An adventurer racer and mountain bike rider that I know was killed during a training ride in North Carolina last Saturday. Story here. (post) I had met Jeff and seen him at a number of events during the past few years and he was always smiling and enjoying life. He will be missed by the mountain bike and adventure racing communities.
My best wishes are with his family and close friends in this time of sadness.
Sunday I started on a project that I have been thinking about for a while. I wanted to go back to finding and photographing waterfalls in the southeast. Since I have switched from slide film to digital cameras since the last time I went to photograph any waterfalls I needed to experiment on what the camera would be able to do with flowing water. I did not want to spend a lot of time and effort finding a waterfall and not know what the camera would or could do with the subject.
There is a waterfall a short drive from the house that I have picked to experiment with shooting different images of. I wanted some place that was close and would allow myself multiple trips if need be to try different exposures and angles without costing a lot of time or money. Since this waterfall is close to the road and well-known in the area it took a couple of different trips to capture images at the falls. Each time I went there was either people swimming, climbing or just standing at the top of the falls. There was even a time when I was below the falls and someone was tossing large rocks into the pool at the base of the falls when I did not know that they were on top of the ridge.
After a few attempts I was able to shoot some images and have worked on the settings that I need to use to capture an image of a waterfall that will have the results that I want to see. Now it is time to start finding the falls that are a little more work to get to and off the beaten path, waterfalls that not everyone knows about.
Last weekend I was again honored to be allowed to capture images at the 28th annual Best Ranger Competition that took place at Fort Benning, Georgia. The competition is a grueling 60 hour event that just plan ol wears the teams down till the end. At no time during the competition was there a long rest to allow for a full recovery for the next event and all they had to eat was M.R.E.’s that they had to carry for the 3 days PLUS their 60 pounds of gear, body armour and weapons.
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While I was on base during the night a tornado took out part of a building a few miles from where I was sleeping early Saturday morning. After the storms had passed in the night the weather was great for the daytime events and I went to an area to get some images with a good sky in the background and the areas in the open were covered in even light. As the day went on I worked my way to the areas that the events were in the trees and shaded from the strong overhead sun. As the day came to an end the contestants were surprised with an extra orienteering event before the all night road march.
Sunday was the Darby Queen obstacle course, Helocast, water confidence course and final buddy run to the finish. Of the 51 teams that started only 31 teams made it to the finish line.
Saturday was the 3rd Blankets Creek Dirty Duathlon outside of Woodstock, Georgia. This year the weather was great, sunny and not too warm for the start. The sky was overcast which made for even lighting so there were not a bunch of harsh shadow to deal with. It also for the most part allowed me to photograph the participants at locations that I did not have to worry about them being backlit or in shadows. After arriving at the race check in and visiting with people I knew and had not seen in a while it was time to grab my last cup of coffee and make the hike to find a location.
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The race started with a 5 mile run and the location I picked would be about 3/4 of the way into the run so that the runners would be somewhat spread out. I would work a section of trails that had them passing me near a curve in the trail that I hoped would help me capture any runners that would be close to each other as they passed my location. Because of the terrain and the angles I like when doing these events I found locations that would allow me to sit on the ground or be below the trail. After the run there would be an 11 mile mountain bike ride to finish the race.
For the bike portion of the race I used some of the same sections of trail as the run but as the sun started to sneak out of the clouds I had to find locations that would not have the brighter sky at the riders backs. Fortunately there was a section of the trail that had a tight turn in the trail. This location was good as it had the sun light coming from my back. For this area I decided to switch to the 24mm lens and lay on the ground shooting both vertical and horizontal images of the riders. I worked 3 or 4 different spots along this turn and would keep the camera and lens as low as possible. Personally I preferred the horizontal image looks as you could see more of the turn and terrain in the image. This would be a nice spot to do a mountain bike shoot in the future when I could control the rider and setup some lights.
There is a lot of stuff being added to the trails and new trails being added to the area. With all that is going on I will have to return to do some images of riders in the future.
