Paris. The iconic end to every Tour in the modern era. The peloton does laps of the Champs Elysees from the Louvre to the Arc de Trioumphe with a likely sprint finish at the end of the eighth lap. The stage is largely ceremonial, but the racing is definitely real. You can tell by the speed. It was the fastest of the week.

Everyone even remotely close to the cycling realm knows this stage. We’ve all seen the photos of the Arc and the Louvre. This makes the photography quite challenging. How do you document the 2023 edition with something fresh. Something that hasn’t been played out dozens of times before.

The answer is you probably don’t, and that is okay. My hope for this stage was the iconic photo of the riders heading toward the Arc with the tricolore jets passing over head. The only problem was that this didn’t happen. Instead we got two poorly timed biplanes streaming white smoke… odd indeed.

I moved on to the Arc to make my version of the iconic shot. I captured the yellow jersey and MVDP. I’m really happy with them and love that the sky had some nice definition. Which do you like better?

After two laps shooting the Arc, I started working back toward the finish about 1km toward the Louvre. I gave myself some time near the finish, and I’m glad I did because it was a mess. They kept moving the photographers, so every time you got a decent spot it would get ruined. For all the organization in previous stages, this one was a cluster. I ended up having to shoot my 70-200mm above my head to have any shot at seeing the line. The results turned out pretty well!

It’s kind of funny that the two sprint finishes I shot both ended in a photo finish. No celebrations, no post ups, just two dudes looking at each other wondering who got it. Kind of a bummer from the photo perspective, but not all that big of a deal in the end.

It was fun to shoot the podium, mostly just because you got to be part of the atmosphere. My stroke of luck for the day was MVDP appearing next to me to cheer on Jasper’s green jersey. Look out for me in next year’s Netflix series!

That’s it for the 2023 Tour de France! What an experience. I learned so much and it’s fun to look at how my work progressed throughout the week. There’s no doubt in my mind that I will do more of these!

Distance driven: 0 km

Photos taken: 2036

Pain au Chocolat consumed: 1. Another hotel version. When will I learn?

Salle Presse drinks consumed: 0. No press room stop for me.

Next Up: #crossiscoming