Cycling doesn’t start at the gun.
It starts before, when the body switches on and the mind goes quiet.
When there’s no sweat yet, but the pressure’s already there.
And it doesn’t end at the finish line either.
It stays in the legs that shake. In the breathing that won’t slow down.
That’s still cycling. And that’s where these images live.
“Between the Lines” is a black and white series focused on the moments no one talks about.
Portraits taken before the start and after the effort.
No speed. No trophies. No spotlight.
Just the rider, and everything they carry inside.
I worked with a mix of lenses:
• The Canon 50mm f/1.8, fast, automatic, direct.
• The Pentacon 29mm f/2.8 and Prakticar 135mm f/2.8, vintage, manual, slower but full of character.
Each lens changed how I saw the moment.
Some froze it clean. Others made me slow down and breathe with the subject.
I wasn’t chasing perfection. I was chasing presence.
I photographed junior and elite riders, some nervous, others locked in.
But all of them in the same mental space:
burning legs, quiet rituals, the weight of what’s coming or what just passed.
In those in between moments, I found what often gets lost behind the jersey or helmet:
the face of effort, a distant gaze, a mouth still hunting for oxygen, skin marked by the road.
You don’t need speed to tell the truth.
These aren’t images about winning.
They’re about holding on.
About preparing.
About breaking, just for a second, and coming back.
This is cycling, too.
And that’s where I pointed my camera.
