Jonathan Devich: Secrets of a cycling photographer

A moment in time at the 2004 Tour de France (Image credit: Jon Devich)

Tales from the Peloton, January 12, 2006

The picture that decorates the page for January in Jonathan Devich's new calendar of cycling photographs shows a switchback on the Plateau de Beille during the Tour de France. Within view are maybe a thousand fans, mostly clad in orange. In the details of the picture, you can pick out the RV's and tents that speak to the time these fans invested in getting a prime spot for their one brief encounter with the Grande Boucle. Deep with the ribbon of fans, a handful of the world's top bike racers work their way up the climb.

Despite the fact that you could stare at the picture for hours and not see everything it has to offer, I am struck by the moment it captures for the guy behind the lens. What was Devich thinking about at that precise second? Was his heart pounding? Was he standing on a stable platform or perched on shale, fifty feet above the crowd? And the bigger question: how did he come to be in that frozen moment of time, in position and with the tools to capture that image?

Devich is one of a select number of elite cycling photographers. Often relying on skill, luck and ingenuity to make a living, there is a romance to the work these mostly freelancers do. The images they capture are shown around the world. They travel with cycling's elite. They walk freely behind the barriers that separate the world's greatest bike races from the rest of us. They're at the line for all the great finishes the rest of us can only read about or watch on television. Their work brings them about as close to being a participant in the sport as a non-athlete can get.

Jon Devich: When I was eight or nine, my dad bought me a road bike. It was a small-wheeled road bike, maybe 24-inch wheels. We'd do these long rides on the weekends; maybe three hours along the beach or through the state park. It was a big deal and I always looked forward to it. When I was thirteen this Italian family - who were completely into cycling - moved into the neighborhood. Our families started hanging. I would go with two cousins from the family doing club rides and centuries. When I was fourteen, I started racing; just real small, local stuff.

JD: There has always been good training series and there was even a big pro race when I was growing up so, yes, it's a good cycling community. The local scene was influenced a great deal by these two Dutch brothers. One of them had been on the Dutch national team, had raced all over Europe and knew everybody there. His brother (Peter Teeuwen) was president of our local club. Peter was a good coach and a good friend; a motivator. He did a lot for the juniors and gave our club a solid racing background. Because of him, we were a top USCF club for a couple of years. We had juniors and women who did well at nationals and we put on a number of races, including the pro race.

JD: The club was serious but the Dutch brothers also ran an actual team. The team was run at a higher level. We had regular sponsors and the team was run in a much more European way; a serious, stern way. For some people, it didn't work because it was too strict, but I really liked it and think it was good for me. It even helps me now; when I go to Europe I feel I understand the culture better because I had just a little bit of it when I was younger. Another thing that was important to me from Virginia Beach was that when I was fifteen, I started working in a bike shop. It was just myself and one other guy. He was young but had been around cycling most of his life so I learned a lot about how to be a mechanic.

JD: I had taken art all through junior high and high school. In high school, I went to a technical school for graphic design and earned college credits. To get the degree, I needed to keep going with it after high school so I went to community college. I was still heavily into racing; I had that big dream of going to Europe and racing there – like every good young bike racer does. But then my coach died. He was pretty young, like 43 years old, and it happened fast. That changed racing for me. I just couldn't get my shit together on the bike after that. I spent a lot more time at the bike shop and shifted my attention to becoming a pro team mechanic instead. I went to the first USCF mechanics clinic, in '92. I picked up photography only when my wife, Paula de Haen, started a company on the East Coast called The Fast Track, which was basically a web site similar to Cyclingnews - race calendars, results, photos even a little product testing - but just for the Mid-Atlantic area.

JD: We shot a lot of film but we did have this crappy little Mavica digital camera. The pictures were saved to a floppy disk. I don't even know how we did it; it was extremely slow and used tiny file sizes. It was fully auto – I couldn't adjust anything. I'd just get what I could get. I learned a lot using it though; both how to be a photographer as well as how to use this particular camera. I learned where to stand to get a good shot.

JD: No. I didn't have any idea. No clue. When we went West, Paula had gone back to the business world and we were phasing out the Fast Track stuff. I was trying to figure out what my next move was going to be when he approached me. I shot all film and got some decent stuff and when he paid me and I thought, 'this is pretty cool.' That same year, 2000, I had gone to USPRO Championships for the first time and shot there. We posted those photos on our web site and after we moved West, I got a call from a guy who worked for the promoters. He said 'we've seen your photos, they're great, and we're interested in having you shoot all of our events next year.' They also wanted my finish shot from the 2000 race for promotional material for 2001 so things started to fall together. It made me realize that there was a better living in photography than in the web site.

JD: Yes. I bought my first real digital SLR body, the Canon 1D, in 1992. It was the hottest thing out there. Right now, I have a 1D Mark II. The Mark IIN just came out which I won't buy right away - it's crazy to spend another $4,000 when I don't need it. Canon bills the Mark II as their top-end sports photography camera because it's really fast; multiple frames per second fast. Fastest in the world. It also produces high quality (high resolution) images, a large digital image size. When digital cameras first came out, the images weren't large enough to print full-sized in magazines. When I first started with the 1D, I had a job for a bike company and shot a bunch of stuff. When I sent it to them they were like, 'we can't use this.' The technology was so new they didn't know what to do with it. But the cameras are high-enough resolution now that everyone takes digital as long as you can give them the biggest possible files.

JD: Both. You have to split up your time. You have to think both ways when you're out shooting because there are two types of customer. There are races where I have to get a shot of so and so on the bike for a sponsor or promoter but at the same time, if there's a break up the road, and I know it's a good break, I need to get up there and get photos because editorially, that's what's going to tell the story of the race.

JD: Every other day. Every part of the work is hard. The travel – being away from friends and family – is difficult. It's hard when you're in another country and there's nobody to talk to; you're on the road for a couple of weeks and you're pretty much by yourself and you start thinking about home. Then there's the constant self-evaluation of whether this trip is worth doing - am I going to have enough jobs to cover my expenses?