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Continue the EVENTS Thread of Photos
63
This photo is from the Jack and Back MS Ride. The MS Society uses bike rides all over the country to raise money. Cyclists get friends and family to sponsor them in the bike ride, and the riders pay to stay overnight at a hotel or a campground. Everyone participates in a dinner event with some beer and music for the riders. The Jack and Back is a ride from outside Nashville to the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg Tennessee.
I began volunteering the the MS Society at the Rock'n' and Roll'n Ride south of Memphis. I volunteered for three years until the event died during the COVID pandemic. I loved the event so much I volunteered and traveled to Nashville for the Jack and Back. I could see why the Rock'n' and Roll'n Ride failed after I participated in the Jack-and-Back. There just is nothing really to see and no compelling parts of the ride south of Memphis.
The north Mississippi countryside is nice, but nothing like the hills south of Nashville. The overnight and lunch destinations were weak. The Memphis organizers changed the locations around and one year, with an overnight in Oxford Mississippi there was a great venue for dinner, but the next year they returned to the Mississippi River Casinos where I believe they got a much less expensive deal. More poor locations I feel was the death of the Ride.
They paid for my room in Oxford and the dinner venue was great. I provided them with a dinner photo show and I really liked the entire event. The next year, I had to pay for my own room at the Casino and it rained so hard the next day, they called off the event.
At the Casino, they were to show my photos during the Dinner. I had about 100 photos picked out for them. However; they showed my comrade in the Camera Club photos. He had to leave and he left about 600 unedited photos from the day with them. He is a good photographer, but they were horrible. The slow slide show plodded past 15-20 pictures of the same cyclists as the photographer used long bursts. Often it was like seeing the same photo over and over again.
Displayed in the original format and not edited at all, even the really good photos did not have much appeal. But the real problem was the slide show went on forever. People lost interest in the show and my photos never made it to the program.
In its prime, the Rock'n Roll'n Ride, they tell me, had 500 riders and large teams. I enjoyed the event although I was one of the few volunteer photographers to capture the decline of the ride.
My favorite part was this long hill near the end of the ride that fell down into the Mississippi River plane. You could see for a long way on the top of that ridge and I loved the view. I used it as my signature photo, but because it was near the end and the cyclists were riding west, they all had the sun at their back. I took a lot of photos of that hill and the backs of riders headed down and into the long straight flat ride to the river. I wrote about that hill on the page The MS Bike Ride: www.timwheat.com/photos16/tw-photo18.htm
I also volunteer for the MS Walk here in Memphis. This event is much more of a charity event that does not focus on the main activity. It is really just an excuse to get people out and asking for donations.
Volunteering at the event is like the Komen Foundation Race for the Cure that I volunteered to photograph many times. The Memphis Camera Club asked all members to show up and donate their time and photos to the event as well as some of their fundraisers. I listed 15 events from 2016 to 2020 that I volunteered for. You can view that list on photo 20's page titled Faces: http://www.timwheat.com/photos16/tw-photo20.htm
When the Komen race died in 2020 (I know that reading this you now are asking yourself how responsible am I and my photos for the demise of these two events. Well, I do not have an answer for you, but I assuage myself with the belief that the events died due to COVID and the pandemic) I began to volunteer for the MS Walk.
The similarity of these events for the volunteer photographer is that you have a section of people who pose for photos and others who ignore the photographer.
Because of my experience with ADAPT, I was mostly looking for candid shots, group photos that show the activity and individual shots that show the struggle. On the ADAPT marches I really wanted to show the numbers of activists and get some expressions that showed the passion.
On the ADAPT march or during the action, you can imagine how distracting it is for someone to step out of the activist role and "cheese it up for the camera." I learned this from Tom Olin when I started, I have never seen one of his photos with someone posing during the action. It was mostly understood, but I did say a few times, in a friendly way to someone who would pose, "Remember you are an activist!"
But at the race and walk, when some people get in front of the camera, they pose, look at the lens and make some expression. Sometimes those with them will ham it up too. Often in the same frame, one runner will look diligently ahead, struggling to keep pace and the person beside them is making a face and striding with a goofy step looking unphased by the group activity.
I am sure early on that I hurt some feelings because I would shift my lens away from the person modeling for me. There were so many individual subjects to photograph that I did not think it would impact people. I also had that bias to the more candid shot.
But after a while, I realized that people liked the camera. I could have a positive impact on the run. I did get plenty of candid shots, but I indulged people a lot more and was more of a volunteer participant photographer. I hope the photos show this. As a matter of fact, It was a great process learning this. As I looked through the photos, I felt that the people who posed, who smiled and connected with me during the run or walk, wanted to see themselves. I wanted to play my part also and I showed those photos.
Honestly, I used about one in six pictures that I took. So many people who may have expected to see a photo of themselves were disappointed. I developed a quick triage system and focus was at the top of the priorities. Especially using the long lens, I would aim at taking the photo of an individual at about 20 to 30 yards. It was typically within about 15 yards that people would break stride or posture for me. Sometimes they got right up to me, well inside the minimal focal distance of my 70 to 200mm SONY zoom lens that I like to use for these events.
During the run or walk I still looked for the great candid shot and I used many of them in my albums of the Komen Race for the Cure and MS Walk. I assume it was like the ADAPT march. I wanted to show the human passion and commitment to the struggle.
- Tim Wheat
Photo by Tim Wheat.