This morning we managed to get some shots of the camels getting
ready for the race. We arrived to the show grounds and got to shooting
immediately. There were a couple other photographers there and they
were all shooting flash with wide lenses. Since I had neither a wide
lens nor a flash, I decided to pull out my tripod and get a long
exposure of the whole scene. I set the exposure to 30 seconds and
pressed down the shutter button. At that instant, I saw a camel emerge
from behind a truck so I sprinted over to Jason (who was in frame) and
got him to fire a couple flashes with his camera at the camel in
question. The result was pretty cool, and I’m happy with how it turned
out.
As the camels made their way to the start line for a second
day of racing, I stayed at the show grounds to shoot the Jockeys trucks
in the morning light. However, Jason decided to attempt a mad dash
after the Camels all the way to the start line; with the car keys.
Half
an hour went by before I started wondering where Jason ended up. I
suspected he made it to the start line, but with no car keys, I was
essentially stranded. Finally, a very out of breath Jason Edwards
emerged from a corner of the show grounds. Apparently he had tried to
climb a wire fence to get back into the show grounds, only to find
himself hanging upside down with his boot tangled in the top of the
fence. From that point on we agreed to hand over the car keys before
chasing after wildlife in the bush, little did we know we would make
the same mistake numerous times further down the road.
The race
today went well. We managed to get all the shots we planned for and
couldn’t get yesterday due to light complications and time management
issues. By noon Jason and I were happy with the pictures we had, and
decided to grab some lunch and head to the community centre, so that
Jason could give a short talk to the local residents about working for
National Geographic and the art of photography in general.
Later
that afternoon, after the talk, we were taking pictures of the town
when the Mayor of Hughenden walked up to us and pulled Jason aside to
have a quiet word with him. It turns out that the Mayor had arranged
for Jason and I to get some aerial shots of the town and nearby
porcupine gorge tomorrow morning! Way cool.
That night at the pub,
Jason and I shared some pints (not really, they were “schooners” which
are a lame Australian attempt at a pint) with a couple other
photographers. It was interesting to see and hear the different
experiences these other photographers had, compared to those of Jason.
It was cool tthat all these photographers were all shooting the same
event, but for different levels of publication, whether it be Getty,
the local newspaper and National Geographic. That night I got to bed
fairly early. As mentioned before we had to be at the aerodrome for our
private chopper ride in the morning!
