March 28, 2014

Tough Guy - Wolvernhampton UK

















































Back in January, I traveled to Wolverhampton UK with Varsity Studio and The Goodline to do a rebrand shoot for Mr. Mouse's Tough Guy race. It was absolutely and utterly crazy and my first time ever shooting action sports. Rain, mud up to my ankles (I wore shorts and New Balance tennis shoes). The willing participants ran through freezing water, burning dung, electrical strips, barbed wire, you name it. All for the bragging rights to say they did it and camaraderie of doing something together.

It was seriously crazier than anything I could write here. I mean, here is a clip of me almost getting trampled as I did not hear the gun go off to start the race (I'm the only large brown fellow running across the screen right to left). It felt like war which I know nothing of, but I assume, it is like this. Just press forward. And help your fallen comrades.

You can see what The Goodline and Varsity did for Tough Guy a couple years back here :



And for technical aspects, I brought my Contax 645 which I did NOT shoot during the race as it was POURING rain. So I shot with my Mamiya RZ Pro II with 110mm lens and my Bessa R4M with 35mm 1.2 lens. I shot Fuji Acros 100 (smooth bw) and Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 6400 (the bw stuff that looks like it is from WWII). The color I did shoot was on Kodak Portra 400VC. Developed and scanned by theFINDlab.

3 comments:

Megan said...

Jon - As someone who's mainstay used to be shooting this type of race (Tough Mudder, marathons, etc.) I completely love these photographs. You have no idea. LOVE. They are fantastic.

megan said...

As someone who's mainstay used to be shooting these types of races (Tough Mudder, the NYC Marathon, etc.) I have to say that I know how difficult it can be and these are absolutely fantastic. FANTASTIC! I love, love, love what you did here.

naomi said...

These are incredible.