shoe in for the stage CB.
Today I'll proudly wear the jersey as I climb the Port de Paille on the A2B hybrid bike. This will be the first time I've ridden anything since the prologue, I'm looking forward to it.
No time to breathe... shove some breakfast in my mouth, push the button to post these images and run to the car.
Our traveling circus is safely encamped for the night in a hotel playing host to 50 Gendarmes from Paris assigned to Tour duty this week.
It was another hot stage today with the group getting pushed much of the way to Bourg-les-Valence by a fierce tailwind. After the only significant climb in the stage they made good time until Simon had a bad puncture that required a new tire. That cost us while one of the support vans made its way back to find the group on the road. In the meantime I wandered into fields of lavender, wheat and hay bales to try and capture more of the countryside. Everywhere cicadas were screeching out their mating sound.
Stage Nine took the team over the mythic Col de la Madeleine. Out of the steaming hot valley, the road wound its way up to the high alpine pass like tiers on a wedding cake. The elevation and a couple of brief showers helped cool the riders as they ground out the 25 kms to the top. Television can’t transmit the immense scale of this landscape. It truly is a mythic theatre that I’d love to revisit (and climb) without all the white campers that appear like mushrooms each day around 3 pm.
Stage Ten was tougher than expected with the Col du Noyer taking a toll, particularly on Micheil who had fallen hard the day before and scraped and bruised himself quite badly. When at last the road plunged over the edge of the Saint-Laurent-Du-Cros to Gap it was not for the nervous. The first few pitches are perilous, with only an eighteen inch wall separating the riders from a 1000’ free fall into oblivion. You’d better have your “bottle” descending here.
Tonight we had pizza in Bourge-De-Péage 20 paces from the slow but powerful current of the River Isère. After the meal I stood on the bridge watching hundreds of swallows spiraling and chasing each other high above in a glorious sunset (the first of this trip).
Something about their frenetic play high above an eternal river reminded me how short this journey of ours really is. Time for a change I think.
I managed to shoot Stage Eight of the race as it left Morzine yesterday. Lance fighting to come back with help from Brajkovic. The hi-res images clearly show a fierce determination in Lance's eyes. Thomas Voeckler using his tongue to power his way to Avoriaz and finally a funny sequence with Lars Boom off the front just after he shouted "Hello Ladies" in Dutch to the beautiful girls in our party. He then turns around with a huge grin to his Rabobank teammate who's looking at the girls. Good to see they can still appreciate the best things life has to offer even while they're suffering on the bike.
