The southern athletics league meet at Wilberforce Road, Cambridge gave me the opportunity to put a remote camera inside the hammer cage for the first time.  I had been thinking about how best to do this through the winter so it was good to finally try it.  I think it worked quite well and seemed to be appreciated by the competitors even if it did make them a little more nervous.   Timing the shots when photographing discus proved to be more difficult than with the hammer but I will certainly try both again later in the summer. 

My next event was a football cup final at Histon FC between Comberton United and Orwell, having been invited there by Comberton.  Comberton won the match 4-1 which resulted in joyous scenes as you can imagine...

The following weekend Comberton secured the league title (Kershaw 1A) to go with it.  They won the match 17-1 against a weakened Burwell team.  Next year they will be in the same league as my own village, so I guess I may have split loyalties when they play one another.

The 6th and 7th May made up my parkrun weekend.  Cambridge had 576 runners on Saturday...difficult on quite a tight course but the popularity seems to be forever growing.  With quite a large running event taking place the next day a number of the regulars were missing so I can only see numbers going past 600 on a regular basis in the future.  I have to say its difficult to cover such large numbers in the way I would like, but I continue to do my best. I simply love the parkrun ethos and am happy to promote it.

Sundays Wimpole junior parkrun also had a lot of runners...195, which I believe is a record.  There have since been comments about parents over encouraging their children.  Sometimes the fact that it is a run not a race gets lost with talk of PB's etc but I have to say it is generally a real pleasure to take the children's photos as they show so much emotion and most do come through the finish with smiles.

Saturday 13th May saw me at the Waterbeach running festival.  Its a busy event with 4 races...100m toddler dash, 2k, 5k and 10k.

10k and 5k events are popular with the adults and are well supported with numbers rising on last year (First year).  The festival was however a little smaller with fewer stalls...perhaps the poorer weather in comparison with last year had something to do it.

Here is the 5k start...won again by last years winner.

and here is the 10k winner...

The 100m toddler race I have to say is probably the hardest race I have photographed.  So many children (and parents) and because the distance is so short there are no gaps.  It really is a situation where you just point, shoot and hope for the best.

For obvious reasons the galleries containing the 100m and 2k photos are protected so no other photographs of these events will be shown openly on this site.  So that's Waterbeach Running Festival done for another year...unfortunately I was not well after the event, indeed I wasn't feeling particularly good the  day before and during it.  Anyway that resulted in the photos being uploaded rather slower than I would have done normally.  I apologise for this but hope that the organisers will be happy for me to come back next year.  Its really a great local event and one that could well continue to grow and grow.

In other types of photography...of the two portrait shoots that were planned when I wrote my last blog; one didn't happen as the model was involved in a car accident and spent the day in hospital.  The other was labelled a boudoir shoot and I think the model would agree with me that we got some good results.  I have no more studio shoots planned now although an outdoor session could be arranged for later in the year....that is unless anyone out there wants some photos taken? 

At the beginning of June I will be off to Ireland to take some land and seascape photos and then to London for some street type photos.  Hopefully I will get some good results from these that I will be able to use in September for my distinction panel with the Royal Photographic Society. 

So whats to come...well the local cycle time trials start in my village again this coming Wednesday evening (17th May) and I would like to wander down to take some photos at least a couple of times during the summer.  Next weekend (21st May) I hope to be on the river bank taking photos of the Champion of the Thames rowing club eights.  Many college crews use it as a warm up for the bumps so it has some good racing.  Last year I recall there was some really nice weather so it would be good to have the same this year.  After I get back from Ireland and London I will be back to sport and would like to cover a few more cricket matches, some tennis (I am off to Birmingham for the WTA tournament) and some more equestrian sports....and of course more road running and athletics.  My next time at Cambridge parkrun is likely to be the 10th June and I am planning on being at Wimpole junior parkrun the following Sunday (18th). 

John