Taking a Different Approach - Shooting the Team on Film
Our photographer and media co-ordinator, Adam Winfield of Through the Lens Media, shares an alternative approach to his team photography that’s crept into his work with us.
Before I look back at my best photos, and moments from following the team in 2024 I thought I’d share an alternative approach that I’ve been playing with when time has allowed and during the ‘down’ times of working with the team, film or ‘analogue’ photography.
Whilst I love photographing the team, their races, preparations and the whole environment of top end racing, sometimes the content creation is a fast moving conveyor belt played out across the internet at speed. It often feels as though as fast as the girls race, our content is produced, shared, consumed and left behind in anticipation of the next event. This isn’t confined to sport though and increasingly, as a professional photographer of 20+ years I’m beginning to find the instant consumption of media a challenge to maintaining high standards. To counter this I’ve started to experiment with shooting in film, on vintage cameras!
I squeezed a film camera into my kit for the trip to Girona for camp in February and the weather, and light in Spain, certainly helped with producing interesting shots, analogue photography is much less flexible when light is poor.
I also included a black and white film too, there’s no shooting everything in colour and converting later, loading your camera with black and white film means your fully committed to the look.
Analogue photography is immediately much slower than digital, the process of shooting a photograph takes longer as film cameras are manual, shooting continuously is possible, but at a much, much slower rate and crucially, focussing needs planning and manually setting. Of course it’s impossible to review captured photos, to see them on a screen and send them to the team, instead you have to trust the process, send them for processing and hold your breath for a week or so!
With the usual content captured, prepared and published digitally, analogue is an opportunity to take the pressure off and approach the subject in a more considered and economic (I’ve only got maximum 36 shots on a roll of film!) way. You think you’ve got some great shots but the week long delay before you receive the scanned film builds anticipation and makes you appreciate the process required.
With nearly a week away at the Tour of Britain there was a little more time to grab the film camera
Whilst I have the full power of Photoshop at my fingertips and can emulate the look of film with my digital images, there’s nothing quite like the analogue process, and part of that is experimenting with different films. It’s not just a choice of black & white or colour, different films suit different lighting conditions (remember film doesn’t have the flexibility of digital) and some films have a completely different ‘DNA’.
Knowing that the National Championships in Saltburn was again going to be a bright, warm day I chose to experiment during the men’s race with an unusual film which I knew would produce really strong, saturated colours. The experiment wasn’t wholly successful but some of the results were eye catching and something I might try again next season.
My last analogue shot of the season, the Curlew Cup and Jo checks out the field as they had through Matfen. Whilst a simple technique shooting digitally, panning at a slow shutter speed on film is technically more difficult and, without being able to review your results instantly, is another nervous wait to see how they turned out!
Shooting analogue during the season has been a challenge for the very reasons I’m so passionate about it, the slow pace of capturing and sharing the images does little to keep up with the speed of cycling. It generates its own style and charm though that sets the images apart and creates a timeless look.
Whilst technology marches on, both within the sport itself and how it’s shared and consumed, analogue photography serves as a sharp contrast to that endless cycle and allows me to occasionally jump off and have a stroll amongst the sport instead.
I’ve enjoyed combining my love of cycling with my developing passion for analogue photography and it could well be something I’ll turn to more in 2025.
Would you like to see more analogue photos of the team, even I if you have to wait a little longer for them?
Let me have your thoughts in the comments below.
Words & photos by Adam Winfield, Through the Lens Media