Challenge 3 James Clarke

James took a slightly different approach, trying to capture the grittiness of the event despite the dry conditions on the day – we expected it to be much wetter. “Having previously photographed cyclo-cross events, I knew that mud splats or sand sprays look cool,” says James. “I took this shot quite early on in the day, when the sand pit was still quite soft – by turning his wheel in, this rider created a flurry of sand, which I froze using a shutter speed of 1/2000th sec. To get as close to eye level with the sand pit as possible, I shot this image at 200mm whilst lying down.

“I wish I had used a narrower aperture to get more of the subject in focus, though – f/4 to f/5.6, with a slightly slower shutter speed, would have worked better than the f/2.8 I used.”

Expert opinion

Focusing in on the finer details by shooting close offers up a front row seat to the viewer, putting them right amongst the action.