Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Photo Biathlon and November's Running Times

To anyone who frequents Run Junkie, it's apparent - perhaps painfully so - that I enjoy taking photos on my long runs.  I have little actual technical ability, mind you.  I'm all point and shoot, but I do what I can to try to capture some of those great moments on the trail we all experience - even if it means taking 130 bad photos to get 3 decent ones.

Perhaps the best way to characterize what I do is "photo biathlon," since for the most part the shutter falls either while I'm actually running, or when I've quickly stopped but my heart is still racing.  What I like most about this distinction is that it seems to absolve me a bit when my photos lack the niceties of great trail photography - like framing, lighting, and...focus.

Still, I continue to click away, addicted sometimes as much to capturing images on the run as actually running - a sad state my training buddies will attest to.  But at times it pays off with some memorable frames, like these samples from the summer:  near the top of Johnstone Pass, at Pioneer Cabin, and looking down on Twin Lakes.

Running Times recently did nothing to curb my enthusiasm when they ran a photo I took during last fall's Trail Creek 12k in Sun Valley for their November photo essay, The Wide World of Racing, which focused on the crush of races that always fall between the last weekend in October and first weekend in November.

Sure, it's not a perfect photo, but I still recall how hard I was breathing when I took it, trying to catch up to Medusa & friends as they made their way up the Proctor draw - and all while dressed as a shirtless Tarzan on a 28 degree morning.

Score one for photo biathlon.
Running Times - Nov 2011
Original: Medusa & Friends at the 2010 Trail Creek 12k, Oct 30

2 comments:

Stacy said...

Photo biathlon ... that's awesome. I love what you do, as you know. The (somewhat) recent sleeper photo of yours I REALLY liked was SteriPen Meditation. For whatever reason, I love pics that capture the "meta-run." Congrats on your 50K result in Boise, BTW.

Hank Dart said...

@Stacy. Thanks very much. It was a season of great images - hard to narrow them down to a few examples. I'm glad you called out the Steri-Pen photo. It was a personal favorite of mine this year, and I've finally uploaded it to my singletrack:photos portfolio. Cheers.