I work for a great running company, Rogue Running, and they like to put on crazy events to break up the summer doldrums. Last week they put on the Rogue Double Dare Challenge. A timed obstacle course ending in a murky inflatable slip n slide.

First up, Bobbing for Apples

The Second Event is High Knees

Third, Shaving Water Balloons, aka Steve’s Revenge

Fourth, Medicine Ball Reverse Shot Put

The Fifth event is interesting. Whip Cream Pie Pushup to find the Gummi Bear. One pushup per bite.

Sixth up is the Hula Hoop. Guys had way more issues than the Gals on this event.

The seventh obstacle is over and under hurdles.

The World Cup-inspired eighth event had runners weave through soccer cones with a super light kids ball.

Ugh, Dizzy Bat for number nine.

Immediately following Dizzy Bat, the Egg Carry required the exact fine motor skills that Dizzy Bat depleted.

Remember the murky slip n slide? Yep, that is the finish.

And your reward for completing these 11 events? Beer, from North by Northwest!

(From left to right: Adam Perkins, Joe Thorne, Darren Brown, Kyle Miller)

First up, I remembered to take some setup shots so that I don’t have to draw cheesy diagrams in photoshop.

Second, these Team Rogue guys are F-A-S-T. I asked Coach Sisson if they would be moving quickly through my lighting zone. He said, “well, you won’t be able to tell the difference between their hard and easy, from 4:10 to 4:30 pace.” That, my friends, is hurtling through the bi-pedal atmosphere.

This weeks workout was at Zilker Park in downtown Austin, Texas. I wanted to get more essence of place than last weeks non-descript track. The skyline of downtown Austin would be awesome. The fog and haze prevented a clear view, but at least my strobes weren’t working overtime like last week.

The runners were coming by from both sides of the road, running an out and back course. So I setup a modified triangle lighting. The flash to left had a 1/4 cto on it, and the middle side light had a blue gel. I should have put a warming gel on the far right side. The middle light was for rim lighting, and at some point I moved it across the street into the same position.

Not having an extra person around this week, I had to self test the light to make sure I had a decent exposure.

I know that David Hobby uses his hand for this type of thing, and I usually do too, but I want to see how the gels would play on my noggin first.

When the guys and gals started their workout, I wanted to go low with a wide-ish angle and get close to get the feel of speed and still get some of the Austin Skyline. It worked okay for a single runner, but for the guys in the groups, the person closest to me would look good and the others would become obscured. The point of these photos is the team, so I switched to my trusty 70-200 and captured the Rogue’s as they came around turn 1.

Lots more from this group to come, including my favorite composite.

EDIT: HERE is the video link from the workout

JB

As some of you may know, I take many of the images seen on Rogue Running’s Blog. The folks at Rogue have a nascent elite training team that need more exposure. (<--- photog joke).

Today we are going to talk about how light a subject like Raul, in the above image, to give some dramatic light to fast moving subject.

Going into to this photoshoot I knew that I wanted to add edge lights. With my wireless triggers, the excellent AlienBee CyberSyncs, my max shutter speed is going to be 1/250th of a second. Faster would be better, but then the lights start doing funny things, so 1/250 it was.

To set my aperture, I just kept upping the dial until I got an f-stop that was making my ambient go somewhat underexposed. It was between f11 and f14 depending on cloud cover. My plan was then to build the subjects up with flash, making them the brightest object in the frame. I setup the flashes at the transition area from straightaway to curve on the track. This gave me the opportunity to shoot the runners straightaway, profile and everywhere in between. The sun is coming in at about a 45 degree angle to the runner.

I setup 3 flashes, one from behind and 2 in front of the subject.

Hopefully, my crude photoshopping will illustrate this setup. The flashes were at 1/2 power, to get me some recycle time. The low flash in front is aimed at the shoes to help freeze the motion in the lower leg and foot area, since this is the part of the body traveling with the most speed. Part of the issue with shooting at 1/250th is that you can get some motion blur in heavy ambient, I was ok with a little but that one flash done low really helped out.

I used the finish line as a marker and general guideline. When I saw a foot or body pass by this position I took a frame. I use this technique in races a lot where I have my triangular zone lighting setup. My flashes are generally out of view, so I use a rock, or stump or whatever I can scrounge as a key to where the exposure will be best.

The second part of the track workout, I wanted to give the new 85 1.8 a spin, to see how it would do in fast moving conditions. Used f2 and underexposed by a stop or so, and then brought down even more in post. I got some images like this one:

No lights were used in these because I was getting f2 and 1/6400 at iso 100. Radiopoppers would be nice, but alas.

You will be seeing more from this group in the future once the Team gets settled and in town.

-JB