| Photography - part three |
With the excitement of any race comes the picture-taking of the event to keep for the scrap book. I was thrilled to discover that we had a race scheduled for the weekend which is an event different from all others world wide, as far as I am aware. The race begins in SANI PASS a mountain resort which is located in the Drakensberg, which is at the second highest altitude in South Africa. The highest mountain is in the Outeniquas in the CAPE. Sani Pass is known world wide for its spectacular vistas and craggy outcrops and is also only accessible with a four by four. Because of its height, the resort is also very cold in winter and is snow bound in the coldest months, July August. There are many Drakensberg resorts which are more accessible, and ALL ARE stunningly beautiful.
Apart from being very cold, the riders, who were in teams of three, found themselves on the road at 00.00 hours in inky blackness, with just lamp light to steer down the steep mountain pass, which in many parts is so narrow that a fall is likely to be fatal.... (All reasons as to why I didn't go to take pictures from the start point, - apart from a lack of petrol.) The start found 37 teams riding a full 211 kilometres up and down dale - with many monstrous climbs all over the place, to a coastal resort called Margate. The first riders arrived at just after 10am beating the time they had set themselves of 12 noon. The morning was fresh to say the least when we got to Margate, about 20 minutes drive from home in Amanzimtoti, so I can just imagine what it was like in those lofty peaks at midnight, brrrrr.
By mid morning 13 teams had arrived at the beach, and found themselves struggling on the soft sand to make the tape. Teams were mostly all male but all four mixed teams were in the first 13 teams home.
Doing the photography was such fun, which is what it should be. I found that in total I had shot 147 photos and I had to select a section of these to show you, as a scrap book of the event. Nowadays most people own a camera of some sort or another and taking pictures should be fun. If you are like me and not familiar with the sport, it is a very good idea to arrive early, as you may miss the winning team or first people home Use the available light and try not to include flash if you are working on the beach, as I was in this instance. The beach is full of light colourings which have a bounce-off factor into a camera lens, which leads to over exposure of the shots. Try to remain as high as you can from the subject, and move away if possible from other spectators. At events, it's amazing how often these same spectators just move in front of what you are shooting and can see you have a camera lined up! Make sure you have a zoom capacity in the camera equipment. If you have a computer at your services you may want to lighten the pictures to show the faces better. However, personally I am not worried about who was competing. All I wanted to show was the drama of the event along with the joy shown from those who had come sharing the experiences they had found along the route.
I used only a Canon Power Shot camera, which is light and easy for anyone to use. A child will be able to take great pictures with this camera.
If you feel that the weather is a bit too dull, you may have time to use a fill-in flash or reflector board, but with sport, the shots need to be instantaneous, and quick judgement is required. Of the set I had done, I found that I could use any of about 80 and that if I had to select a best shot there were about 6 that I really liked. When taking a shot for a magazine dealing with fashion for example, a thousand shots may have been taken to use only one shot. This may seem wasteful, but in reality there are so many things that make a great shot or an absolute failure.
The objective for this set is to compose the pictures into a one or two page picture story. Many of us are familiar with scrap booking, and are quite competent at cropping the photos they have taken. In the case of a sporting event, a lot of cropping does take place - a foot or a log or leg in the view finder that wasn't there when you lined up to shoot! See what I have done with photos where a leg or log is in evidence. I made a vignette of these and they add drama as well. Once you have cropped the shots. you need to make sure that the page is a balance of colours and drama. In a collage or selection of the photos it is not necessary to add loads of trims to the pages that you set up as the photos are the objective. The failure I think, with scarp booking, is that far too much time, money and energy is spent on getting the trims onto the pages. If you have good pictures, what more do you need? However, be sure to select a really good quality paper to paste the pictures onto with an equally good protection for the photos. Make sure that you select from the best, as the photos will fade with time if left unprotected. Moisture in the air tends to be the culprit for most picture damage and sometimes even photos that have been framed are victim to damage. If you frame, make sure that frame seals perfectly so that no air gets to the pictures.