Matthew Botos

After last year, I knew the Mid-Atlantic Super Series at Bear Creek Mountain Resort wasn’t to be missed: lots of people come out for the final race on a tough course, and the resort serves up hot BBQ and cold beer on the deck afterward!

Like any photo shoot, it started well before the race, reviewing last year’s event and thinking of new ideas for this year. As always, Tom Burrows created an excellent course map, which helped in choosing a variety of locations that were still hikable with camera gear. Then there were the signs: one to let people know where I am on the course so no one crashes when flashes start popping off in the woods, and a banner advertising the website for photo sales. Being there early allowed me to place it in a highly-visible central location:

My first shooting position was at the start, where riders were warming up in the mud left by several days of rain:

Bear Creek has also invested heavily in new facilities, including a hotel, spa, and conference center, so to worked those into some shots:

The starts go in waves, so after shooting a few from the ground, I climbed to the second story deck to shoot this wider scene that really places the race:

A longer lens isolates the riders below idle snow-blowers:

While the riders made the long climb around the top of the ski slopes, I headed into the woods to my next position. Along the way, I got to talking to the mother of one of the junior racers, who joined me to find a good spot to watch along the course. In between chatting, I took a few portraits for her:

At the bridge, I setup a single flash on a stand off to the side, and moved further upstream to get riders crossing the bridge:

If you click through the photos, you’ll notice some slower shutter speeds here than usual for sports. With a small, fast 1/1000 sec flash pulse to freeze the action, I can use the 1/60 shutter to bring in some more ambient light without raising the ISO and noise.

The majority of the day, I shot with a new and relatively inexpensive lens, the Tamron AF 17-50mm F/2.8. It’s fairly sharp wide open, and events like these are accessible enough to be shot with short glass.

I also tried some more creative shots, twisting the camera during a longer exposure for this effect as inspired by David Hobby and Joe McNally’s “Faces in the Forest” in The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes:

Though very hit-or-miss, it adds a very different effect when it works; here’s another one with a zoom (tele to wide, starting the zoom before hitting the shutter for a smooth effect):

The bulk of each race comes through in a staggered wave; when it tapers off is a good time to change locations. Along the way, I’ll shoot on-camera flash which generally isn’t as interesting, but beats missing images and potential sales:

Scouting a few technical sections led me to a narrow section of roots downhill through the trees. The slope provides good high and low angles, while the narrow, technical trail means riders will likely slow down a bit. Here I went with a two-light setup: a mid-height key light on the right firing up to get under helmets and visors, and a high backlight on the left to provide some edge. Here it’s gelled blue:

And a more natural CTO orange:

As you can see, I did pick up my longer lens to do some close-ups, though these were much tougher to capture at speed - you’re always better off taking it a bit wide and cropping to make sure you get the action.

In this wide shot, you can also see two small trees making a narrow opening that became the crux of this section:

After a series of wipe-outs and near-misses in this spot, I moved my lights back to capture a bit of the action, which didn’t take long:

The flash won’t keep up with the camera’s 6 frames per second, but I probably could’ve jammed on the shutter and gotten a few frames of a sequence. Sometimes, though, all I had time for was a single frame, because they were crashing and sliding right towards me:

Which brings up another consideration in picking where you stand: making sure you’ve got a clear path of escape, and gear & health insurance in case you’re not fast enough!

By this point, it was well past lunch and while snacks & water tided me over, the flow of racers was tapering off and the BBQ was calling to me:

Refueled with a pulled pork sandwich and a lager (Yuengling, of course), I found a suitable position (sprawled on my stomach) for the kids race:

And since you always need more literal and figurative cow bell, here’s some wide-open bokeh:

Getting back on my feet provided some elevated isolation against the slight slope:

From an overcast morning, it had become a beautiful warm, sunny afternoon, helped out by a little polarizing filter:

The podium awards started with the kids and one of my favorite shots of the day, imperfect focus and all:

The standard head-on podium shots got a little stale, so I switched to this angle:

There was also some good stuff at the prize table, as this happy winner demonstrates:

Here’s my gear at the end of the day:

This is a Burton Zoom 28L Backpack, which has a camera compartment on the opposite side with the 70-200 F4 and second flash. Light stands go in the avalanche probe pockets on the sides; accessories, snacks, and water fill the rest. The rolled up sign is my banner; the other sign I bungee to a tree up the trail from my shooting position.

One of the great things about watching and photographing mountain biking is seeing the range of facial expressions, and knowing the ones I make while riding must be equally rich. And with that, my final image:

View all the Bear Creek photos