I have taken photos at the Houston
Marathon five or six times before this last one. Yet, for this one, I was totally unprepared.
Why?
Mainly because my purpose was
different from the others and I took no action to ensure that I would be successful!
Monte (my son) and Ana (my
daughter-in-law, or as I say, my special daughter) ran in this year's half marathon for
the first time. My intention was
to get some really nice shots of them on the course. Before the race, I knew that I wanted to get an early-race shot
so I decided to go to the Taylor Street overpass to get and I also wanted a
photo near the finish line, so I preselected Dallas street where I would have
some nice building backgrounds.
Now, how was I not prepared. Well, think about standing in the rain on
the Taylor street overpass and seeing a wall of runners pass under you without
knowing what your subject is wearing.
Makes it more than kinda hard to pick your subject out; it made it
impossible to find either Monte or Ana.
Result: no photo of Monte or Ana near the beginning of the race.
Enjoy.
Camera settings: Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 at 135mm, ISO 2200, f/4 at 1/250th
of a second.
Post Processing:
Lightroom 4—applied Nikon Standard
preset during import, set white and black points, increased shadows and
decreased highlights and added vibrance and clarity.
I had to laugh at your reason for not being prepared. I used to shoot the Marathon back when Bill Rodgers (1981) was running. Big name back then who I knew on sight. Those guys I could pick out quite easily from the crowd. He was out there either by himself or with only one or two running with him.
ReplyDeleteI had some friends from work who I had gone to photograph that same day. I found it was easier to get them in the middle stages and towards the finish of the run and didn't bother with the start. It was just too hard to pick them out in that sea of people.
Not one of your better moves. Do like the photo.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Let me understand, you are standing there in the rain with thousands of runners come at you and you cannot pick out your son and special daughter? How can you call yourself a photographer?
ReplyDeleteNeal
It looks like you were faced with a ocean of people coming at you. You could not pick out two people? Shame!
ReplyDeleteTaylor