THE 100 YEARS OF BIRTH OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE "
This is one of my important photo shooting projects I did while I was in Paris.
The anniversary of 100 years of the Tour de France (1903- 2003) was celebrated on 21 July 2003 in Paris. This year was dedicated to the prestigious event to commemorate the first Tour de France cycling Tour which has started July 1903.
For marking 100 years the final day lap to Paris on 21 July 2003, the Tour had been assigned as the exact ending lap to the finish as they did on July 1903. So departing the last lap was from "Paris- Ville d'Avray" town to the final end to the heart of Paris.
It so happened I was living in this same town. Ville d'Avray.
(https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville-d%27Avray.) .
This town It is situated in the suburb of Paris Hauts-de-Seine and as I happened to be there, I felt strongly I had an obligation and a privilege to document the event. I think it is because I was already a great fan of the tour de France.
Then I tried to prepare myself for the event,then in advance went to the "Town Hall", met the authority and made a request to have a special press pass, to reach the Tour and access to the " Tour de France Village" ( in Vill D'Avray ) where all the riders prepare before the Tour . In this village there are lot of things going on.On every stage of the race the best place for media and photographers is the Village of the tour. That place gives more entertaining media works give into the Tour.
This Pass is reserved for the professionals who have more privilege from the Tour.
So my request was refused as I am not a qualified photo professional and I was advised not to photograph any riders as I might be needing to have written royalty agreements form them to do so. That was the assistance and the advise they offered me.
Did I get disappointmant? Yes I did. I completely missed the opportunity to enter into the Village of the Tour and document it. But the rest was a great fun and I made my plans.
So as usually I got into the street to document the event on the day of the Tour, move around Paris, all day to hunt my images. So finally I was able to tell a story of this fabulous event that took place form Serve Ville d"Avery to Paris. So I had seen the tour two times th as from the starting point to the end in Paris.
As this project goes on a long series of images that it took me about 7 hours or more of work and lot and lot of walking through a massive several hundred thousands of excited crowd.
I used two analog cameras lot of films. Also I minimised the final processing to keep the history as much as natural in vintage aspect to let the history to talk within every image.
And last not least, this was one of my points test myself to see my limits and capability.
Every photo grapher will say, they never go into a boot of another to shoot Tour de France cycling in Paris, because they find lot of photos of shoulders and heads if they do it without a Press pass.
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