Thursday 9 July 2009

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 . .

Thursday 2 July 2009

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 . .