I woke up feeling hungry this morning, which may have been because my
last meal was at a gas station in Winton, a small town on the drive
between Longreach and Hughenden. Wasting no time, Jason and I got our
gear into the freshly ‘roo dented rental and made our way into town to
try and find some food. We eventually found a small café, and after a
couple BLT’s and coffee we were ready to get a lay of the land around
Hughenden. We only managed to walk two blocks before spotting a bunch
of camels waking down the street. Locals stared from a safe distance in
a state of awe, as a couple other photographers ran down the street,
shooting frame after frame. I managed to get a couple shots of the
bizarre setting with some of the more eager locals getting their own
pictures.
Later that afternoon we had a briefing for the camel
race from event organizer, and “camel man extraordinaire” Paddy McHugh.
The course consisted of 9 laps around the town on Saturday, and 7 laps
of the same track on Sunday. There were only eleven camels in the race,
which meant that the Jockeys had pretty good odds of winning the
$15,000 first place prize.
Once we all knew what the plan was for
the next couple days, Jason and I decided to drive a couple laps of the
course and try to scope out some good spots to shoot from. We found a
couple spots, jotted them down on a pad and went back to the hotel to
make a game plan for tomorrows race. As we discovered this afternoon,
the Australian sun is a tough match for shooting, as it washes out all
the details in your highlights, and makes your shadows seem like pools
of pure darkness. With this in mind we set out to do most of our
shooting when the sun was low in the morning and in the evening, even
to the point of where we were trying to figure out times for when
shadows would fall in a certain way, or when dirt would appear a
certain shade of red. It was all starting to look like a very
meticulous and planned operation. Once we were happy with our plan, we
decided to call it a day and head to the pub for some grub and drinks.
We got to bed early; Jason and I have agreed to leave the Motel at
6:00, and it’s quarter to one now.
