TOUR’15 St.9: Roadside Photos!

By PEZ Crew On Jul 12, 2015

Roadside Stage 9: The stage 9 Team Time Trial from Vannes to Plumelac offered a welcome change to the hectic days of race chasing, instead allowing time to stake out some primo locations for more primo photos of how the Tour looks through the camera lens of photog Marcus Enno.

– Photos and words by Marcus Enno –

We had to be out of today’s hotel by 11am so with nowhere else to go, we decided to just be really early for the time trial that didn’t start until 3pm. Arriving so early meant none of the riders would be out for hours so we had time to walk the first part of the course to look for good locations.

Our usual schedule has had us arriving just in time to get some shots of the riders warming up and signing on before we zip off along the course. But today we were just staying in the start town.

We started walking when all the cars, vans and music of the publicity caravan came past. Packets of lollies, key rings and hats were being thrown from the passing parade and a lot seemed to be aimed right at our heads.

After dodging most of the barrage we made it to the old city walls of the town and surrounding gardens. There was a good elevated location to shoot the riders with the wall as the backdrop.

With over an hour still to wait we decided to head back to the start by way of the Tour de France Village.

There was a banquet of food inside and it’s free if you have a media pass. Once inside I got a whiff of what was on offer and couldn’t believe we hadn’t been snacking here every stage. After the biggest cheese and ham toastie I had ever seen and a handful of bite size salamis it was back to work.

There were plenty of time trial bikes out on show but few riders as they only come out for a warm up about 45 minutes before they are due to race. We photographed who we could but the first team Orica Green Edge had already rolled down the start ramp.

Hastily we took our pre navigated course away from the congestion of race route back to the old city walls. It was much busier than before but the spots we scoped meant no messing around looking for angles. We covered off all the spots and then decided to walk a bit more of the course to find some extras.

Just around the next corner was a good spot but it required getting as low down as possible. I was sitting on the ground as the riders came into view, then literally lay and rested the camera on the ground.

This aroused some interest from the onlookers especially a French kid sitting next to me. I could tell he was trying to see the screen of the camera so in the next gap between riders I clicked through some frames to show him.

Then every time I photographed a team he wanted to see the results. When he was happy with the shot he nodded his head looking pleased with the outcome. I’d be surprised if this kid doesn’t become a high flying art director, looking over photographers shoulders while they sweat it out trying the get the shot.