For as long as I can remember being a cycling fan, two names that were constants of my understanding of the sport were Cor Vos and Jørgen Leth. Vos, a prolific Dutch photographer with a talent for capturing decisive moments, and Leth, a Danish filmmaker whose documentaries introduced legions to the sport, both passed away this week within roughly 24 hours of each other.
Vos died suddenly on September 30 at the age of 77. That was a day after Leth passed away at 88. A cause of death was not immediately available for either man. With their deaths, cycling loses two masters of visual storytelling whose work shaped and changed the way we see the sport.
Vos was a former amateur racer from Rotterdam, who founded the photo agency that bears his name (and is an Escape Collective media partner) in 1975. Speaking last year with Wielerflits' Ride magazine, Vos described himself as "nothing special" on a bike. A brain injury suffered in a crash knocked him out of the sport and he "did nothing for at least five years," before picking up a camera. Vos was entirely self-taught as a photographer.
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