The Lead Pack

Injury prevented me from competing in the Istanbul Marathon for a few years. It took me quite some time to shake off that frustration; but eventually, I set myself to photograph the event instead. Especially the elites, who I would normally never be able to set eyes on during a race. Here are the lead runners storming past me in 2019.

I had photographed the 2017 and 2018 marathons as well, however non of the photos from those two years are satisfactory for various reasons: wrong place, wrong light, bad luck etc. Prior to the 2019 race I scouted various locations, thinking about the background and direction of light expected at the time of the event.

As a hopeless print connoisseur, I should add a couple to this post. The first one is on 24x30 cm Ilford Classic, the second on 30x40 cm Forte Fortezo (FN4). Anybody remember Fortezo? Single grade and just wonderful! I still have a few of 10 sheet 30x40 cm packets.

In hindsight, that roll of FP4 on the second print seems ridiculous; it reeks of instagram vanity. Consider its presence as an indicator of scale. Still, the film I used for this photo was indeed FP4, my all time favourite (developed in home-mixed D76 1+1).

~

Recently I found some old and long forgotten color negs in my archive. Unfortunately, they are in pretty bad shape. I have no idea where and exactly when this photo was made (1993 or '94 maybe), neither who took it, but here I am, poor old sod in the middle, the lead pack probably far ahead, pushing through the 3000m steeplechase torture at a university race. The clock tells me that most of the pain is yet to come.