Beacon UCI Cyclocross

Saturday was my first time to photographing a race that I would not be racing myself. Since I threw out my back last weekend at the Fair Hill Cyclocross race I am still in a lot of pain but decided I would head out to Bridgton NJ to photograph the race. The day was pretty crappy, dark and cloudy with a bit of early rain. A lot of the course was covered in trees making it even darker. A lot of photographers complain about full sun and having to deal with back lighting and shadows, etc.....I prefer full sun to dark days like this and to top it off it was one of those days where you just feel like you are shooting like

crap. I had to use flash pretty much 90% which I do not like. Now don't get me wrong as I enjoy using flash for certain type of photos as you can see in my galleries, but not for a whole day.

Getting to the race I decided to leave my 300 2.8vr at home as I did not want to carry it around all day with a bad back, plus I though the course was a bit tight for a 300mm lens. So today I just shot with the 70-200 2.8vr, 17.5 2.8 and a few with the 10.5x fisheye. Another bonus for the day is since I race in the B Masters and my photog buddy Dennis S also races in the B Masters - this class never gets any real photos taken for them - so at least at Beacon I could get that class photographed once this year.

I posted a few sample images from the day - complete race galleries can be viewed here: Beacon Cyclocross
Next up will be this weekends Crank Brothers US Grand Prix Race in NJ. I am still not 100% sure I am am just going to shoot only the Pro races or a few other classes as well. Have to wait and see what the schedule looks like first.