To be more specific, my cycling team is organizing a marathon called “Maratonul Fagetului” (link: http://maratonfaget.ro/index_ro.html). Normally, I would have been really determined to participate. It is a great track that any mountain biker would enjoy. But I had this idea of photographing the contest from a different perspective. At first, it was just a thought, nothing too serious. Later, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Until last week, when I decided I would drop participating in the marathon to accomplish this thing I’ve been thinking for a pretty long time.
What exactly is the “thing” I’m trying to do? Every photographer at an event like this will try to get an image of every rider, the start, the finish, portraits of the winner and the end where the top 3 receive their prizes. They will try to catch the atmosphere, and the atmosphere is determined by the participants. The thing is, having experienced what organizing such a contest is like, I feel that sometimes the people behind the scenes don’t get the credit they deserve. For example, there was a conversation on a forum one year ago about the fee being too high. Somebody complained and said they don’t want to pay 50 lei (15 USD) for a shirt and a bottle of water they were going to receive in their starter package. The thing is, most people don’t realize they receive so much more. In the end, somebody has to go out and mark the course at least one month before the contest, manage the website, search for sponsors, find somebody to do the timing, plus the overwhelming amount of decisions you have to make in the day of the marathon and the list goes on and on. I feel like these people don’t get enough appreciation for their hard work.
And here we are at explaining my project. I’m tying to do a photo story from the eyes of an organizer. I’m trying to capture the marathon in a way most people don’t get to see, going behind the scenes and immortalizing meaningful moments, moments of happiness an joy or moments when you just want to give up. It’s not going to be any longer than 100 images, even though I’m trying to keep somewhere in between 50 and 80 photographs.