I got back last night from Greenville, SC and shooting the USPRO Championships where we had the closest finish I have ever seen. Tyler Hamilton just beat out Blake Caldwell to put on the stars and stripes jersey. It was so close that no one could tell who won. When they finally looked back at the view from the super high speed camera you could see that Tyler won by about 1/2 of a tire, or .002. Without that camera their would not have been any way to declare a winner. Congratulations to Tyler and to the Rock Racing team! Mark Z provided the superb coverage that you can read over at Cyclingnews.
I've got a bunch of writing to get caught up on here but in the meantime I wanted to write about an interesting conversation I was having with my moto driver Chris Monroe, who has just started his own blog over here at
MotoFoto. It seems that some of the moto guys were discussing how we have such long days out there and we are shooting like crazy but they only end up seeing so few photos online or in print. Well I got to worrying that Chris was going to drop me right there on the side of the road and find someone newer, younger, lighter and much better than me so I was trying to explain the shooting phenomenon to Chris with much expediency. I pleaded my case well enough to convince him that it was worthwhile getting me around and that I would try harder. I'm sure that during most of our days together he thinks I am just taking in the country side while he expertly maneuvers us between cars and riders, through lush valleys and over craggy mountains, down dusty roads and beyond just to "get the shot". But during those times my mind is calculating and processing the information at hand. It's a complex machine :) I think about the race, who's riding well, who's in the break, what climbs are ahead or what descents, how far is it to go and who will be there at the end? Their is an uncertain number of influences that decide where, when and how I shoot. Beyond all that I've got to deal with outside influences like the weather or a bumpy road. Sometimes us waiting an extra 30 seconds somewhere seems nuts I know, but it can make all the difference in being in that crucial spot to see the action that makes the race. Decisions like this need to be made constantly throughout the day.
During one day of racing I shoot hundreds of images, some work out and some don't. We work very hard to get those images. So Chris and the fellas are thinking that with all of the work we do and all of the images I come back with why don't they, and everyone else, see more. A legitimate question. While pondering this query this morning I just happened to come across a blog post by very well known photo journalist
Vincent Laforet. He is recently back from the Olympics where he spent 18 days shooting the events. In his post he gave a great example of images shot verses images used.
Laforet spent 18 days shooting at the Olympics and finished up with 28,444 frames shot. Out of that he edited it down to 1,509 "selects". Out of that 1,509 he transmitted, or used so far, 273 images. That means that out of 28,444 frames shot he used just under 1%!
Laforet goes on to explain how Sports Illustrated had 10 staff photographers over there and they shot over 300,000 frames! After the first round of edits that number was dwindled down to 17,000. After a hand off to the next level of editor it again got cut down to 1046 of what they call "super selects". And once those images went to the SI director of photography he sliced that last number down to just 135 frames. That means that out of 300,000 images that the SI staffers shot only .045%, or 135, were selected.
If you compare all of that to my day of shooting the USPRO road race I ended up shooting 900 frames. Out of those 900 frames I pulled out 120 on my first pass through which puts me at 7.5%. Out of those 120 I used 42 which puts me at about 4.6% for the day. Now I didn't have remote cameras going like they do at the Olympics or anything like that so that definitely skews the numbers but I think I'm pretty happy with my 4.6% for the day. Hopefully that 4.6% will keep Chris from trading me in on a better model.
Seriously though I'd never thought about it quite that way until Chris asked me about it. I always try to end up with as many good images at the end of the day as possible but I've never calculated it out like this to see where I was at. Next week we head out to the Tour of Missouri and I'll have to see what my percentages are like there. If by mid-race you see me standing on the side of the road with my helmet on and no moto driver you'll now I haven't gotten those percentages up!