Assignment 5: Covering an Event. The Plan.

Being an avid cycling fan and a Tour de France addict and knowing that the Tour was visiting Yorkshire in 2014 this event seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.  I had also watched the Tour previously, both in London in 2007 and in France so I knew what to expect.  The Tour de France would certainly be the biggest sporting event to take place in the UK in 2014.

Is it Feasible?
Having watched the Tour de France in previous years I knew that, with a bit of planning it would be possible to get a good spot along the Tour route to enable me to take photographs of the race and other activities around it.  I hoped to photograph not only the race itself, but also spectators, the publicity caravan and media circus.

Part of the assignment brief is to make an effort to find a market for my work.  I felt that this was going to be my biggest problem, other than securing suitable images.  The Tour was to visit Yorkshire and so my local media would have little interest in the images and the national cycling press would be awash with images from their own professional sports photographers.  I do, however, have a good relationship with my local bike shop who were in the process of opening a brand new store in the centre of town.  I decided to approach them to see if they would be interested in buying one or more prints to display in the new premises.

Permissions and Access
Having watched and, indeed, photographed the Tour de France from the roadside in previous years, I knew that access and permission would be no problem.  Although I would be restricted to photographing by the roadside, I knew that I would have two opportunities as the Tour spent two days in Yorkshire.  Despite the fact that riders would pass in minutes, if not seconds, my idea was to be in position several hours before the race passed through in order to photograph the whole build up to the event on two consecutive days.  As far as the riders were concerned I planned to photograph from a very low viewpoint on one day with a relatively wide angle lens and from a more distant perspective and, hopefully, elevated position, with a telephoto lens on the other.

Site Reconnaissance
Coming from this part of the world and visiting Derbyshire and Yorkshire on many occasions over the years for both holidays and leisure activities, I know the area well.  I also had the advantage of having known the actual route of the Tour for several months as it was widely publicised.  Having studied the route for both days the race was to be in Yorkshire, I earmarked two venues where I hoped to watch and photograph. I used a large scale OS map to pick my particular locations and on the first day identified a location just as the race would leave Masham in North Yorkshire.  The riders would be closing in on the finish at Harrogate and the sprinters teams would be chasing down any breakaway and working hard to dominate the front end of the peloton.  On the second day I chose another spot reasonable close to the finish, this time in Sheffield.  This would be at the top of the climb out of the village of Midhopestones and I hoped that the riders would be more strung out following the efforts on a series of climbs leading up to this spot.  So, two different locations with different pressures on the riders, so, hopefully two different types of image.  One other advantage of these two locations was the fact that they could be approached on roads without driving on the route itself as I knew that these roads would be closed.  In the weeks leading up to the event, I visited both locations to confirm as best as possible that my plan would work.  On visiting my chosen site on day 2, however, I realised that the access road was the only one in and out and, if I left it too late on the day, I might not be able to get there owing to congestion.  In view of this I decided to spend the night in the car to ensure I could get there.

A provisional shot list
The key images would be of the riders as the race passed by but these would be different on both days:

• wide angle shots as the riders passed in front of me and from a very low viewpoint
• distance shots with a telephoto lens to compress the perspective and from an elevated view point having identified a suitable grass bank

As well as images of the race itself, I also planned the following shots:

• having decided to spend the night in the car, I hoped for images of the build up of cars and campervans and people spending the night out
• spectators arriving to take their places by the roadside
• spectators celebrating in true Tour de France tradition i.e roadside parties, fancy dress etc
• the media publicity caravan that always precedes the race
• helicopters filming for TV
• local police, hopefully in party mood
• local cyclists trying out the route for themselves in the days/hours before the race
• the traditional grafitti on the road encouraging favourite riders and perhaps spectators producing it