Some of the 365 folks and I have kept in touch via twitter and flickr, and we decided to try again beginning in 2011. Meaning today! We’re doing things a little differently this time. Rather than having to take a picture every single day, you can take up to 7 pictures a week, but they can all be on the same day, or you can continue to do the one-a-day method. This will hopefully reduce the feelings of failure everyone inevitably got last time around when they missed a single day. It will also reduce the need to “cheat” when seeing something awesome to photograph after you’ve already posted your daily photo (which happened to me once or twice).
So, on that note, Happy New Year everyone!! This was taken in the three seconds between when the fireworks started and my parents’ dog (who I’ve been dogsitting for a few weeks) had a total meltdown at the noise and dragged me bodily (he’s a tiny jack russell terrier, FYI) back to my apartment, even skipping the treat-laden doorman to book it directly into the elevator.
As I do every year, I decided to take some photos of today’s big event, the ING Marathon. Because I had gone to the same spot in Central Park for the last two years, I wanted to change things up a little bit, so I headed to Columbus Circle. Which was a big clusterf*ck of people and security gates. Next year, it’s back to Central Park. Just as an example of how poorly planned it was at Columbus Circle, they had a whole slew of bleachers set up so that people could watch, except…The police had blocked off all access to them, so they sat empty while we were penned in behind security gates only a few feet away. Even the police officer I said something to agreed that this was remarkably stupid, but they were, of course, powerless to do anything about it in the face of direct orders to keep us penned in.
As a bonus, a supremely inconsiderate gentlemen, who was at least 6’5″, decided to push his way directly in front of me. I am, of course, 5’4″. This led me to have to contort myself and hang over the barrier in a really uncomfortable way to get any decent pictures at all. Quite a change from Central Park, where people take one look at the short girl with the big camera and pretty much just make room for me at the front, since they can see over my head anyway! Silly me, I thought the crowd would be less obnoxious further away from the finish. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m planning on heading back to Central Park next year. Either that, or I’ll be really adventurous and head out to Brooklyn or Queens.
As far as pics, I got most of the front-runners (except for the women’s winner, because the one pic I did get of her had a motorcycle cutting off her head), and some silly costumes, and a few pics even came out decently. Once I got worn out from contorting myself (and, because of the way I was standing, cutting off all the circulation to my left leg), I headed to the Time Warner Center to get an aerial shot. Here are the pics (as always, click to see the full picture):
In addition to yesterday’s photo of the men’s winner, I took about a gazillion shots over the 4+ hours that I watch the marathon. After whittling them down, I’ve ended up with about 60. No individual captions, since that’s just too much work :), but if you look at them in order, at the beginning you’ll see the womens’ winners, then the men, and then the pack. silly outfits and flags start about a third of the way down. I edited out most of the blurry shots except for one, because that was Peter Sagal, host of my favorite NPR radio show, Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. I sent him the pic over twitter last night, and he was very appreciative, so I kept it in the mix, even though the photo itself is kind of terrible (he was way to close to me and my camera didn’t have time to focus before he was gone).
Anyway, here are the pics. click to get the full photo.
Meb Keflezighi, the first American man to win the New York Marathon in 27 years, seen here approximately 250 yards from the finish. I will post more marathon photos soon (within the week), but I took a ton and I have to go through and selectively edit (to say the least).
