Nice work if you can find it . .

Well that was last Sunday when I turned up at the Burnham Beeches ½ Marathon and asked the Race Director if anybody was taking photos, and as they weren't, could I? And the RD he say Yep!

So I did . . 45 minutes sat on a grass verge opposite a nice looking country pub, and then about 90 minutes laid on the grass in the corner of a sports field in the grounds of Caldicott School in Buckinghamshire . . and very nice it was too, in the sunshine, watching all those runners go by . .

And either side of the photography, some time spent with some lovely friends . . Great Day :-)

I realise I've said something similar to this before, but where does the time go? Can't believe it's been so long since I last blogged here! Things have been good . . I've been to three races - the Harlow 10, the Bearbrook 10k, and now the Burnham Beeches ½, and had official blessing from the race organiser to take photos. Usually a little further in advance than an hour or so before the event starts!

I've written to 4 more races asking to go along and take photos, 2 have replied and are considering, two haven't replied. I'll probably just go along anyway, and if it's obvious that nobody is taking photos, I'll carry on . . and I've the Dunstable Downs Challenge and the Ridgway Run ahead of me, where in both cases I'm definitely t'Official Photographer :-)

Can't complain about not hearing from running clubs when their websites are usually run by volunteers in their spare time . .

Interest has been promising from the 3 races to date, and I'm pleased with the number of sales I've had so far given that I've had hardly any publicity . . all the more reason to use this blog of course - anything to help people find out about me and my photographs . .

So to pick up from my last blog, yes, I've found out how to cut down much of the work I used to have to do to get mmy photos online. There's still plenty to do of course, and on each occasion I learn more about how to streamline it all even more . .

That's enough for now . . here's my tribute to Yorkshire Day . . which was August 1st btw . .

Another week passes with no blog!

And that just won't do!!

So last weekend I was at 2 races. First I lugged my compact camera down the Birmingham Canal between Wolverhampton and Birmingham, as I took part in the Birmingham Black Country Half Marathon

Then on Sunday I photographed the Princes Risborough Festival 10k, and had a lovely morning because Kim and Gill, 2 of my clubmates, came along and supported too . .

Have to say I got some great photos of that race, and was thrilled that the organising club (Vale of Aylesbury AC) posted a link to them from their front page the following morning :-)

I'm running again this weekend, the Northumberland Coastal Run on Sunday, and will be carrying my compact with me en route of course . .

Next Wednesday I'll be at the Waddesden 5k, a local race for me, that start and finishes in front of the Rothschild's place. Should get some nice photos if the weather's good . .

I've inked in 2 more parkruns, Bushey on 25 July, and Richmond on 1 August . . and I'm looking for races to photograph on the 19th and 26th of this month too . .

Finally, in a technocological breakthrough of epic proportions, I believe I've worked out how to remove most of the hard graft and repetition from the process of building the race pages of my website every time I post new photos . . watch this space for more!!

Will report back after Northumberland . .

Need to Catch Up

Morning!!

Where have the last two weeks gone? Apologies for my absence, and welcome to July!

June ended with taking way too many photos at the local Thame 10k. It's a popular race that attracts almost 1,000 entries each year, and in good weather it's a pb course. This time however it was run in extremely hot and humid conditions, and people were dropping left, right and centre, to the extent that there weren't enough first aiders to go round at the finish! I should add that the provison of first aid would have been more than adequate in normal conditions but the 28th of June was far from normal. Hopefully all have made a swift recovery and are back running again.

Too many photos? Well yes, from my point of view, as I didn't have the following day off work to do the processing and add them to my site. Nevertheless, I managed to post 700 photos by yesterday morning. For the first time I've used much lower resolution and a watermark, and frankly I don't like them all that much but needs must. If I'm to sell any, then I mustn't make the downloadable ones too appealing! I may have gone a little too far with the low resolution though.

So it was a relief when I realised that I could show the photos of my Tring Running Clubmates in a higher resolution as a sort of shop window, to demonstrate the quality of the other photos.

One race Ihaven't recorded is the Marston Forest 5k, on Friday 19th. I found a nice spot by the 4k marker, sat down and leant against a tree, and got some great shots, especially of the leaders approaching me . .


I mailed the race secretary about my photos and they've added a massive link to my site which looks great (check this out) which is almost embarrassing as they seem to have overlooked the official photographer. But only almost . .

Right . . I'm running in a race on Saturday, that'll make a nice change. It's the Birmingham & Black Country ½ Marathon, a pleasant amble down the canal from Wolverhampton to Birmingham, and I'm looking forward to it.

Back behind the camera on Sunday of course, at the Princes Risborough 10k, but I'll try and blog again before then . .

Tring Midsummer Fun Run

I passed a pleasant evening in Tring last night, as my club staged the 9th Midsummer Fun Run. The evening consists of running races for children of all ages around the cricket fields, and there is great competition between the children of Tring's schools . .

Once the 487 children and teenagers had completed their laps and received their medals, the event concluded with a race along local roads and canal tow path of about 6k, which this year attracted a field of 240 runners. The evening is run in conjunction with Iain Rennie Hospice at Home, and many of the runners will have raised sponsorship for the charity by running their race. All profits from the evening also go to this very worthwhile local charity . .

I've now got many of the photos online at www.theracephotographer.com (where else!!) but those of the runners completing the main race will have to wait . .

Discovered a flaw in one cunning plan, which is to display photos in race number order, so that I can label pages accordingly and visitors can find themselves with relative ease. But I can't read the race numbers after I've created the thumbnails . . so I need to do that job the other way round!!

But that's why I'm taking loads of photos just now, to learn stuff like that before I go commercial!!

And the reason the photos from last night need to wait a little while is because tomorrow evening I'm off to the Marston Vale 5k, another flat fast race with about 400 hundred runners, so let's hope for a sunny evening!!

That's all for now . . more at the weekend . .

tsk . . I forgot to mention . .

that the photos I took on Saturday at Basingstoke are here

had fun taking them, especially as for once I sat down, which meant that (a) I didn't get tired and (b) I got my photos from a different angle . . at 6'5" I'm usually looking down on people, especially when I take my step ladder with me!!

and they're good photos too :-)

meanwhile I've gone beta after all (look south for explanation) . . and here's the beta index of my website . .

basically I've applied the mascara . . so less is more . . not everything works but the important stuff does . . and I'd be interested to know what you think :-)

the new phone is good too and I've twittered and facebooked whilst walking to work . . can it get any better? ;-)

till the next time . .

edit . . can't be bothered with this beta business . . but was bothered that my existing home page (the pre-mascara draft if you like) was too awful to keep up there when I had an alternative to hand . . so the mascara is live!!

goodnight :-)

progress is slow . . but steady . .

this evening I've updated my regular front page . . I was thinking of going *beta* but no need yet, I'll only have to do that when I'm trying out my merchandise pages . .

and I figured that the sooner I get the new look up there for you to look at the better, then I'll get more feedback, which is a Good Thing!!!

don't forget, it's all at www.theracephotographer.com

also today I got myself (or will, once it's delivered) a new mobile . . out goes the Sony Ericsson whatever it is with t-mobile at £30/month!! how did I get into that contract? in comes the Nokia E63 with unlimited texts, unlimited internet and unlimited e-mail and free Skype to Skype (ok, so only 75 mins talk time a month but I rarely call from it). all for £15/month. Nice :-)

it's an ugly son of a gun with a full qwerty (keyboard) but it'll help me keep in touch with my website and monitor any sales as and when they come in . . and twitter :-)

off to Basingstoke parkrun in the morning, so early start for me . . good night each!!

and now it can be told . .

that I have a new domain name . . henceforth, RichK is . .

www.theracephotographer.com

which is kind've exciting, to say the least!!!! well, it is to me anyway!!

of course the new address only takes you to the old place, which doesn't look much different just now, but it will, you'll see. I'm working hard to make the site slicker, looking at not using frames and so forth so that pages can be bookmarked and linked to . .

it's all great fun . . never dreamt way back in Dublin in 2002 when I took my first running photos that I'd end up going where I'm going now . .

this weekend I'll be at the Basingstoke parkrun on Saturday morning, taking more photos and presenting them in my "race reportage" format in the same way as I displayed my photos from Amager Fælled and Morden Hall . .

the adventure continues . .

in the beginning . .

I started taking photos at running races, during races, and then of races in 2002 at the Dublin Marathon.

Since then my website www.richk.co.uk has expanded and developed beyond my wildest expectations or imaginings.

The purchase earlier this year of a Pentax Digital SLR camera has opened new horizons to me and I'm about to take race photos on a commercial basis. Not instead of my day job, but to help me pay for that next long or wide lens.

So my website needs to develop and I've been working on that for a while now, behind the scenes, as well as going to lots of races and honing my photography skills whilst getting used to the camera. Previously I've used compact digital camera, and have always got good results, but now with my DSLR I'm taking the sort of photo I never dreamt of!!

Thanks to my nephew Tim in Melbourne, I've found www.graphic-design.com and www.uxbooth.com and thanks to my own efforts I've found www.colorcombos.com, after I came to realise that just using the colours of my home town football team probably wasn't good enough! Not that there's anything wrong with Hull City's colours of black and amber, of course!!

Thanks also to RachE for a particularly good idea, and yes, the url's are bought but until they're working I'll keep quiet!

Thanks to Rob, aka fatface, for one spectacularly good idea, which as with all the best ideas only became blindingly obvious after he had thunked it!!

Finally thanks to all of you out there who have encouraged me (Ant Bliss and Jonathan S have been particularly generous in their encouragement) because without your belief, I wouldn't have believed in myself and set off along this exciting path . .

I have two local races lined up where I will be taking photos which will be for sale, and I've my eye on a another local race before these two which I will be using as a dry run to make sure the systems I'm currently working on function as planned . .

This blog, at least initially, is intended only to be about my photography . . more news to follow as it breaks . .