Marathon Diary

[JackMcIntyre]

Armed with nerves of butter and gear to match, today I shot my first marathon event! (Well, 10k )

It was a great experience meeting all of the people behind the scenes and its quite amazing how much work and effort it takes to run an event by this - there were people working flat out all day to make sure everyone had a great time and it was a fantastic event.

Started off the day at a rather early 5:30 AM, got my gear together and set off at around 6 - arriving in York at 7:15 or thereabouts. Had a walk about to where I was supposed to be seeing the other togs and managed to find the hidden tent after 10 minutes looking. Formatted all of my cards, got setup - settings dialed in..etc. So I'm ready at around 8 o clock, and I have an hour to wait before the start. Sat about, talked to some of the other photographers (all lovely chaps and chapettes) and then finally after an hour went out on the course (50 yards down from the tent at the start line).

Around 2 - 3 hours shooting all together, 1 hour stood up and 2 sat down on a rather uncomfortable stool, my mini-me's weren't too happy by the time the last runner went over the finish! Knocked up around 4.5k shots on the whole day - quite a lot in comparison to the expected life of a 40d but the pay was suffice to cover any eventual repair costs should my shutter explode after a few years.

Said bye to everyone, went back to the car - had what at the time was the most delicious ham sandwich in the world - and set off home!

Was a great day, I would have thoroughly enjoyed it even if it wasn't my job for the day and I'd recommend York to anyone thinking of coming up north - such a wonderful city. If you've managed to make it this far, I give my best thanks to you for reading about my day, maybe after the next one I won't be so excited that I have to write a short story about it!

Over and out.

 

[sparklies]

4,500 shots - wow! Mind you, I guess for 2-3 hours shooting that would make sense. As somebody who has often been on the other side of the lens for running in the last year, I hear how often those shutters go off!

Out of interest, because this is something I've often wondered as I run effortlessly, err, I mean plod past the togs - do you get paid per image or is it a flat rate? Do you do any post-processing work (am guessing not..)? I'm also guessing it's not you who has to sort the images by the race bib numbers (ugh - surely this must be at least partly automated!)

When I see people grumping about how much event photos cost on running forums I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one thinking how reasonable the prices are considering all the hard work that goes on and how little the uptake likely is!

Thanks for sharing your day

 

[JackMcIntyre]

4,500 shots - wow! Mind you, I guess for 2-3 hours shooting that would make sense. As somebody who has often been on the other side of the lens for running in the last year, I hear how often those shutters go off!

Out of interest, because this is something I've often wondered as I run effortlessly, err, I mean plod past the togs - do you get paid per image or is it a flat rate? Do you do any post-processing work (am guessing not..)? I'm also guessing it's not you who has to sort the images by the race bib numbers (ugh - surely this must be at least partly automated!)

When I see people grumping about how much event photos cost on running forums I sometimes wonder if I'm the only one thinking how reasonable the prices are considering all the hard work that goes on and how little the uptake likely is!

Thanks for sharing your day

Its a flat rate, 4-5 events would get you a new 40d so its not like I'm putting clicks onto the shutter and eventually losing out with a broken camera and not enough £ to pay for it.

When you arrive you get given a little pack of memory cards, you format each one then use them during the day - when its all done you just give them back, and thats it. Nothing else to do, quite a good system if you ask me!

 

[linux geek]

[QUOTE

Was a great day, I would have thoroughly enjoyed it even if it wasn't my job for the day and I'd recommend York to anyone thinking of coming up north - such a wonderful city.

.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for bigging up my home town

 

[sparklies]

That sounds pretty good to me too - I like that it's a flat rate. I feel slightly less bad about not always buying photos now.. normally the photographer in me makes me buy my photos simply out of solidarity and it's not always cheap, heh!

Even better you don't have to do all the stuff post-shoot.. brilliant!