Monday the 15th June was a day of two alpine passes for me. I had a commission from the organisers of the World Tour Swiss cycling race, the Tour de Suisse. This tour has a history of competing with the French speaking (but also in Switerland) Tour de Romandie and its route almost always sticks to the Swiss German speaking Cantons. For me, this meant adventuring over to fresh parts of the country that I don’t often get to visit.I was to spend Monday’s stage on the back of a motorbike and had been told that the Gotthard pass, that the race was due to ride up, was truly an iconic piece of road. I’d not heard of the pass until this week, but it was said that if it was in France, it would be one of the most famous cycling roads ever. The ascent, believe it or not, is cobbled. In terms of bike racing, it’s a little like Paris – Roubaix, but on a mountain. With time to spare in the morning, I decided to drive the pass before seeing it from the back of a bike later in the day. It’s really quite special, like nothing i’ve seen before, and of course cobbled as promised.
Having finished my days work, it was time to head back home. A quick google map search showed three possible routes, with me naturally choosing the shortest distance but longest predicted time. “Maybe it’s a mountain pass” I thought to myself. What followed was a 37km stretch of road up to the Passo Della Novena, which at 2478m is the second highest paved road in Switzerland. What makes this pass so special is that following a great day at work, I didn’t see a single car for the whole time. Incredible.
Tag: tour de suisse
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Swiss Alpine Passes
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Behind The Shot: Hypersync At The Tour de Suisse
In a previous blog post, i talked about Humanising the Peloton and specifically paying attention to some of the smaller tours that act as the foundations to the Grand Tours (like the Tour de France with its 12 million roadside spectators and 3.5 billion TV audience). The Tour de Suisse is one of the final races before the yearly procession around France, and despite the worlds best cyclists competing in it, I was pretty much alone in a field all day long to set up this shot to feature in today’s behind the shot.I’ve long been inspired to shoot a cycling race using studio strobes ever since seeing the amazing work Brent Humphreys carried out during the 2007 Tour de France. He covered the tour and made a very strong portfolio, including two incredible shots taken from both the team and individual time trial. With this years Tour de Suisse time trial occurring very close to me, it was a perfect opportunity to try and capture something unique.In my bag this day was a Profoto Acute B2 600 AirS, Profoto TeleZoom reflector, 4 Speedlights and a Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 and Plus X.One of the great things of the Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 is the ability to hypersync. In general, the flash synchronisation of a studio strobe is set at 1/250 of a second. This shutter speed really limits the use of flash during a sunny day, especially for a battery pack that is 600W like the Profoto Acute B2. With a little software calibration on the Pocket Wizard TT1 though I was able to make it so that I could push the shutter speed beyond that, freezing the (very fast) action as the riders came by.This shot is an image of Omega Pharma Quickstep rider Matteo Trentin, and it was captured towards the end of the day. OPQS had a great Tour de Suisse with Matteo Winning one of the previous stages and his team mate, Tony Martin spending most of the race in the leaders jersey. I’m positioned low on the ground, practically lying on the floor, with a Canon 1d Mark IV and Sigma 15mm Fisheye combination. Directly opposite me on the other side of the road is the Profoto strobe, with an additional speedlight (which can be seen) behind his front wheel. Directly to my right are two additional speedlights for fill and the sun is high right. I was torn with having the speedlight illuminated behind the wheel and i removed it after this shot, but in this instance i think it added to shot rather than ruining it. It’s very much a case of personal preference on this but i generally stay away from having strobes visible in an image.I’ve had mixed results with hypersync but this shot came out at 1/2500 freezing the cyclist completely, despite the 65km/hr cyclist flying through the field of view of the fisheye. The results are so sharp that you do lose an element of speed, but on this instance it was the style that I was looking for. I’ve wanted to take an editorial event such as a cycle race and make commercial styled images from for a while now and a time trial route provides the ideal studio setting. I was able to move my flashlights freely without interruption and a subject passing by every minute.Despite the tranquility of a day in the fields of Switzerland, I still look to the Tour de France, along with its 12 million spectators, with a great deal of excitement. There’s nothing quite like the carnival of le tour!You can view more of my ‘behind the shot’ series here.