parkour

I was doing a favour for joel (he doesn’t like his name being mentioned) and his magazine. They were covering the first uk women’s only parkour event.
For those who don’t know (and that included me) parkour is the free running craze of people who run over and through things rather than going around them. So it involves a lot of coordination, strength, speed, agility and I guess an element of fearlessness. All of these are attributes I do not have.
So I was there to take photos of the event. My standard slr was not going to be good enough and as I have yet to get my digital slr j (cos he doesn’t like his name being mentioned) had to provide me with a digital. It was a little point and shot type thing, with enough pixels to do the job.
I get there and there are loads of, frankly, very fit women getting all limbered up for their introduction to parkour course. There were also several other photographers there – all with big fuck off and die proper digital slr. Straight away I had lens envy.
I watched the goings on for a bit, to get a feel of what was going on, so I could choose my shots and such like. Picked my place, waited waited, waited and click… shit didn’t work, wait wait, click… nope not quite right. And so it went. Girls would jump, run, tumble, leap, roll, swing and hanging. I would point and click and in learnt that cartier bresson’s moment was not with me. I would catch the action just after the significant point……
The small camera made me feel like I was a total perve (I am one, I don’t deny it but normally I keep it private), then there was the added frustration of the camera not being up for the job (the poor pictures were a mix of me and the camera…) both in combination made me feel like a bit of an impostor at the event.
I have not seen all the pics so I don’t know if j (he doesn’t like his name being mentioned) got what he wanted, but trust me if any of my pics do appear I will be telling you all to go out and buy his magazine and to have you all write in and say what a jolly fine picture there were with the article…..
Aside from my discomfort at being there (I had to confess to one of the pr girls – who was a cutie with lovely black hair – that I felt odd taking pictures of so many sportswear clad women) i couldn’t help but be impressed with the event. All the women seemed to be enjoying themselves, the instructors were very good and were very encouraging (not sure how much of this comes form the fact that they were all free running practioners and not just instructors and that they are trying to “convert” people to it), by the end of the session everyone had leaped, jumped and rolled on to and off things in the gym. Only one person hurt themselves, everyone finished the session off, all of them had big grins on their faces.
It looked fun, but I have to admit I am not going to give it a go.
And it will come as no surprise when I admit I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the ladies.
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