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Race vehicle follow-up – photographers

by Gerard Vroomen

July 12, 2011 - Filed under: Company

Comments (1)

“Too radical, won’t work”, some say about the idea to have fewer vehicles in the peloton (though fewer say that today than when I first posted it in May). But the idea isn’t really radical at all. I’ll go into some more detail in the next few posts, based on your feedback and questions:

“But we love the photography”. So do I, and my proposal would not reduce the number of photos you see in the media and hardly the variety.
“You need this many photographers in order not to miss anything.” If the goal is really not to miss anything, then you should spread them out. But instead many want to be in the same place to shoot the same photo, and that’s exactly where the problem occurs. You can’t let 16 photographers into the race for wide coverage, and then have them all in the same spot “because that’s the photo the media want”.
In reality there are two groups of photographers; those who capture the actual racing, and those who capture the special moments, the artistic side. You don’t need too many of the first group, as is proven already today. Right now, only 3 photographers are allowed to work the final portion of each stage, and they then share their photos with the rest. If 3 is enough to cover the most exciting part of the stage, wouldn’t it be enough for the rest of it too?
“Variety will be less”. Given that these photographers are all fighting for the same spot to take the same photo, there is no variety now. In fact, photo quality probably suffers because of the fight needed to take it. Plus there is the other part of the proposal:
Assign 2-3 photographers to take the artistic photos (and no, I don’t mean another sunflower shot), not in the thick of the action but around it, where they won’t affect the race flow.

Bottomline, the sport needs to take decisions for the betterment of the sport. Those decisions shouldn’t unduly penalize photographers or anybody else, but on the other hand we also cannot allow the sport to be hurt for the benefit of these other groups.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments section or via twitter @gerardvroomen. To ensure you get tomorrow’s follow-up post, you can subscribe here.

1 response for this Entry

Pierre says:

July 13, 2011

I see no reason that pool photos is not the way right now.

My sister saw the tour when they passed through Gex years ago, she said that the preshow was so different vs the actual peleton, which passes in seconds. Her final reaction was TOO MANY CARS!