Just fifteen minutes from home, the Hepworth Trail Race was an almost certainty for a Mozziephotography trip out. The previous week had been an extremely busy one, with three races crammed into six days. With all the editing that needed to be done, there wasn't much time for anything else. Our "new" rescue border collie, has settled in wonderfully.
Tan is an absolute dream, so few problems for us to iron out. Nice one Tan.
Sunday will hopefully see me snapping at the Holme Moss Fell Race, although a final decision has yet to be made. This is due to the high risk of a moorland fire breaking out. Fingers crossed that the rain will have dampened the vegetation enough for it to go ahead.
Wednesday morning:
After a walk round Langsett with Sal and Tan, we paid a visit to Bank View Cafe. A massive mug of coffee and a non-vegan sarnie went down a treat. There was enough time before my afternoon 40 winks to recce the Hepworth Trail course.
Scanning the route map for the race, there was a possibility of catching the runners coming out of the first tack and then running along a bridleway to a point near the reservoir.
Parked up in Hepworth and it was obvious that track exit was a non-starter. I physically couldn't get back far enough to capture the runners, the road was far too narrow. Stacks of street furniture in the way as well as parked cars.
I walked along the track that led to the football club and found a stile that might give me a reasonable vantage point. Using an 18-70mm zoom, I tried compositions at various focal lengths.
Shot at 35mm, this image would contain too much of the field at the side of the wall and the light from the sky would affect the light meter reading.
Taken with the 85mm prime lens, the sky is eliminated in this shot, more runners would hopefully be contained within the frame. With the athletes setting off from the nearby football club, I was hoping that a few dozen shots of the track would produce some "Where's Wally shots?"
What I'd not taken into account was the, once round the field" circuit before they began their journey towards me. Gaps would appear unfortunately.
BUM!
Wednesday evening:
On the way to Hepworth, I had a look at the reservoir shot. It was a non-starter. Nowhere to park safely and the light wouldn't be clear enough for the images I'd hoped for.
Back to the drawing board.
The last field before the track didn't appeal to me. Horrible wires overhead and way, way too much boring empty space. I needed to find another place, fast!
The stile in the photograph above, is where I stood for the outgoing shots. Could this be the place for the runners' return?
If they come over the stile one at a time, I'd have a chance to snap them individually. If they come in small groups, I won't be able to and I'd miss quite a few runners.
Nearly time for them to come my way, there would be time to sort something out while they were tackling the hilly course.
With the 85mm on the D7500 and me teetering on the stile, the composition was much better than I'd anticipated. Hardly any empty space on the right-had side of the frame.
It's rare that I stand up when snapping, let alone standing high above the runners. It can emphasise the body and make the legs look smaller, distorting the figure.
The curve of the wall and the runners, leads your eye from the front of the frame into the distance, exactly what I wanted it to do.
Nice one Mozzie. Shot quite a few more frames than I'd expected to though.
Looking at the composition of this image, where would the runner be within the frame? The wall on the right is nearly as high as me. The wires in the centre are a pain, plus ... how many shots would I be able to take of each runner before their body is below the horizon?
It would be top heavy with sky and hills. There would also be the problem of runners blocking other runners.
Thinking cap on.
The wall on the left had been cemented and it would easily take my weight without any damage being caused.
Up we go.
Once again, I'd be above the runners but it would solve a couple of problems.
Not too shabby an image. I would have liked to have included more of the trees above the wall in the background and the water tank not to have been there. Photoshop it out?
If you heard the sound of the shutter as you went by, you probably picked up a repetitive clicking noise. I try to take a number of frames so that I can choose the most "action packed" one to include in the Flickr album.
Which one or ones would you choose from the gallery above?
I'm not a fan of hopping shots but you have to take the good with the bad.
Unable to take every shot in the way I would have liked to, but that comes with the territory. Starting the race at 7:30 meant that, on such a dull evening I'd be struggling with the lack of light to take photographs of the people towards the back of the field. An aperture of f4 and ISO up to 4000 around 8:30pm. The camera was struggling to focus in low light.
Ten minutes later and I made the decision that it wasn't worth staying for anyone still out on the course. Apologies to Sally Snowden, Russell Dyson, Jill Johnson, Nicky Evans, Jane Elliott and Simon Powell for missing the on their return. I'm sure that I captured you on the way out.
Back to the car, no time for a drink or a bite to eat. Tan would be waiting for his last walk of the day. And sure enough, he was. Walk first and then SD card into the USB3 card reader. The editing would have to wait until tomorrow.
Considering I had over 1,500 images to work through on Thursday, four dog walks and a bit of shopping in the market, my new editing process worked really well. Oh, a natter with my best mate as well.
All done and dusted by tea-time.
Nice one.
N.B. I always put a link to my Flickr images on my donation page. This is in the hope that people might drop a couple of quid into my JustGiving account. I'm raising money for a border collie rescue charity, the same one where we adopted Tan from.
Once the album and the donations page has been seen by a good number of people, I'll put them on Facewipe so that you can tag and comment.
The album has been viewed well over 400 times.
Donations page - HERE
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