Exercise An organised event

Pancake Day ...racing for charity

Finding an organised  local event at this time of the year was proving difficult until I came across this charity event on a local website ..the annual Pancake Race in Waterlooville on Shrove Tuesday in the town centre precinct. The prize for the winners would be a cheque for their nominated charity. I know the town well but couldn't quite imagine how they would organise this event. Nothing for it but to arrive early for a walk round the precinct to see where it was going to be run and to work out how best to play the photo shoot. Luckily the sun was shining and I had time to check out the venue,and sit outside with a coffee a stone's throw away from the starting line watching the organisers mark out the racetrack.

I decided to practise with both a wide angle ( I8mm ) and standard focal length ( which on my DLSR would be about 31mm). I thought that this would give me good opportunities to capture both the action and spectator's and runners reactions...I was looking for images that would tell the story....do they need captions?

P804: F10 @ 1/250  18mm ISO 400

P804 above and  P808 below were taken using a wide angle lens which give a feel of being right there in the crowd and amongst the teams. I was particularly pleased with the image of the  council worker practising with the help of his team mate...

P808:  F10 @ 1/250  31mm  ISO 400

P819: F10 @ 1/200  31mm  ISO 400

P819 above and P810 below were taken using standard focal length of 31mm..two very different outcomes ..I prefer the closer shot above as you can better see the differing expressions of the spectators watching this team member launch herself at the race.

P810: F10  @ 1/640  31mm  ISO 400

Using a wide angle in the image below gave me the opportunity to capture a real sense of expectation and excitement from the spectators and participants alike..though the perspective is a little warped  if you look at the verticals...with hindsight,a standard focal length would have avoided this.

P805: F10 @1/160  31mm ISO 400

P812: F10  @ 1/125  31mm ISO 400

I like the sense of enjoyment here in the image above (P812 ).. I had to resist the urge to crop out all bar the two ladies from the right of the image...leaving the image uncropped does give a feel of being right there in the crowd.  

P813: F10 @ 1/200  31mm  ISO 400

P811: F10 @ 1/100  31mm  ISO 400

P818: F10 @ 1/400  31mm  ISO 400

P813, P811  and P818 above again use a standard focal length...no distortion..just the visual facts.

P807: F10  @ 1/320  18mm  ISO 400

But are these real pancakes?

P807 -I really like this moment above captured using a wide angle lens - two girls totally absorbed in checking out the contents of the frying pan and oblivious to the official prizewinner's official photo being taken.I think the composition works well here - the eye being drawn over to the girls...

Despite my misgivings about the direction of the sun in relation to the race 'track', I was able to move around easily amongst the crowd of spectators and participants.This allowed me to take images without too much adjustment to the direction that I wanted to point the camera. True to the spirit of street photography,I left the images uncropped.