IT is practice practice practice,

Photography is about practice, prctice, practice, trying new shutter speeds and lens lengths and different positions and angles, with and without tripod and just getting a fine flow organised.

THEN

When you get home and look at your work, you also need an efficient workflow. Some people say dont over delete and others say be ruthless in your deleting.......I am a bit of both.......I delete a stack but even if a pic that screams out "DELETE" holds my attention for that second too long, I keep it. There is a great post on deleting ruthlessly  "DELETE RUTHLESSLY"

I raced my bike yesterday at the Paynesville Crit and then when the real heroes of the day came out to ride, I took out the Camera and practiced and came up with some images like these:-

THE ACCIDENTAL PORTRAIT

This was a classc where you are shooting madly and when comes the time to look at the images closer, you see that someone has actually spotted you taking pics and looks straight at the camera. This works well in some cases, in this case as the other guys are so focussed on what they are doing, it is like a moment in time..........but it as just a real "Captured Moment" not planned at all

THE RETAINED "DELETE"

This is what I meant, I had initially put this in the "dammit, it is out of focus" pile, BUT something kind of kept me looking at it, so I played with the colors and levels in LR and contrast and with the amount of Orange and Black, it just seemed to work so it is now a fave of mine..

USING COLOR AND A COMMON ELEMENT IN COMPOSITION

I desaturated this shot, and with the details in the wheels, a common thread grouped the elements together and it seemed to work a bit. Yes I admit totally unplanned.......just shoot lots as they are going very fast

ACTION NEEDS MOVEMENT

A good action shot needs movement which screams out, theses guys are going fast.





MOVEMENT AND MOOD

There is not enough detail in this to make out much as I upped the contrast a lot, there is a dynamic feel in this shot, Maybe it has some mood and seriousness to the racing.  Needs some tighter cropping to really work though I feel.

USE YOUR BACKGROUNDS

I did spend some time trying to use the lovely backdrop with the riders, although the large peleton completely dominated the shot and so I could only use a few riders as they came along to get a real background/rider feel........I did some shots with the blurry backdrop and panned the riders and some with the backdrop in focus and blurred riders and it is all practice.

Overall it was a fun day and you can see the images here at ACTIONPACTPIX, Images are available for order. Pictures can be ordered in digital form or paper form......The facebook sized digital pics are FREE (they come with a watermark...unlike all other downloads..........)