Halloween Hoot


Last Sunday Alex and I participated in the annual Halloween run/walk of W.R.A.C.E. (Walkers and Runners Around the County of Essex.) It was a cool, cloudy morning, perfect running weather, and the course ran along the Windsor side of the Detroit River.

My youngest nephew, now 13 and an inch taller than me, came close to beating his personal best for the 5K run. I turned in my worst time ever, for the 5K walk. I plead extenuating circumstances.

I had brought along my new camera, A Nikon D60 digital single-lens reflex. There was a contest for the best costumes and I thought I might get some interesting pictures. Although I didn't dress up, I did have the biggest and most impressive looking camera. A number of runners and race officials assumed therefore that I was a professional, or at least a skilled amateur photographer. There were several requests for copies of my shots.

I barely knew how to operate the thing and wished I had my old CoolPix point and shoot instead. Apologizing in advance for my newbeeness, I said I'd make the results available online, and felt obligated to take as many pictures as I could. So as I walked along I put the camera on automatic and stopped frequently to shoot those around me.

I soon fell back to last place, and by then the race leaders were on their way back from the turn around, so I shot them too. Then I was lapped by the 10K runners. Ended up taking well over 200 pictures. They aren't too bad, but I expect to do better once I learn more, and start using the manual controls.

I've set up a flickr account and uploaded 42 pics at full size, each about 2.5 MB. They are here.

And I've put all but the blurry ones on my mobileme site, as smaller web pics. Here. If anyone wants one of those in the larger size, email me.

The last race of the year is on November 16, the Jingle Bell Run, Walk and Wheel, in Essex. I'm planning to run in that one, and I won't be bringing my camera.


























Posted: Fri - October 31, 2008 at 02:40 PM          

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