I suppose it is still today..
I was photographing some colleagues who were taking part in a challenge walk - 52 miles in under 24 hours. This is mostly off road in highland Perthshire following the Cateran trail. The challenge is to get pictures that cover the day's events which means getting to them at remote locations, getting the shot in challenging conditions and then getting to the next location in time.
Prep. I picked out a lightweight camera stand, my tripod (which is far from light), flash triggers and four lenses. 10-24, 17-70, 50 and 55-200. SB800, some grids and a few miscellanous bits. In addition I had my bike to enable transport.
The start was easy - get a nice posed photo before the beginning using the SB800 on the stand to add nicer light to an overcast day and then find some places where they come close to a road where I can walk in. That was the easy bit where anyone could do it. Nice photos, people smiling. On to the first water stop.
See my team go through, then it is up the road to find a parking space. I now have to put what I need into the rucksack and head cross country on the bike, over the river and up to the trail. As I am pedalling/walking up I hear a rushing stream. I scout a bit and find a bridge with a cascade underneath. Setting th ecamera to manual to catch the walker, I can use flash to fill in the undergrowth.
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davidmamartin, on Flickr
Standing waiting by the water I attract a lot of attention, of the small, buzzy and biting sort. So I extricate myself, and get some pics at the top whilst waiting for my team. They appear, I get pics as they approach, switch lenses and head back down the ravine to shoot them crossing the bridge. I screwed up, they were vey good about going back and walking over the bridge again.
Pack up, grab the bike and follow the trail to catch up and get some more shots. I really should have put the knobblies on instead of my commuting slicks. And getting the bike over 8ft high stiles is not easy.
Catch up, find a nce point with some foxgloves as foreground interest and get some pics. These are still nice but nothing special. I head back to the car (having planned this bit as a circular trip) and head to the checkpoint. More pictures. Technically fine, nothing exciting but they capture that part. For the close up shots of tired feet I bounce the flash off the marquee ceiling.
And then I go home, to meet up with them in the evening. I have plans which will be far more challenging.
Up to Glen Isla, and I unpack the MTB to ride back up the trail till I find a nice location to shoot. The light is dropping (it is 9pm) and patchy overcast. The quality of light is fine, the quantity difficult with a D80 (only use 400 ISO and above when desperate) and I am trusting in the VR on the 55-200. Then the sun comes out. Lots of flare, but tweaking levels nicely highlights the local wildlife - all the bright specs are midges.
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davidmamartin, on Flickr
Night starts to fall. For the next shot I want to make use of the magic blue sky/clouds with a mountain background, illuminating the walkers with gridded flash. I park the car and ride uphill for a mile in the lowest of low gears. The trail follows just outside a pine plantation but I get the view I want. Set the camera up. It will be 1/15 sec with flash. The grids don't fit very well on the flash (I have now designed an adapter that I must molish soon) but I get them pointed in the right direction. I'm tempted to put a CTO gel on and set the WB to tungsten but that will reduce my available light too much.
I am joined by a few midges. And all their friends and relations. The local bats are busy swooping around to get their evening meal. Thanks to a bike patrol chappie I acquire some deet wipes. These are great - they deter 95% of midges, leaving me free reign for the other 50 squillion.. After an interminable wait the groups appear and I get some shots. Close but could have done better. Not bad for 'you only have one shot so make it count' as go back and do it again was not on the cards.
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davidmamartin, on Flickr
I retrace my steps glad to be out of the midges dining room. At the car I swap light stand for tripod as a chance conversation about the glowsticks each walker has for the night leg has given some ideas.
We meet at the tea stop, a small marquee in a field. I spend time whilst they are drinking to set the tripod up and try some test exposures. The light is fading fast but eventually it is good to go. Again, one shot, they aren't coming back to do it again. Click the shutter and fire off the flash manually during the 20 second exposure. Great glowstick trails. Balanced the ambient about right for what I wanted.
Into the night.. by
davidmamartin, on Flickr
And so on to the next stop. This would be the hardest to get to. It is now proper dark, just gone midnight and it will take me a lot of time and effort to get to the next point. I park in Alyth and start riding up the hill (I had taken the opportunity of going home earlier to swap the knobblies onto the bike). The plan is to get a landscape view with head torch trails looking down from the top of Alyth Hill. I ride, then walk as the track becomes steeper, and then it goes off tarmac and onto grass and boggy mud. It is warm - I am just in a helly hansen top, keeping the sleeves rolled down but there are no midges. The DEET on my face stings my eyes as I sweat and licking my lips is a bad thing.
I set the camera up and establish a test exposure - this will be long, on the order of minutes. In all I see three groups, the first one I discover that LED head torches are very bright, and have over exposed them. The second group weren't using head torches, just available light (just about doable), and the third group were mine. I had established where the boundaries of the shot were using a carefully placed bike light so as they came towards that poing I warned them to close their eyes before I fired off the flashgun. I had under estimated the distance so that was quite underexposed. And I should have allowed the shutter to stay pen for another few minutes to fill int he sky more, but it seemed to work OK for a first attempt. Hard work to get two just usable shots though.
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davidmamartin, on Flickr
And to the finish where at last I could unroll my bivvi bag and sleeping bag, and get about an hour snooze before getting up to meet them in.
It was still dark when they arrived at just gone 4am, but by the time we had done breakfast there was sufficient light to shoot some medal photos before heading home. I was knackered, but nothing like them after over 21 hours on their feet.
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davidmamartin, on Flickr