For the third year in a row, I was assigned to photograph the annual Sunburst Races in South Bend. The Sunburst Races are South Bend’s marathon, half marathon, 10K and 5K races, which draw thousands of people to our city each year. It’s a fun assignment because there are thousands of moments to be had. That said, it’s quite a grind of a day. The marathon starts at 6 a.m. meaning I usually wake up at 4:45 a.m. to get to the starting line by no later than 5:30 a.m. In my experience shooting the races, I’ve always been the sole shooter. This puts a lot of pressure on me to shoot a variety of features and action all the while getting the winners of the races for our sports section. I really got sick of shooting similar photos at the start and finish lines the last couple years so I decided to try something different. This year I ditched my car, grabbed a couple of easy-to-carry lenses (Canon 135 mm f/2 and 35 f/1.4) and rode my bike along the course. This allowed me to shoot a bit of the action along the course itself, but kept me from getting stuck at a race roadblock in a car.
