Picture(s) of the Day: Showdown

davismasters.jpg

Photo: Copyright 2009, Mark Adkison/Hors Categorie Photography/All rights reserved.

I’m on the Davis Bike Club email list. Sometimes I get messages from a guy named Mark Adkison. Not sure whether photographing racing cyclists is his day job or the one he does for love in his spare time. He’s very good, and he’s got a little business going called Hors Categorie Photography. Every once in a while, he posts a message to the Davis list about some new group of photos he’s just published. I remember lots of shooting he’s done of the Tours of California.

Today he sent a note about a master’s road race up in Davis. I browsed just one of the albums, from Lap 3 of the race. I found myself captivated: First, by the pictures of the small peloton in the Central Valley winter fog. Second, because flipping through the pictures in sequence really tells a story: you see the guys trying to make their moves, and you see the ones coming through for their turns to pull (the guy above is a case in point; he he keeps reappearing in the front, then rolling off; he’s working for someone in that pack, I think, though I can’t tell who). I don’t know a single one of the racers, but the shots really put me there. Check out the full gallery.

(And thanks to Mark for permission to post the picture above.)