Sorry in advance; sports photography is not my speciality so I'm probably awful at it. I've just given my own particular style to this huge event, and it's my way of seeing it.
South Africa's Comrades Marathon is a race of epic proportions. An ultra-marathon of nearly 90 kilometers, it is a race that joins cities and hands. It's between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and is up or down, alternating each year. It always takes place on June 16th, now a public holiday which commemorates the dreadful shootings that took place in the apartheid days on June 16th, 1976 in Soweto. Some 12 000 runners take part in the event - that first started some 80 years ago.
Now world-famous, it had just a handful of starters in its early days. It's just about every South African's dream to run the Comrades, and many do - old, young, thin, fat, blind...whatever and whoever you are.
The big name runners do it in 5 hours 30 minutes with a cut off time for the stragglers of around 12 hours. The real human part of the Comrades is the latter half of the race - the ordinary people and the incredible cameraderie that sends goosebumps down one's spine. People helping each other, some literally carrying their "brother" or "sister". It's a day where people forget completely about the many deep racial and political divisions that still exist in South Africa...whites cheer on blacks, blacks clap and support whites. People run arm in arm and hand in hand. The healthy and the not so healthy. And even before the end of "apartheid" way back as far as I can remember, it was always like this.
It was the one day each year that South African's forgot about their past, and hoped for a few hours for a future that would somehow be different, free and happy.
For South Africans, Comrades is far more than a simple sporting event. It's a day we all treasure, a symbol of how people should really act towards each other.
Durban, 16 June 2005
All the images were shot about 3 miles from the finish, all with the D2X, RAW, 17-55, and either at ISO200 or 400. About 2 were cropped, rest are as is.
South Africa's Comrades Marathon is a race of epic proportions. An ultra-marathon of nearly 90 kilometers, it is a race that joins cities and hands. It's between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and is up or down, alternating each year. It always takes place on June 16th, now a public holiday which commemorates the dreadful shootings that took place in the apartheid days on June 16th, 1976 in Soweto. Some 12 000 runners take part in the event - that first started some 80 years ago.
Now world-famous, it had just a handful of starters in its early days. It's just about every South African's dream to run the Comrades, and many do - old, young, thin, fat, blind...whatever and whoever you are.
The big name runners do it in 5 hours 30 minutes with a cut off time for the stragglers of around 12 hours. The real human part of the Comrades is the latter half of the race - the ordinary people and the incredible cameraderie that sends goosebumps down one's spine. People helping each other, some literally carrying their "brother" or "sister". It's a day where people forget completely about the many deep racial and political divisions that still exist in South Africa...whites cheer on blacks, blacks clap and support whites. People run arm in arm and hand in hand. The healthy and the not so healthy. And even before the end of "apartheid" way back as far as I can remember, it was always like this.
It was the one day each year that South African's forgot about their past, and hoped for a few hours for a future that would somehow be different, free and happy.
For South Africans, Comrades is far more than a simple sporting event. It's a day we all treasure, a symbol of how people should really act towards each other.
Durban, 16 June 2005
All the images were shot about 3 miles from the finish, all with the D2X, RAW, 17-55, and either at ISO200 or 400. About 2 were cropped, rest are as is.
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