Emiliano Granado’s new zine puts a fresh spin on Tour de France fandom

The Tour de France came to an end last weekend and Brooklyn-based photographer Emiliano Granado celebrates every aspect of the cycling competition in his new zine, Oui C’est Tout. The project came from another project Emiliano works on called Manual for Speed, an online platform about road cycling. In this side project, the photographer wanted to step away from the typical atmospheric images of cyclists grafting with sweat dripping all over them. “I wanted to capture the spectacle of the Tour de France. I’m only minimally interested in the race results – the real attraction is much more anthropological.” 
 
Believing the Tour de France is “a window into humanity,” Emiliano captures a range of scenes within the series providing a wonderful interpretation of the month-long race. The more human and humorous moments are what takes this series away from traditional sports photography and highlights how it’s the crowds who rock up to these events that really make them. Included in the 20-page, four-coloured zine are shots of athletes’ legs rippling with muscle and sun damage, eager fans wearing the cycling hats of their heroes (including a sweet potato-like woman) and landscape images of cascading hills and mountain tops that remind us how tough the race is for cyclists but also those tracking the event.

“It’s super difficult to capture the Tour. The logistics are a nightmare,” says Emiliano. “Closed roads, shitty French wifi and rural France, in general were just some of the challenges. But we fought through it and got to most of the starts, finishes and the somewhere in betweens,” says Emiliano. “We did duck out of the last stage in Paris, however. After four weeks, all we wanted was wifi, hot food, and a heavenly bed.”