Despite the snow happening at the moment I write this, it is spring here in MN.  Spring means cold, wet and early season racing. Here in MN we get anxious to get out. Many train all winter for THE START of the season.  Last night kicked off the Minnesota State Fairground crit series. Some folks that know me might wonder why I went out to a road racing event. Yep, that is out of my territory for participation, but it is fully within my realm of loving cycling and challenging myself to learn to photograph more types of cycling imagery.

Actually, going up to the event is part of a fun project that I am participating in. A couple of other photographers came with me and we all watched and shot. Each of us brought our own style of shooting to the event. We’ll be hitting up a few events and at the end, we will all be picking some of our favorite images and sharing them with each other. It really is just a fun creative culture.

Way back in the 90’s I raced a few crits myself and crits are about speed….And depending on category not getting caught up and crashing to the pavement. When I think of criterium racing, speed, effort and crashing come to mind. Those are the types of things that I hope to convey in this project. Speed I think is difficult to capture in a meaningful way. In this series, I share a few techniques that I attempted. Some worked. Some did not. Given this was the first night and got a few issues worked out with camera settings and site lines, I think in the end I will end up with I want. Today I’ll share a few images, mostly with a panning technique or a motion blur. I just missed focus on a few shots featuring peoples faces and the effort they are putting out. Maybe next time.

All in all a great night at the races. Finished the night with a Surly Furious talking about photography and techniques for capturing this fast paced cycling sport.  Hope you enjoy the images.

So…Hope to see you out there in the coming weeks. Please say hello and maybe I can get your picture!