A.E.LANDES PHOTOBLOG

When most people are enjoying their hot chocolate and fire inside, there are those who forgo conventional wisdom and play outside in the snow and dirt in Spandex. This was Plum Grove Cyclery’s Snotcycle 2010 out in Leesburg, VA (and no, I didn’t pick the name). The race went on as it snowed harder and harder, and by the time I was done photographing, my hands were no better than if they were made of wood. I threw on the flash for some snow-sparkling effects, and had a great time with Greg (another guy wanting to stand outside in the cold with a camera) along the way.

Here is a quick look at the Plum Grove Cyclery: Snotcycle 2010 Gallery.

To order prints and view more photos, click on the Snotcycle 2010 Print Website. (If you don’t see any pictures of you, just contact me with your rider number and bike/jersey).

Well, well… What do we have here? 101 miles of mountain biking through some of the best/rockiest trails PA has to offer? I guess the next best thing to actually riding in the race is photographing it. It was a really damp and humid morning, with plenty of fog and sweaty rocks for the riders to roll over. I got a bit too excited by them coming through a mud puddle (I really needed to set up some off-camera flash to get the shots I wanted), but I think that the back-lit riders coming across the ominous Three Bridges section are some of my favorite mountain biking images yet.

Here is a quick gallery of the Wilderness 101 Mountain Bike Race.

If you want to see a more extensive collection of images or order prints, go here: Wilderness 101 Mountain Bike Race Print Order Site.

PS – Don’t see any pictures of you? Let me know, and I will see if I have any to post.

Wow… I am so sorry I missed out photographing most of PSU Cycling Road Season! If anything, I managed to get to the best event, which was the Easterns Championship Frat-Row Crit, in downtown State College, PA. Lots of thrills and spills over the bumpy wet pavement on Turn Four, and yet combined with the road ride the day before, PSU trounced the competition to win the weekend.

Here is a selection from PSU Cycling: Easterns 2009 Gallery.

Here are some shots from one of the more exciting events from this season – Tussey’s Log Jam/Big Air Competition. I just got one of Canon’s new cameras, so I have been wanting to really put it through the stress test of high-contrast, fast action subjects. Plus I love snowboarding. And watching people who are fifty-times better than I ever will be. I took some designer liberties and jacked the saturation and said good-bye to conventional colors, so I hope you enjoy the galleries!

Click here for a sampling of the Tussey Log Jam/Big Air Competition 2009.

To view the whole gallery (or to download/purchase prints), go here: Tussey Log Jam/Big Air Gallery.

I felt the need to fight off impending sleep to get these posted for all you cycling-freaks who were at Penn State Cycling Club’s Mountain Bike Race this weekend. If you think cycling is just a bunch of spandex-clad juicers with too much time to just ride bikes, I beg to differ. There is never enough time to just ride. I got hooked this past year with mountain biking, and so it brought me to a new level of appreciation of the sport.

All stereotypes aside, photographing road and mountain bike races have been some of the most intense events, just because of how much mental and physical energy is demanded of the racers, and the level of risk is just so high.

For now, here’s a preview of Sunday’s XC and Downhill events.

And for those of you with a lot of time on your hands or have a healthy mountain bike obsession, here’s the complete gallery.

These are some of select images from the ECCC’s 2008 Championship Road Race, held this year up in New Hampshire (It was only a ten hour drive!). It really was a stunning ride up there, as the scenery was about to change over from the cold winter to the green spring. The PSU’s racers did very well this year, coming in second overall in their division. It was a lot of fun and the intensity was really cranked up to 11, if you know what I mean. I also enjoy this picture of Matt studying hard for the finals quickly coming up.

Take a look at the PSU Cycling Club: Easterns Championship 2008 Gallery.

There’s nothing like the homefield advantage. The Cycling Club put together a killer road race with the Black Mo Loop for the long distance ride and a roudy crit course through frat house row. They handled the visiting teams really well with a big pasta dinner at Tony’s Big Easy in downtown State College. It was a real cold morning for the road race in the Black Moshannon Forest, but Sunday’s time trial and crit warmed up to a very nice weekend finish.

Here are some select photos from the PSU Cycling Club: PSU Road Race 2008 Gallery.

It sure is brisk at 4:30AM during March in Philadelphia. Even though I am not racing for the club, I am still welcome to travel with PSU’s Cycling Club, which means I need to get up when they get up. It just so happens that the first racers went off at 7AM. In March. And we were an hour away. And the racers needed to register and warmup before getting on the course. Which means a very, very early wake-up call.

Anyway – it was a rainy day Saturday and Sunday was a bright, cold, clear day which made shooting in the varied conditions challenging. It was a lot of fun, and not to mention that it was my first time photographing anything traveling at high-speed. I took a load of pictures over those two days, and here is the cream of the crop.

Check them out here: PSU Cycling Club Philadelphia Road Race 2008.