Event Photography: The Color Run Milwaukee
The Color Run Milwaukee – Miller Park
This weekend I was hired by Flo-Foto as a studio photographer for The Color Run – Milwaukee race held at Miller Park. This race had a kaleidoscope for photo ops, which was run by my good friend and fellow shooterLidia.
The outside walls of this kaleidoscope were used as a portrait backdrop for groups at the event.
If you’re not familiar with The Color Run, it’s quite a spectacle. Runners are bombarded with a powdery mix of cornstarch and pigment as they pass certain landmarks on the course. Each landmark has volunteers ready to throw a different color. The mix is very fine, and makes clouds of color that of course stick everywhere that there is perspiration. By the end of the race everyone (even bystanders and nearby cars) are covered from head to toe in pigment.
It’s supposed to wash off. So they said. Scrape off was more like it. Oh, and: blue snot. Yeah.
Since expensive cameras do not do well around fine particulate matter, the photography organizer provided us with these clear plastic rain sleeves. I’ve seen these before, but this was the first time I used one. What I did not realize was that we’d be out in the sun the whole day. The last race I shot, I was given a tent to shoot in that offered some cover from the sun. I got baked. I found that the plastic cover prevented my camera from cooling properly, and between the heat from shooting, my own perspiration, and the sun hitting the plastic, my grip was like a microwave.
The protector was something I wrestled with all day, as it did not leave a lot of room for my hand and prevented me from twisting my lens’ zoom ring easily. Every now and again the excess would creep past my lens hood and make its way into the shot. I think next time I will attach it differently to allow for better movement. What a pain in the ass.
I also did not expect to be tethered. I knew they used studio strobes, which was nice, but they had simple PC Sync cables and stacked receivers which pretty much kept me anchored in the same spot all day long. I suppose it was more reliable than wireless triggers, but that would have been nice.
This event was packed. I thought I overheard someone say over the loudspeakers that there were 10,000 participants, and we were slammed all day long. Ordinarily there is a break from the time that the last competitors begin the course and the time that the first ones done arrive after completing the course. But we shot continuously from 7:30 am – 12pm. By the end I was filthy with pigment, exhausted and severely dehydrated.
I don’t envy some of the photographers their clean up afterward. There is a price to good photography, and sometimes it means being right in the thick of things.
Update:
Hey, if you are seeing this, you are on my old blog. Be sure to check out my new website with my updated Sports Portfolio here.
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