Park2Park Relay, Part V: Everything else ... and it's all good

Like I did for last year's inaugural running of the Hendricks County Park2Park Relay, when I came across lulls Saturday, I turned my photographic attention to my surroundings. The photos in today's post are about those.

Many are high-dynamic range (HDR) renderings -- single images reflecting slightly surreal tones as a result of the melding of two or more images of the same scene taken in quick succession, each with a slightly different exposure. In the case of Saturday, I bracketed my exposures at -2/3 (darkest), 0 (normal) and +2/3 (brightest) stop intervals. I'll indicate which are HDR shots, although maybe you'll recognize them instantly, given the volume of HDR photos I've presented in Photo Potpourri since I first indulged in HDR a year and a half ago.

Under normal circumstances, you mount the camera on a tripod when photographing scenes to process in HDR software. The precaution is a reliable safeguard against any camera shake or movement as the camera records the three bracketed frames. But on days like Saturday, when you don't want to lug around a tripod for 12 hours, it's handy to have a lens like the year-old Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II PZD VC, whose vibration compensation (the VC) technology has enabled users to enjoy a high incidence of success capturing steady images for HDR while hand-holding the camera. Adding to the safeguarding for hand-holding my HDR shots was the Canon 7D's 8.3 fps (frames per second) burst rate. I set the burst at its highest performance mode. So combined with a high enough shutter speed, those hand-held bracketed shots are recorded in no time ... less than a second.

Except for the early-morning images at Sodalis Nature Park, where I did use a tripod (and my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens) for the pitch-dark start of the ultramarathon at 5 a.m. and for a while thereafter, all of my HDR shots Saturday were hand-held using the Tamron lens.

Leading off the post is a shot composed about 5:50 a.m. at Sodalis -- 20 minutes before sunrise -- using the Canon 24-70mm lens set at 46mm on a tripod. It is not an HDR shot; it was taken at f/2.8, 2.5 seconds at ISO-800. This fisherman probably was confounded by the beehive of activity there at time, as more and more people filed into the park, he moved more and more to the left to be out of people's way.

A full gallery of race-only pictures is now available at my smugmug.com site.

You can all cheer; this is the last post I have planned for my shots at the Park2Park. :-)

Above: Another shot at Sodalis, this time using the pond as sole subject. I've been told that with water reflection shots, you should compose or drastically eliminate the lion's share of the source object or go without it altogether -- in this case, the real trees -- to enhance focal attention on the reflection. I felt that if I did that here, I'd lose that beautiful arc in the center, and I didn't want to do that. This is an HDR composition.

Above and next two below: Hummel Park in Plainfield was a the second exchange station on Saturday's 64.5-mile course, but there also was a fitness fair going on.  In fact, moments after I arrived, two gals led a large group in a Zumba routine. I tried shooting this from the front, but the sun was right in my eyes. That's why the shots below are from the back.

 

Above and below: Two views of the bridge spanning White Lick Creek in Hummel Park. The one above was taken from the east side, looking west. Below, an HDR rendering, from the west side looking east.

Above: One of the prettiest sites on the course, the garden that greets visitors entering Hummel Park from the east.

Above and next two below: Shots taken from the Plainfield A-frame town welcoming sculpture where White Lick Creek meets Washington Street (U.S. 40). First below is a birdhouse in the rest area near the sculpture; second below is the creek, taken from the bridge above looking south (left). The birdhouse and creek are HDR shots.

Above: XRB Browsburg radio's Shane Ray (left) and Rob Kendall, doing live remote broadcasts of the Park2Park Relay from near the gazebos in Williams Park, Brownsburg.

 Above: White Lick Presbyterian Church at 2530 N. Hendricks County Road 600 East near Avon. This is an HDR rendering.

Above and next two below: Shots from a cemetery catty-corner from White Lick Presbyterian Church. All three are HDR renderings. In the case of the monument closeup below, those white specks you see in the background isn't sensor dirt; it's the sunlight highlighting specks of foliage in background bokeh.

Above: A reprise of the Danville/Hendricks Regional Hospital water tower, only without the power transformer box and stretching athlete as shown in yesterday's post.

Above: A look at the grassy ravine and footpath below the rust-colored steel bridge in McCloud Nature Park.

Above and below: Above is a gravel path along the west side of McCloud. The turn in the foreground leads immediately to the rust-colored bridge (below), a view that looks east. Once runners cross the bridge, they turn right (south) to do a double-back segment whose hairpin return point is the park's southern-most border. On the northbound return trip, they could catch one last glimpse of the bridge by looking left from the slight ridge you see beyond the bridge, where the white path ends. Both of these images are HDR shots. 

 Above: I heeded this warning, posted in McCloud.

Above: A modest wooden bridge in McCloud in the park's eastern section. This is an HDR shot.

Above and below: Above is one of the birdhouses I came across on the course path in the eastern section of McCloud. It is just outside a layer of brush and trees that buffer the course path from Big Walnut Creek (below). Both of these images are HDR shots.

Park2Park Relay, Part III: Dawn, daylong relay breaks at Sodalis

Dawn broke and the sun rose at 6:15 a.m. Saturday at Sodalis Nature Park, and 3 hours and 15 minutes later, the Hendricks County Park2Park Relay had finally ushered through the last wave of starters from Sodalis in the cross-country team relay competition.

In the last week or so before race day, race organizers decided to stagger the starts in 15-minute intervals, sending off first those teams who expected to need the most time on the course and saving the faster teams for later. The thinking was to try and get everyone to arrive -- 64.5 miles later -- at the terminus, McCloud Nature Park, at about the same time.

So I was able to photograph all the starts, and in the process, got to witness the beautiful sunlight transition, from dawn to sunrise to early morning, at Sodalis. It made for a memorable experience.

Sodalis formally opened only about a month before last year's inaugural Park2Park Relay. I made my first visit to the park June 3, 2011, about three weeks before the start of the first race. I spent that day driving as much of the full course as I could find and access so I knew what I and fellow photographers from the Indy Meetup Photo Club would be up against ... and to hopefully get ideas on where to assign photographers on race day. I also took some photographs along the way.

Today's post features pictures from the various starts on Saturday ... and from the very short loop that runners take on an asphalt trail in the open area of Sodalis. The loop begins right off the start line, before runners proceed across an earthen dam then enter the park's wooded area to complete the first of 18 legs of the race.

Above: At 5:55 a.m., the ultramarathoners were already on the course for nearly an hour, and while some daylight was evident, sunrise still wouldn't arrive for another 20 minutes. Race organizers kept the car headlights pointed at the start line.

Above: Because of the staggered starts, race committee member John Sparzo (left) had to walk through instructions multiple times, once for each new group approaching the start line. Just like how all team members are invited to join their last runner cross the finish line at the end of the race, John told runners at the start that team members were welcome to join their Leg 1 runners jog along the short loop off the start line in Sodalis. 

Above: Diane Kaiser (left) and Kylie Kult joined their Chicks with Kicks first-leg runner, Kristi Waddell, for the ceremonial short loop off the start line.

Above: Hendricks Power Cooperative team's first leg runner, Kim Monroe (12901), is joined by teammates off the start.

Two area radio stations did live broadcasts from the parks along the course  Saturday. At Sodalis Nature Park, Randall Wayne (right) of WCBK in Martinsville interviewed the Parks Department's William Roche during one of the lulls between the interval starts. Below, Wayne talked to Logan Kuhne of the team "5 More Muffin Men ... and an Old Guy." Logan was the "old guy" on the team, by the way, and he made everyone aware of it because it said so on the back of that green shirt. Later in the race, Shane Ray and Rob Kendall of XBR radio in Brownsburg would broadcast live segments from the shade of a tree near the gazebos in Williams Park, Brownsburg.

Above: "Old Guy" Kuhne and the rest of "5 More Muffin Men ... and an Old Guy" head out for the ceremonial loop, after which the team's first-leg runner -- Levi Lewis, who leads the pack -- would continue on the course.

Above: Several teams are represented on the start line here. 

Above: There was even one start at which a solitary runner took off. This is the Muffin Men's Taylor Secrest, who had the penultimate start at 9 a.m.

Above: Preparing to break off the line for the last start, at 9:30 a.m., were Billy McManus (left), a member of the North Salem State Bank 2 team entered in the men's division, and Ryan Horner, a member of the North Salem State Bank 1 team, the only entry in the college division. McManus' team would not only win the men's division but also compile the fastest time of the day. NSSB2 completed the course in 6 hours, 18:31 minutes, for a clip of 5:50 minutes a mile. Horner's team finished in 6:40.05 (6:09), second fastest of the day.

Above and below: The mood was relaxed before runners hit the start line. Above, members of Team Tenacious -- which would win the Mixed 40+ division -- spoofed things up with some costuming props for a group picture. Team members would don those hats at the exchange stations throughout the course. Below, members of the two North Salem State Bank teams, chilling on the lawn near the start point before their start time.

Above and next four below: Teams doing the circular "parade" loop off the start line at Sodalis Nature Park.
 

Above: Horner (left) and McManus, the last two runners to start at Sodalis, also were the last two to circle the "parade" loop and head into the wooded area of Leg 1.