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.

Homage to Koudelka

Exiles - Josef Koudelka

I had always thought this to be Josef's own arm, as he was staring down a Prague street in 1968 during the Russian invasion (hmm, history is repeating), but got suspicious when I decided to do a homage picture in Istanbul, because on all my attempts my arm invariably entered the frame from the lower left corner instead of the left edge, and also extended "into the space". Then I did some digging and found this Guardian article according to which it is indeed the arm of a passerby!

The watch happens to be a Raketa 2603, made in Saint-Petersburg. This webpage has a very nice montage of a Raketa 2603 with the original picture.

~

To obtain a similar perspective and size of fist as that in Koudelka's photo I tried several different focal lengths between 24mm to 35mm on a 35mm camera at home. In the end I thought 28mm was about right. In an interview in one of his books Koudelka stated that he used an East German 25mm lens for his Gypsies series. That work was made in the 1960s, so I think it reasonable to assume that for the Prague photo he used the same 25mm. Maybe the Zeiss Jena Flektogon 25mm/f4 on an Exacta? Like this ?

Anyway, on the 13th March 2021, on a sunny but chilly day, I walked the streets of Istanbul with a 28mm on my camera and the purpose of doing a homage to a photographer whose work I come back to again and again. This picture from the single roll I exposed that day has had the staying power for me: 

~

Dogfood, a zine that I love, called out to its readers a while ago and asked them to send their Koudelka re-enactments and published a wonderful selection in its 8th issue, from which I hope it's OK to show a couple of spreads:

As you can see, some of the arms do enter the frame from almost center left; and indeed one from the right! Have they all had a friend to pose? Were they all aware that, to remain faithful to the original, it had to be someone else's arm? Or are my arms too short? I feel there is a mystery out there.

~

Some 20 years ago, I was desperately looking for a copy of Koudelka's Exiles. It was out of press and nowhere to be found. Then one day I was in Rome, walking the back streets, and entered a small bookshop...and to my delight found a brand new copy from an Italian publisher (Alinari). I bought it on the spot of course. The opening photo of Exiles is the '68 Prague picture, by the way.

I'd like to end with a lesson learned: books go out of print. When they are gone you might never find another one; at least for a reasonable price, because the prices of some will skyrocket (Amazon's algorithms probably have a hand in that as well). So, if you like a photo book and have the means, I strongly suggest you buy it while it is still in print.