Catching the pack

Motorbike crashes, frenzied crowds, equipment failures, exhaustion… the life of a WorldTour photographer can be fraught, but all the effort is worth it when it results in images that bring the sport of cycling to life for newspaper and magazine readers around the world. Readers like you, for example.

Having graduated from the National School of Photography in her native France, followed by a residency in Argentina, Pauline Ballet has been a professional sports photographer since 2013. After the early days of working on the picture desk and photographing for Amaury Sports Organisation, Ballet went freelance, still for ASO and also for cycling teams and in other sports.

‘I was fascinated by old-fashioned, black and white, candid photos by Robert Doisneau and I try to capture that in sports photography,’ she says. ‘Being a cycling photographer has parallels with cycling. The actions are done individually but we work as a team, helping each other and