One Downhill Race Isn’t Enough to Know Anything Yet
I've only shot one downhill race, and almost all of that time was spent on the trail itself. I never made it down to the parking lot, and the only crowd I stood in was at the podium, which moves fast, one person announcing, a few people stepping up. Nobody there looked like they didn't belong. So whatever I noticed about the difference between downhill and cross country, take it as a first impression, not a conclusion. I'd need a lot more races to actually trust it.
Still, something was different. Downhill carries consequence all the way through the course, not just in the technical sections like cross country. You feel that even standing still and watching. There were people out in the woods cheering, too, which gave the whole thing a kind of community feel, where cross country usually leaves me alone on a quiet stretch of trail, away from any crowd at all. Maybe that's the real difference. Maybe it's just that I'm usually more isolated at cross country races. I don't know yet.
The thing that circles my mind started while I was waiting by the car for the podium, or maybe it didn't really land until the drive home. I'd known going in that I couldn't be on the trail and at the finish line at the same time, so before the race even started I'd already made the call to stay at pre-scouted locations. That's the moment I caught myself thinking it'd be nice to have a team, someone on the trail, someone at the bottom, someone in the pits. Then I second guessed it. Would that even get me the kind of intimate work I actually want, or is that just wanting control over something that isn't really mine to control.
I did walk down near the lift at one point and got a few frames of people loading up. But it felt strange doing it. Nobody down there knew me yet, and poking around with a camera when you're unfamiliar feels different than doing it somewhere you've already earned a little trust.
Chris - Head of Trail building at HoliMont Bike Park
Chris had just built a new jump line, and I wanted to be one of the first to get photos of people hitting it, partly for the riders, partly for him, so he could see people enjoying something he'd built. I got some good air shots. And somewhere in there I caught myself wondering why I was so locked in on getting people off the ground. That stuff is cool, the stoke is real, and the athleticism deserves to be photographed well. But if I'm honest, what pulls at me harder is finding the one frame where the rider, the trail, and the landscape all sit together right, not the acrobatics. Part of that might just be intimidation. There are already a lot of great photographers who own the aerial trick shot. I'm not sure my frame adds much there. The environmental side is where I've actually built an eye.
The crash from that same day is probably the clearest example of what I'm circling. On its face it's spectacle, a bike going down hard. But underneath it there was a guy who'd already told me, before any of it happened, that he was riding on emotion instead of focus, already somewhere else in his head before he ever reached that drop. I think most photos carry both things at once, spectacle and story, and what decides which one wins is how far you're willing to look. I got the crash. I'm still working out how much of the rest of it I actually got.
