When people think you’re the race photographer
Look at all of these nice pictures Steven got at the Trek the Trails Half two Saturdays ago!
But wait. Why are all these people looking so smiley and happy for Steven? They don’t know him. Hmm…
Ha ha. Cause they mistook Steven for a course photographer. He often gets to a site early and does a few practice shots to get the lighting and composition right for when the people he knows go by. People sometimes think he is an official race photographer when he’s doing that.
He said at this race, he took a few photos to get set up, and so many people started coming and hamming it up for him that he just kept taking their photos. Steve (Gina‘s husband) said one guy looked like he was having a rough race, but that when he saw Steven from far away, he switched his race belt so his bib was in the front and then corrected his form and got all smiley. Poor guy! He might wonder why he never saw this pic!
I feel bad when this happens! I wish there was a way to share all the pics, but this event doesn’t have a Facebook page or anything. I suppose I could have emailed them to ask if they wanted the pics? I shared some photos (via Dropbox) I took at a race last year with the official photographer and wondered if they were ever shared with the participants.
What’s funny is that I was thinking about this early last week, then got an email about the duathlon I did and how they were using a shared photo site called Eversnap. The site allows everyone at the event to share the photos they took (via your smart phone or computer). So I actually found some of myself, as well as some that show the course:
It’s set up so that you can “like” photos and leave comments, similar to how you would on Facebook:
It looks like this site is set up with parties in mind (like a wedding or other big event) but it works great for races, too! I wonder if I’ll see more races doing this. I’ll pay attention, because it would be a great way to share photos (rather than Facebook or me trying to set up some external site).
Otherwise, I am just going to keep deleting all the “practice” shots – these high res images take up a lot of space! And take a lot of time to sort through.
I’ll be doing that this weekend – sorting through images. Steven is renting two fancy schmancy lenses to take photos at the Wisconsin Marathon and Half Marathon! I can’t wait to see how the pictures turn out. He is really excited to try out the lenses.
Themocracy
They probably just want to see their pic on the blog. 🙂
Eversnap sounds like a good idea.
It’s because Steven is such a good race photographer! Better than the real ones. 🙂 Can’t wait to ham it up for him this weekend!
Aww, thanks!
He is going to wear a balloon so it will be easy to find him! 🙂
That’s a great idea!
Hahaha on a couple occasions either I or people I know have been taking pictures at races with D-SLR cameras and had the same experience. I love that Eversnap idea for races! I’m sure there are pictures of me at races that strangers accidentally took, and it’d be cool to be able to see them. (Although, now that I think about it, maybe it’s for the best that I can’t. At least this way I can live in blissful ignorance, convincing myself I am the picture of grace, beauty, and athleticism at every point along every racecourse except the point where Marathon Foto happens to be set up 😛 )
Ha! That is so true – we try (usually) to look our best for race photographers! But I like the real pics as well 🙂 Tells the whole story. Ha!
Someone posted this to the Running sub-reddit group: http://www.bibtagger.com/
Ahh, very cool. But how do you get the people who ran the race to see it? Ask the race director to post that link to Facebook or something?
Steven does take such great pictures, it’s a shame that people don’t get to see them. At our race I tell people to share their photos on Facebook but, interestingly, hardly anyone ever does.
I wonder if it’s because you can’t upload an album to a race Facebook page, or share more than one photo in a post! I was going to do that for a race recently, and didn’t for that reason. Of course, I could have put a link to them someplace else, but, eh, too much of a hassle.
Can’t wait to see the photos that Steven (and Tyler) get this weekend! And that site for sharing photos is GENIUS!!
Eversnap sounds like such a great idea! Why didn’t someone come up with something like that sooner!?!?!?
And I am absolutely sure that I’ve hammed it up for an unofficial photographer many times. Oops! Alas, the trials and tribulations of us runners managing all of our paparazzi, no? ;-P
For the Circular Logic Marathon, they let anyone upload their photos to the site. If you found one you liked, you could download it for $2, and the person who took the photo got $1 back. Pretty cool idea!
That is a fantastic idea! Did you find any of yourself that you liked? Is that what you used for your recap?
That’s so cute how everyone perks up when they see a camera. Bummed I’ll miss everyone at WI this weekend! But the pig calls. Oink oink!
You’ll have a great time at Flying Pig! I’ve heard such good things about those races!
Ha, was Steven annoyed that people assumed he was a photographer?
He wasn’t! I think he just feels bad that they think he is!
That is such a cool idea to share pics from an event with everyone on a common site – it would be great if that became the norm.
I did the same thing when I would see a photographer, smile and get a little perkier, no matter how crappy I felt. So if you look at it that way, Steven is just giving racers a nice boost, right?
Ha ha ha, yes! We need photogs lining the whole course! 😉
I generally assume anyone with a fancy camera could be a race photographer, since sometimes it’s hard to tell. Then I get closer and they don’t take my picture (which could still mean they’re race photographers, like at the Shamrock Shuffle, where I apparently run with my cloak of invisibility each year). But I’ll keep an eye out for Steven and his balloon on Saturday 🙂
I wish more races would do that! Do they still charge you to download them?
The site I mentioned does not! 🙂