Unsupported races and media interference, pt.1. Ethical issues

The first challenge is up on Colle del Nivolet, close to my hometown of Turin. Adam is the first — couldn’t be otherwise, right? — to cross the Alps from France into Italy, where my assignment begins. According to the plan, I must take the baton from the French team when the riders cross into Italy, then follow the first half of the field until the finish with Ryan Le Garrec, who will be filming.

I’m excited: shooting ultras has been — and still is — my professional goal number one since the beginning of my journey. I studied (and still do) the coverage of Silk Road Mountain Race, Atlas Mountain Race, and of course the many Tour Divide reportages. In this case, It’s a Race by James Robertson — who, by the way, coordinates the media crew — is the key reference. Now I’m here shooting an ultra, and I am equally excited and scared.

As a cyclist and photographer, I find the topic of influence fascinating, but the more I read posts, interviews and comments, the more I believe both sides have reasonable arguments. Having somebody film or photograph you does give some extra energy. On the other hand, it’s hard to argue that simply being photographed is “support” on the same level as, say, a random stranger giving you food. Where is the line — is there such a line at all? That’s the theory, and it’s already complicated enough, as the Tour Divide debate showed.

But up there at 2,600m, when Adam climbs towards us on the trail, I freeze. All the debates about ethical support collapse into a very concrete moment. No theory makes any sense. Is it more ethical to hide behind bushes, as Nicky Shaw recently wrote? She refers specifically to FKTs, and I think those strictest rules don’t apply to races. Can I say hello, or would that be undue interference — especially in this very challenging section? What if he falls while replying? As foolish as it sounds now, these were my actual thoughts. Does interacting mean breaking his loneliness and cheering him up, or breaking his focus and making him angry? In short, how the hell should I behave?

If it weren’t for Ryan, I would be lost and would lose precious moments to shoot. When Ryan greets Adam, I do the same. When he gets closer, I get closer. I feel a bit stupid, but I prefer playing it safe until I get more familiar with the whole ultra etiquette. We exchange a few words about the race and his expectations — all very friendly. By then I’m more relaxed: talking is OK for a bit. And it’s essential: we are here to tell stories, and we are thirsty for words.

Following him on the trail, we take several shots, then I keep following him to a crossroads. The trail splits and he stops to check the route. I stop abruptly and wait for his choice — picture Wile E. Coyote’s braking screech whenever he sees the Road Runner. He takes right, I go left: he goes for the military road, while I take the single track to get ahead of him. At that moment I clearly feel the weight of my behavior. Does Adam think I know the better trail since I’m a local? Am I giving him clues through body language? Many questions bordering on paranoia.

The blue hour is fading into night; walking alone in the darkness, Adam has plenty of time to think and to question his own choices — which wouldn’t happen if I weren’t there. In the dark, we can see each other’s front lights on the two parallel tracks. Influence. Interference.

Usually, you clearly perceive the boost you give to riders when you follow them. You’re the first face they’ve seen in days, and they’re happy to talk and share their journey. Not always, though: sometimes you approach a rider who’s not happy to see you. When it happened to me for the first time, I was surprised — no, I was annoyed — but it’s also very interesting: why is he upset? What’s the story there?

The silver lining to all this is that there’s no real solution. Influence — whether positive or negative — is there from the moment you say hello. You can’t un-influence. So with Adam I stick to my original instinct. I get ahead of him on the single track to wait in the dark, even if this means he can see me passing from his elevated road. A few more shots — little man versus vast landscape, the classic sublime-romantic situation. Then we part ways; it’s late already and pitch black down in the valley. He rides fast to Velodrome Francone, the next refuge.

After the race, Adam gives us positive feedback, saying we didn’t bother him that evening. This is comforting. When I send some pictures to the organization immediately after the shoot, two are challenged: “you look like you were too close” — for a shot trying to catch his running shoes on the hike-a-bike — and “your car lights can be considered helping the rider” — when he is swapping shoes in the parking lot.

I have objections. As for the shoe picture, I took it because — wow — the leader is running on rocks during a road race. That is the story. As for the light, we didn’t park the car that way intentionally — we just stopped as quickly as possible. Our car’s lights weren’t nearly enough to help him, and he used his own headlight for the operation. Besides, it could have been any car in the parking lot; I’m persuaded that photography is about plausibility more than it is about literal truth, and other vehicles drove there both before and after Adam stopped.

Still, I take the point. As a media crew, our responsibility around the support we provide riders — positive or negative — is significant. The relationship with riders is unavoidable — that’s literally why we’re here — but it must be managed very carefully.

My personal working solution — still a work in progress — is to think in terms of time and distribution. Our ideal goal would be to cover every rider. Of course this is impossible. But we are a team of photographers and videomakers, each catching a few riders, so our psychological support or interference is spread a bit more equally across the field. More importantly, over time and across different races, this interference will tend to become more democratic: we will catch new riders while missing others, and statistically this will level out our effect. Media coverage tends, asymptotically, toward becoming a public service.

We are present, and our presence will influence riders whether we intend it to or not. So let’s at least try to spread that influence as fairly as possible across the field — knowing that’s nearly impossible within a single race. But since I hope to cover more and more races, and media teams around the world are doing the same, hopefully this “quota of influence/support” will spread fairly across all riders over many years and many races. Time and patience are essential — much like in photography, incidentally.

This is my very personal working principle — or perhaps my self-justification — when I meet riders who are visibly relieved just to see another human being after hours or days alone. I know it’s abstract and somewhat optimistic. Beyond that, it’s a case-by-case judgment that goes well beyond any mechanical application of rules.

I also know it’s a somewhat weak argument, since trusting statistics isn’t a real solution. But it’s the best I’ve found so far. And it is, indirectly, confirmed by what Nelson said about violations of the unsupported rules by riders. Since this is a self-policed discipline, violations are not easy to prove — but if you break the rules systematically, it will eventually come to light. Maybe not the first time, maybe not the second. But once discovered, trust will be destroyed even retroactively.