spare cycles

Gran Fondo photos now for sale

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:00:01 -0800

If you head over to the official Levi's Gran Fondo gallery, you can purchase photos from the event by myself and other photogs like Darrell Parks, Lyne Lamoureux, and Carson Blume. The photos help raise money for the event.

My set there includes additional shots of individuals -- I hear there is a tagging service that will soon make it easier to find your own shots by #.

2011 Levi's Gran Fondo Gallery

LGF Remix (Playing with Lightroom 3)

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:22:57 -0800

I purchased Lightroom 3 yesterday, so naturally I played around with some of the LGF photos that I had already processed. Most of the edits I did were things I could have accomplished in Lightroom 2, though 3 feels a little more 'responsive'. The main improvements are the much, much better noise reduction options, better post-crop vignette options, and grain additions. Also, you can now add an image watermark without having to install plugins. When I get more time, I'll play with the lens correction features.

When I edit my reel, I usually try to spend < 30 seconds per photo; because I was playing with LR3 I got to pull a little more out of these photos than usual, so I thought I'd share the remixes.

Levi's Gran Fondo 2011 Gallery

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 15:03:15 -0800

More photos here

Interrupting Cow (Levi's Gran Fondo)

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:20:45 -0800

Photo by Ken Conley

Endless entertainment (no cows were harmed in the shooting of this gallery).

Tour of California 2011: Detour through the Central Valley

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 20:12:35 -0800

Like most, I was disappointed that the planned traditional route down PCH was cancelled due to the road washing out. I've driven 101 past Salinas and wasn't expecting much of the re-routed course. But I was wrong.

This may be my favorite scenic that I've taken. I'm fickle, so that's as much based on the fact it is more recent than other scenics I've taken. I like that it expresses my point of view. Darrell Parks makes fun of me for taking photos of "ants" -- whenever he catches me scrambling up a hillside, he'll ask me if I'm taking photos of ants; I'll reply that I need to climb higher. In this case, I climbed higher up the hill, setup a remote with a 70-200, then wandered down to stand on a fence post and block Darrell's shot.

Steve Anderson documented this process:

I got stupidly greedy and attempted to get a shot with my 300mm before switching to the wide. As I struggled to get the 300mm off my camera body, I nearly fell off the post, recovered, and got off two other framings:

Here's another shot from earlier in the day; it doesn't quite work at web resolution, but I'm still fond of it. Steve Anderson's take works much better and has an added bonus: pink flowers.

Here are Darrell and Steve's galleries from the day:

Tour of California 2011: Zabriskie

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:25:50 -0800

I wasn't having a good day at the Solvang time trial -- fourth time on the same course and you start running out of ideas for 'new' shots. For Solvang, I alway end up somewhere along Ballard Canyon because it has the most variety of the course. You can stick around in the town itself and get two shots -- start and finish -- but I did that my first year and didn't really want to do that again.

I saw Zabriskie was coming soon and I found myself down the road in not a great spot. I rushed up the road to where a tree was and plopped myself down. I liked the spot because the riders would be in the aero bars. I was also shooting very wide as I feel that gives TT shots a different feel. You have a bigger depth-of-field to play with and the rider feels much closer to you.

Shooting wide in a TT can be a little tricky. The riders were zipping by on a slight downhill and they weren't really sticking to a particular line. On the plus side, the descent is fairly technical so the riders weren't going to be tucking their heads down and hiding their faces. The metering in my camera was really getting confused by sun coming through the shade from the tree, so I had to manually dial things in and hope for the best.

I got lucky. Zabriskie came right along the inside line of the road, so I could point my lens right up in his face and get the shot. The hardest thing is not press the shutter too soon -- you really want that moment where they fill up the wide angle.

I didn't spend much time this year shooting podiums, but you always know to stick around when Zabriskie is there. For Solvang, he brought his son on stage, which led to a very different 'podium kiss' shot.

For the final stage, Zabriskie engaged in his traditional dousing of the podium girls with champagne, which was prefaced by this Hulk-like scream:

Tour of California 2011: Snow!

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:13:41 -0800

For various reasons, I didn't end up doing galleries/posts this year at the Tour of California. If you want to see my work, you'll have to wait for some upcoming issues of Peloton Magazine, or checkout the gallery of mine they ran midway through.

Now that I have more time again, I'll share a couple of pics and say a few words.

This first photo is the Stage 1 cancellation in a nutshell. If any of you thought the riders were wimps for pushing for protesting the stage, the photo above was taken on course, at about the same time the riders would have ridden it. The motorcycle you see on the ground is one of the photo motos, and it was one of six to crash. If there weren't so much snow falling, you'd see another motorcycle on the ground 50 yards ahead.

FYI: As much as I like the bike xing sign, Darrell Parks has a much better take. He was bold enough to get out of his car and get some shots. I was too chicken -- my car was quickly loosing traction and I was wanted to get to a safe stopping point ASAP.

Gallery up at Peloton Magazine

Thu, 19 May 2011 15:53:12 -0800

I'm shooting for a new client this year: Peloton Magazine. I'm enjoying the assignment because it lets me get a little more artistic than in the past. My first gallery is now up at PelotonMagazine.com.

Gallery

Paved Mag Issue 2

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:07:06 -0800

Paved Magazine issue 2 is out with a photo I took at San Rafael Twilight on the cover. Paved is a great mag, especially if you like cycling photos, so buy a copy!

Darrell Parks' 2011 Calendar

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:26:24 -0800

Darrell Parks and I have shot many an event together. He's put together a 2011 Tour of California calendar that, I'm ashamed to say, is better than anything I could have done. It's modestly priced at $12.95, which is like buying 12 prints for a little over $1 each. If you hurry, it could even make a good stocking stuffer.

2011 Calendar

It's a Girl Thing at Integrate

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:57:33 -0800

My friend (and trainer) Al is running a women's cycling clinic, details are below:

Northern California's premiere women's cycling experience, "It's a Girl Thing!" Powered by VeloReviews and WinVision returns July 31, 2010. Aimed at beginner riders, this clinic will help you to ride longer and pedal stronger.

Sign up by Tue July 27, and enter the promo code "IAGT10" when you check out to receive the clinic at $99 ($199).

Link

Testarossa Velodrome Challenge

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:16:53 -0800

The velodrome is always a great way to tune up the photo skills. I've got two new camera bodies (7D and 50D), and while the ToC got me well used to them, you don't get to experiment as much when you're at a big race like that. So, I was off to the Testarossa Velodrome Challenge at Hellyer to give it a spin. It's a lot more liberating when you're trying to take a bad shot, just to learn another way of doing it wrong.

Here are the rest of the photos.

ToC 2010 Stage 7: Los Angeles

Sat, 22 May 2010 20:20:31 -0800

Photo by Ken Conley

Well, the stage winners have been a bit harder to predict than usual. Two Sagans, Chicchi upsetting Cav, and now Panzer Wagon Tony Martin. Liquigas and HTC have plenty to be thrilled with this ToC. Moving the race to May really has shaken up the typical storyline, resulted in some interesting new stages, and given us a lot of drama -- even if it hasn't changed the weather much. Levi will probably try to go out guns ablazing, but HTC has been incredibly impressive. I can't believe Martin pulled off a performance like today after such a hard day yesterday bringing back the breaks.

I shot "boring" today. The only chance I had to do something interesting was for Cancellara, who started very early in the day. Two days on moto has given me plenty of spread material, so I had to start shooting some tight-in rider portraits to given the magazine more to work with.

Its been fun to meet some readers on this trip. Thanks to Pat, Manny, Jarrett, and others (and apologies for any name misspellings) for saying hi. Hope the photos this time around keep you reading. I'll do a "best of" gallery when I get back, but for now I have to make sure I have time to sleep.

Stage 5: What a Day

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:27:34 -0800

Photo by Ken Conley

ToC 2010 Stage 3: Zabriskie wins the GC sprint

Tue, 18 May 2010 20:10:56 -0800

Photo by Ken Conley

The Santa Cruz was less decisive this year, but it did whittle the GC contenders down to the three who crossed the line first today. Zabriskie took the stage win, but Michael Rogers and Levi Leipheimer were there, and all are strong enough to put in a good show at the LA time trial.

I'm going to award today's DVD prize to AJ. The prediction is a bit late, but predicting late is a good gamble on a stage like today's.

As always, please check Road Bike Action and Steephill.tv for my galleries. Today's reel has shots from San Francisco, Tunitas, La Honda, and Santa Cruz.