Taking photographs of the Dublin City Maraton has been a little bit of a tradition for me in the past. Whilst I haven’t been out to photograph it for a few years, the fact that a good friend of mine was participating in it, gave me the impetus I needed to head out this year.
I parked myself in the same spot as previous years, close to mile 8, by the Chapelizod gate in the Phoenix Park. The runners are well into the run at this point, so the pack is a little more spaced out. But more importantly, from a photographic point of view, they are running into the light, so are front lit, with just a background of trees behind them. Plus they’re running downhill towards me, so I’m not dealing with any sky or bright spots in the background (apart from some amateur photographer, that decided to wear a bright luminous yellow cycle jacket, and stand in front of me in the distance )
Setup wise, I used continual focus, shot wide open and used a high enough ISO to keep my shutter speeds at a point where everything should be sharp. That said, my attention dropped at times, as did the light, so some shots are a little blurred due to subject movement because the shutter was too slow. But c’est la vie. The light this year also wasn’t as pretty as previous years, so the colours are a little more subdued, but they’re OK shots from someone that shoots no sports what so ever.