Emirates Stadium - The Home of Arsenal

Over in London, we didn't have much time to do much sight seeing but one thing I knew I had to do was do a pilgrimage to one of the Premier League Club's stadium and in London there is non bigger and better than the Emirates Stadium. Unfortunately as it is now, the team with the bigger better stadium is not necessarily the better team.

Enough of words, for all the Arsenal football fans, here are the highlights of the Emirates Stadium

A very bold declaration in a very understated manner

This is more like it!

Guess who is this fella? No no not that smiling goondu in the green jacket. The statue, the guy with the outstretched hands

Is this all there is to the Arsenal's haul?

A time capsule.  Wonder what went into it?

And finally, the very familiar sights to all soccer fans:

The tunnel to the field

And of course the beautiful pitch. 

I think the fellas from our sports hub need to come here and learn from them how to maintain the pitch.

And some places we don't get to see on the television:

The VIP dining room. There is even a celebrity chef to cook for the guests! Unfortunately we were not considered "guest" so no nice meal for us.

This is the physiotherapy room where the players get their massage and do their recovery

 

 And this is the hydro therapy pool. Only for the home team. Wish I can go soak inside too

The shower room. Why no doors and partition?

The Changing Room. The kitman will lay out the players's attire and everything else here

In comparison, the visitor changing room is so plain.

That's me, ahem, giving my end of game press conference

There is even an Arsenal Museum. 

Those were the days when policemen worn shorts and Arsenal was known as Woolwich Arsenal and playing in Division Two at Highbury.

Anybody young enough to have ever worn wooden soccer boots?

And do you know Arsenal ever had such a colorful top?

And a screen grab from one of the many videos featuring one of the greatest Arsenal star

Last but not least, a giant poster with the very best of Arsenal!

Sometimes we need to smell the flowers

I go to MacRitchie Reservoir pretty often. Most times to run. Very rarely for any other things. During a run, it is pretty difficult to spot anything except maybe the monkeys or occasional monitor lizards. Some people have spotted snakes but while I seen them, this was not during a run but a hike.

Recently I went with a group of students for a hike to the Tree Top Walk. And because we were not running, we spotted so many things that I never noticed in my run.

Like this patch of beautiful Tiger Orchids just outside the ranger station. Now I stopped at the Ranger Station on almost every run for the past 6 years and I swear I never knew there was a big clump of Tiger Orchids growing just outside it. 

Then there is this little mushroom on the floor. It was covered by the fallen leaves and a Nparks officer showed it to us. Apparently it can eject a puff of powder if disturbed hence it is called the powder puff mushroom.

And everybody who been to MacRitchie is familiar with the long tailed macaques or monkeys as we called them. Unfortunately most of the sightings are either of them around the Amenities Centre scrounging for human food or chasing visitors for more human food. But how often have we seen them in their natural habitat in the trees or eating fruits like what we saw when we on the tree top trail?

Last but not least, how many people have seen a flying fox in MacRitchie? This one we saw was so near I could almost touch it.

Isn't these sightings good enough reasons for us to slow down and smell the flowers and look at the rich wildlife that abounds in MacRitchie.

Free or Paid Photos?

Got this message from an Australian company Super Sport Images on the Running Shots facebook page after the Commando Challenge on Sunday:

"Hi Guys,
As the contracted photographic partner of the Commando Challenge, your advertisement of images conpletely flies against supporting your field. We invest heavily into supporting events such as this, are the contracted provider with exclusivity and having a photographic entity that seems to want to take care of things in their own manner, does not support the photographic industry at all, it merely cheapens it.
I would ask you kindly, to please respect our business, that has invested money and resources into this event and others iin the hope of being sustainable.
Director of Supersport Images"

The more I read the post, the more pissed off I get. Here is another freaking ang moh who thinks that he is the all and be all and only his professional set up is qualified to take photographs and we, the locals are cheapening the profession!

Here are another 2 posts that the Aussie put up on the Commando Challenge Facebook Page where he repeats the same thing in response to somebody:

• Supersport Images www.supersportimages.com Anuroop, the costs of your entry has nothing to do with us as we are a 3rd party that is the official photographic partner of the event with our own costs to absorb. We support events of this type and take huge financial risks to do so. We aim to make our products as costs efficiently as possible and we have packs which include ALL of your identified images for just over $30. This allows you to download your full res files forever. Products and prices vary with varying options to choose from. If you guys are happy to support those out there that cheapen the market by turning up in no official capacity and simply show no respect to business like ours that aim to offer a competitiive product then the end result will be no photographic providers providing any coverage at any event. it's disappointing to hear such comments frankly.

  Like · Reply · 8 hours ago
• 

  Supersport Images www.supersportimages.com Hi Guys, I'd like to address a couple of comments to let you you know we have a range of products in our cart which are still being determined so any comments on prices is speculation.Our products range from under $20 also with a good variety of choices. It's important to point out that if competitors are willing to support individuals who cheapen the market by simply turning up, shooting hard and then making images available free or for next to no cost, not only does it cheapen the market, but you guys will all have no businesses who will be ablle to provide their services at any of the events you guys choose to do. Please think about who you'd like to support, those that invest into giving you the best coverage and systems we can that support a huge vareity of events, or individuals who just turn up and offer images for nothing and totally cheapen the market place. We have individual images, full electronic downloadable packs, prints and special event designs for very reasonable prices. We invest a great deal into our partnerships both finanicially and in resources and Ming and others are showing little consideration for those who are full time in the industry partnering all manner of events. I ask you guys to think about this please.

  Like · Reply · 13 hours ago
• 

My fellow volunteer photographers asked me not to get worked up. But reading this ang moh chap's arrogance makes me boil. 

1. What does he mean when he said we photographers cheapen the market? Does he meant that because he invested heavily, and we did not, we are cheap? As far as I know the practice, most of these professional photography company engage freelancers who more than often than not, are people like us, to shoot on their behalf and pay them a miserable sum. Are his photographers much better than us or his equipment better than ours? I take real offence when he said we cheapen the industry. All of us at Running Shots, and I am sure my esteemed colleagues at EyeSeeEyeShoot, Running Kaki, Chasing Shots, Run Mo Cap to name just a few are definitely insulted by this cheap shot. We sacrifice our time, our equipment braving the sun and rain to take photographers of competitor so that they can go home with more than just a mental memory and some chap who think only of making money dare to call us cheap!

2. He threatens that if the public support us free photo sites, then there will be no event coverage if we pull out. I will let the record speak for itself. Where was SuperSportImages or Marathon Photos or Finisher Pix at Lion Dash, Let''s Take a Walk, Project Happy Feet, Newton Challenge, Venus Run? Do I need to list more races? If anything, Running Shots was at all these events and we covered almost 99.9% of races (competitive, fun, charity) in Singapore in the year 2013! So who do you think will pull a disappearing act for other events? SuperSportsImages or Running Shots or even other groups like Running Kaki, Chasing Shots etc? If anything, it will be us the volunteers who will shoulder on rather than the profit greedy company who will pull out the minute they find no monies to be made in our Singapore market.

3. I can conclude that he is afraid of competition. If indeed his photographers are so good, then he should not be afraid that people will not buy his photographers and go for our low quality free photos. But the true is he knows that his photos are not much better than ours and at the exorbitant prices that he and like companies charge, nobody will buy from them. If it is not because these companies charges an arm and a leg, there will be no need for us to come into the picture. It is precisely because of companies like Super Sports Image that we get so much responses from race participants. 

4. SuperSportsImage has probably made a very elementary error when he choose to come to Singapore. He failed to do market research and did not realise that there are a whole lot of committed dedicated volunteers who are willing to take photographs for free. And when he found photos of the Commando Challenge sprouting up everywhere and free for download, instead of trying to find a way to beat the competition, he decided to belittle the competition and scare the locals with threats of no race photographs. He asked that we respect their business. Why? Its a free economy! There should not be any restriction of trade.He didn't do his homework too bad. I asked that he respect the competition and try to be better than us. The question is - can he? 

At the end of the day, we  the volunteer photographers do all these not because we want to kill the market for race photographs but because there was a crying need for cheap accessible photos. And we are glad to provide this service as a service to the running public. At Running Shots, we do not sell photographs although we do charge a nominal fee for request for high resolution photos. But frankly that fee is more to deter request rather than to profit from it. If we have to depend on this income, all of us would have quit long ago.

But having said all these, tell me - which do you prefer? To pay money for a "professionally" taken photo with border, event logo and timing or just admire your free photos courtesy of Running Shots and the various other photography group? If the majority said they prefer the paid version, I will gladly keep my free time to do my own running and nature photography. Let me know ya?

Super Heroes at Swissotel Vertical Marathon

See how they look after their flight up 73 stories. Coming soon to Running Shots

Unglam Running Photos

I was taking photos this morning at the annual Shape Run. While I was sorting through the photos, I realised why they named it the Shape Run. Cause the ladies do really come in all sort of shapes. Hahaha, but that is not the topic of my post. The other thing that I noticed was that most ladies look very unglam in their running photos. But before you ladies out there jump in and said "abutthen, what do you guys expect?", let me state that I also captured shots of ladies who still look glam and cool and some even glow! Here are just a few examples:

For obvious reasons and since I value my life and my camera and do not want some enraged lady to kill me or kick my camera the next time they see me shooting at an event, I am not going to post any unglam photos here. Those who are curious can go check out the photos in Running Shots:)

But for those ladies who are honest enough and admit that they do look unglam in their running pose, here are some tips on how to look glam:

1. Put on some make up. I know, I know a lot of ladies will kpkb about this, how make up can run with all the sweat and grim but I think there are some waterproof make up available. 

2. Tie up your hair. I think I blogged about this before. Nothing is worse than hair flying all over. Or wear a cap. Look at the ladies above. None of them has messy hair. They are either tied up neatly or they are wearing a cap.

3.Its in the eyes. Most of the unglam photos have one common theme running throughout. The eyes. Some are shut, some are slit, some are sunken. The easiest thing is to wear a sun-glass and volia! Again just take a look at the photos above. The glasses do make a big difference.

4. And last but not least, smile. I know after running for more than an hour, it is a torture for some people but a beautiful wide smile can make a world of a difference. Don't you just love the smile on the faces above? The next time you see a photographer, just smile. We loves to shoot cheerful looking people.

There you have it. The trick to looking good for your next running photo.

Rolling in the big bucks?

Recently, we at Running Shots (RS) decided to charge a nominal fee for people who request for high resolution copy of their photos. We also decided to extend this to include a hard copy. The move unexpectedly has caused some unhappiness and misconception among the runners. Some runners seem to think that that was our ultimate motive when we started Running Shots i.e. to make money and worse runners seem to think that we are rolling in the big bucks from these "sale".

Nothing is further from the truth.

To begin with, RS was set up by a runner friend who was also a photography enthusiast. His main objective than was to return to the running society a little bit of what he has benefited from since he started running. Over time he realised that as a one man show, he couldn't possibly cover every event and so roped in more similarly like minded people.

Once the race photos are uploaded, we do admit that we get a good ego boost when people like and commented on our photos. Along with the thousand of likes and comments, come request for high resolution photos which we originally provide free of charge. However, over time as the number of photos increases and the request increase, we decided that we have to impose a token charge to cover for:

1) The time our photographers spent to take photo, process them, upload them and if there are request, to process these requests

2) Cost incurred by our photographers in going down to shoot the events. Most run events starts very early and our photographers have to take taxi down, or if driving, park somewhere. All these require money 

Of course earning enough money from photo sale to cover the above is not our objectives. It is just to defray some cost and right now frankly what we get is not even enough to cover a taxi fare from Jurong to cover say, the 2XU run. Which leads me to my next point:

Rolling in the big bucks. I will be candid. Since we started imposing charge, we have a grand total of 4 requests for photographs netting us a princely amount of S$28. Just as a comparison, we spent double that amount to print the photos for the Venus Run photo contest. And I haven't even add in the cost of the transport to each and every event! Rolling in the big bucks? Don't make me puke! And for those who think we are being paid by the event organiser, dream on. Except for one race recently where the event orgainser was kind enough to pay us a token amount, we have got absolutely zero for the rest. And for this particular event, one of our photographer commented that the amount is so little compared to what one single professional photographer can charge for covering an event!

But I am not complaining. We went in with our eyes open that we are not in this for the money. We sacrifice our time, our equipment, our sleep and our money as a form of service to the running community. We do not expect any rewards although it will be nice of course. But we will still shoot with or without. The token amount we charge is merely to cover some expenses and frankly as a deterrent to too many request for high resolution photos.

Last but not least, for those who think our photos  are crappy, yes we are aware our photos are not "pro" quality. We have always emphasis quantity over quality as we shoot for the mass and there is absolutely no time to frame a shot properly or get the best exposure. We will try but when there are thousand of runners and with changing light condition, it is not always possible. And most of us are too poor to own prime lens. Maybe if we are really rolling in the big bucks?

Finally, for those who like our photos, a big thank you. Much appreciated. And for the detractors and critiques, we will try out best but if our best is not to your standard, there are many other people taking race photos out there.

Plus Size Advantage?

Was at the Megatri this morning. This is a triathlon event. Nope wasn't there to compete just to kapo around. 

As I walked around, one thing struck me. There were a fair number of "plus-size" participants. Maybe that why this event is called the Megatri and not Singapore Tri or Changi Tri. Sorry couldn't resist that.

But I am seriously impressed by these people. Despite their girth and weight, they are able to do this swim, bike and run event. I like to think that the extra layer of fat help them in buoyancy and the swim leg but it must be a heavier load for them to carry during the bike and even more so, the swim leg. But somehow they did it! Bravo!

For more photos of the mega, check out Running Shots

Zoom on Track Relay

Ben Swee, the brain behind the longest ultra in Singapore and the banana relay has done it again! This time he came up with another fun and innovative run - the Zoom on Track Relay. Essentially, this is a relay event but with super flexible rules. There are 2 distances available - 10km or 21km to be ran by each team on the stadium 400 metres track. Each team can have 2 to up to 5 members and are free to choose how they want to run. So there were 2 members team who each ran half the distance and teams which rotate runners every lap etc

True to its no frills billing, there was no drinks, no bib, no timing chip and no baton although some did brought their own baton like this guy here.

 

Or these 2 who simply change over with a pat on the hand

 

The teams really got into the spirit of the event with a fair number of them wearing synchronised attires  like these groups:

 

 

There were trophy given out to the top team in each category even though this was billed as a non-competitive event. 

Despite the no frills and "non-competitive" aspect of the event, judging from the look of every body at the end of the event, all of them looks like they really enjoyed themselves. It just prove that runners are not always after goodie bag, finisher tees and medals but a good and fun experience.

More photos of the events can be found here and in Running Shots Facebook

Running Shots

A friend, Marcus Lim took his interest in running and photography, put them together and came up with Running Shots. After going it alone for a while, and with the ever increasing number of races,  he roped in a few other fellas including me to join in the effort.

The objective of Running Shots is simply to take photographs of runners at races and then upload them online for the benefits of the runners. Consequently, the emphasis is not quality but quantity although we will try our best to take good pictures. But as long as the face is visible and identifiable and the picture does not look like it was taken by someone riding on a roller coaster, we will upload the photos to the group page on Facebook and website for free. Yes absolutely free to download the photo, print them and share them with friends on Facebook, Twitter and other social media but....

As per  common law every where, the rights to the photographs belong to the photographers of Running Shots and not the person whose picture has been taken. Therefore, while we may be proud and happy that you like our photo, you may not have them published in any other media like magazine, newspaper or commercial website. However, we will in most cases give our consent to the publication if we are asked provided credit for the photo is attributed to Running Shots and/or the photographer. Of course, passing off the photographs as your own and using them to join photography contests is a "no no" and we will not hesitate to ask the contest organiser to remove the photos if we come across such cases.

Event organiser who would like Running Shots to cover the events may write to Running Shots at runningshots@live.com.

Meanwhile, runners if you see a photographer along the race route, smile, wave and who knows, your photo may appear on Running Shots!

Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2012

This year unlike the past 2 years when I was not in town for this event, I am in Singapore. But like the past few years, I choose to skip this again and instead when down to snap some pictures.

Initial feel while walking on the Padang was that the organisation has improved. There were plenty of freebies available for the runners and supporters. However, one observation was the the free drinks were inside the runners finishing bay and not available to supporters. Security was tight, too tight in fact and the boorish and rude security personnel made it worse. I seriously wonder what they fear? They should take a leaf out of the Newton Challenge or even the Brooks Run Happy to see how to organise a party for runners and supporters.

This year the race again starts from 3 locations to reduce the jam but unfortunately they didn't plan for the finish leg which was again a big jam starting from the Sheares Bridge. With a total of about 53000 participants, something should be done to alleviate this situation which crops up year after year. Me think the least they should do is to cap the 10k numbers. According to the figures released, there were 17,000 full marathon participants, 10000 half, 20000 10k and 3500 Ekiden runners. 

This is billed as the Singapore Marathon so why are there so many 10k runners? Surely there are enough 10k race in Singapore to satisfy those who want to run the shorter distance and not clog up the route in such a major race. I was about 200 metres from the finish line and 3 hours after the 10k were flagged off at 7.15am, there were still plenty of them struggling to reach the finish line or worse walking hand in hand. Surely there is a better time to go on a date than this! 

There is a front page report in Sunday Times that the race may be split into 2 days when the Sports Hub is open in 2014. Hopefully that will come true and make it a pure 'marathon" for a better experience for the runners.

Anyway, this race marks the appearance of many "super heros" other than Catwoman and Spiderman/ Catwoman was missing this year but instead there were

Batman

Wonderwoman

Zorro not exactly a super hero but a hero nevertheless

And this group of Spidey, Hulk, Thor from the Avengers

This year event also appear to have more runners using this to promote their cause be it physical disability, Lynas or using it to raise funds for charity.

Participants in the wheelchair category

The visually handicap running with a sighted partner. Spotted at least 5 pairs of them

 And this gentleman from Malaysia bringing his anti-Lynas protest all the way here

Overall based on what I heard, the event organisation has improved tremendously. Now the next thing for them to do is to find a way to manage the crowd and make it a truly gold class experience for the runners.