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The links to the facebook albums of Rombald's Stride photos: One and two
Most people don't realise what goes in to taking the photos at a race. I'm just an amateur and do it for "fun" but imagine being a professional whose livelihood depends on it, with every Tom, Dick and Harry with a camera phone thinking they can do your job and illegally downloading your copyrighted photos? The time it takes to learn your craft, the expense of the equipment, the hours spent editing and uploading, nevermind the time spent out in the cold. Thank goodness I don't do it for money (Except charity- Please donate! ) and in the end, it doesn't matter if I mess it up. The professionals have it tough, but still, that doesn't make it easy for us amateurs.
I signed up for Rombald's Stride intending to run it but as the day neared it became clear that a niggling injury would stop me from running. Then I hit on the genius idea of taking photos instead and trying to make some money for the charity I am raising money for. Judging by last year's likes and faves on the facebook album that Debi had taken, I knew that if only a small percentage of the people donated it would amount to a bumper payday for a great charity, Bloodwise.
On Saturday, at around 1pm, I was sitting on one of those tiny, 3 pronged stool things on Ilkley moor, covered head-to-toe in goretex, barely able to feel my extremities, waiting for the back markers in the race, a 23 miles trail/fell/LDWA event with 2500ft of ascent. The leaders had gone through over 2.5 hours past and the drizzle kept on drizzling, finding ways into every part of me and the cold made its way into my very core. I felt violated, and not in a good way.
As wet, bedraggled and exhausted as the runners looked about 12 miles in, I knew I felt worse, because last year, I had run the race and this year, sitting on that stool, in the freezing cold, trying to avoid brass monkeys crying their eyes out, was no fun at all. Not that I had much fun running it last year, but it was still better than this.
Trying to keep warm in these situations is impossible. Every layer of goretex, fleece and base layers in the world is only going to delay the inevitable. What came as a surprise is just how cold my bottom would feel on that stool. The waterproof gloves I was wearing were just thin enough that I could still use the buttons on the camera, but far from thick enough to keep my hands warm. Stupidly, I hadn't brought my thermal baselayer leggings which would have helped somewhat and I cursed that lack of vision on my part many times throughout the day.
The race started at 9am and I took some really bad photos of the start, mainly due to failing to handle my new camera correctly. It has a fancy 3D tracking focusing system which I decided to use and discovered later that it wasn't my best ever idea to use an unfamiliar setting the first time I try to photograph a race with the camera.
At Around 10 I arrived on Ilkley moor and I was already cold. The sweat from climbing up to my position was cooling on my body. I hunkered down into my jacket and waited for the first runners that I expected in around 20 minutes. However, due to the terrible conditions, the runners were going considerably slower than last year, so I was there for 40 minutes before the leaders arrived. I admit that I was pleased that I managed to take a series of reasonable shots of them, given that I could have fallen asleep, into a coma or have turned into a giant block of ice before they arrived.
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| I have no idea how Joe Baxter is running with a smile on his face, I believe he is now tucked up safely in a special institute |
As the runners came through I struggled with various technical aspects of photographing in such miserable conditions. Luckily the rain was blowing in to my back, rather than the front of the lense, but occasionally I turned too far and the rain blew in. To make things worse, I had managed to forget to bring a cloth to wipe the lense, so each time it happened, I had to find a dry bit of clothing to clean it with which involved taking off my gloves, unzipping my jacket and working my way down to my base layer top, all of which would make me just a little bit colder than I already was. More than once the lense was covered in a layer of water resulting in some "interesting" photos. Not long into the day I decided to abandon the 3D focus tracking as it clearly wasn't working; cue a frustrating time flicking through the menus on the camera (without gloves as those buttons are too small to operate) between runners before I eventually located the correct settings.
As 1 hour turned into two and dragged towards 3 I began to take short runs up and down in between runners to try to feel some life in my feet again. I really wanted to leave, but I couldn't. My friend Debi has sat in just such similar circumstances in many races waiting to take photos of me, so I was determined to stay until at least her and her day's companion, Tanya, had come through and I had got photos. I knew it would be a long wait as they would be at the back of the field of runners, but them's the breaks. I couldn't let her down when she was running a race a full 10 miles longer than her previous longest and 9 miles longer than even her longest training run!
Two other runners in my club, Jed and Simon had long since passed and I managed to get pictures of them, albeit only a couple of Jed as I didn't recognise him from a distance; Simon I recognised from a long way away as his gait is very distinctive.
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| Jed |
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| Simon and Helen |
I must have looked bad by this point because the comments from runners got more sympathetic/disbelieving. Here's a small selection, many were repeated numerous times:
Runner: "Not a great day for taking photos"
Me: "I concur"
Runner: "And they call US mad, look at you!"
Me: "I'd rather be running it!"
Runner: "I don't fancy your job today"
Me: "It's only a job if you're getting paid!"
Runner: "You must be freezing"
Me: "No shit, Sherlock"
I didn't really say that last one, don't worry, but plenty of people did make the correct observation that I must be freezing.
And then in the distance, I spotted Debi and Tanya. I had been struggling to keep the mist and rain off the lense more and more as the clag came down and the inside of the lense began to steam up. I wasn't confident that I would be able to coax the camera in to taking a decent shot given the conditions. I had painstakingly worked out a composition with the path leading the eye through the shot, some background interest with a tree in the mist and the position of the runners on the rule of thirds. A cliche maybe, but one people tend to like.
I'm not convinced it's the classic that I hoped it would be by any means, but it captures the day.
As soon as they left I headed down the hill to the car to warm up and empty my extremely full bladder. My plan was to head over to the Chevin and take some more shots there. Beforehand I headed into Boyes to buy a microfibre cloth to wipe the lense and some sweets doing my best not to be distracted by the store full of bargains; I still had a job to finish.
The drive over to the Chevin took the edge off the chill in my bones to some extent, but as the biting wind threatened to slice me in half as I stood at the top I soon got very cold again.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone was pleased to see a photographer at the top of the tough climb up the Chevin, but it made for some good shots and I was able to tell people truthfully that it was all downhill from here and they could get a cup of tea at the checkpoint just around the corner.
Debi and Tanya eventually came through and were still managing to smile. I jogged through to the checkpoint with them.
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| Definitely NOT the best photo I have ever taken but I was totally nithered! |
The trip in the car had a bad effect on my camera and by the time I got out, the inside of the lense had completely steamed up rendering it almost completely useless. I was unable to get a shot on my camera so I resorted to my phone.
Yeah, not great, but probably better than the steamy lenses.....
Steam inside a lense is a very serious issue for a photographer. Moisture inside the lense can lead to mould, and mould in a lense means it's pretty much dead and pro lense prices would turn your hair white. And all this in a lense that is meant to be "weather sealed" that I had only recently bought to go with a new weather sealed camera. I nipped back to the car for one of my other lenses; a much more expensive one that I didn't want to risk in the rain as it isn't weather sealed. Of course, given that the lense had been in the back of my cold car all day, it steamed up immediately that I entered the school. It warmed up eventually though and I took some "arty" shots around the school.
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| The oldest finisher |
After I arrived home and thawed out, I set about the arduous task of going through nearly 1300 photos and processing them, then getting them to upload. I eventually retired to bed around 11 with the photos still uploading.
All in all, a very long, tiring, cold and wet day! It's already been made worthwhile though, as the donations to Bloodwise are rolling in. Feel free to join in with the donations!
