Scout Out Those Locations!

by John O'Keefe-Odom

AgXphoto.info

I had an awesome photo session this morning. I don't know how the pictures came out yet, but the session went great. It was like this:

I scouted out the camera position I wanted to use over a year ago. I wanted to photograph the start of the Chickamauga Chase. I woke up less than an hour before the race start.

Coffee. Camera bag. One camera with three frames left on the 120mm Ektachrome. Get set to drive out there. Car won't start. Wait that out. Hit the road.

The key aspect that I figured out a year ago was to use the roads outside of the park, off of the race course, but very near a desired location, to bring me to a spot that I chose as a vehicle dismount point. That's "parking space" for the rest of y'all.

I arrive with three minutes to the start time on the car's dashboard clock.

Pick up the stuff. Walk 25 feet from the car. Set down the tripod into position.

Boom! A large black powder canon, just out of sight, signals the beginning of the race.

Mount the camera on the tripod. Switch over to a telephoto lens I brought. Remove lens cap. Check the light.

Here come the runners! In a nice thick pack of moving people.

Click, click, click. Film winding. Roll done.

Reload with black and white, just because.

I look over to see if I can find anything interesting. There are about six people wearing T-shirts that say, "Run for God." They're walking.

Three more photos.

Pack up and leave. Here's the sweet part: these events normally take several hours. I wasn't having any of that. I walk back to the car. I get in it. I turn around and go back the way I came. Travel unimpeded by race course traffic! Back on coffee break in about 15 minutes after I left.

Ahhh. Yes! This is The Life.

Scout out camera positions and access paths in advance. Logistics can make or break photo shoot plans. In this case, it made a three hour wait-around turn into 15 minutes of what I wanted.

We'll see how the photos turn out, but it almost doesn't matter. It was smooth, fast and satisfying. I followed it up with morning coffee.

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