This weekend just gone saw me spend 24 hours down at the Newnham Estate in Plympton photographing the first Devon & Cornwall Backyard Ultra event, in aid of Bowel Cancer West. If you have never heard of the concept, stand by!

Run 4.167 miles every hour, on the hour until there is one runner left. Think of it like an extreme beep test

The eventual winner lasted an impressive 16 laps from 6pm Friday evening through to 10am Saturday morning. This is a distance of 66.67miles!

There was also three other different running events held being the 50 miles, 25 miles and 12.5 miles.

Every runner has earned my respect and I was massively impressed with their drive and commitment especially experiencing all the different weather conditions Mother Nature threw at them.I alone managed to put in 36k steps during my shoot and I can safely say my feet felt it the following day while I was editing!

Its been awhile since I last shot some sports photography with other projects getting in the way but this weekend just passed I was asked to come along to Bickleigh barracks and home team Mainstone FC to capture some images for them as they hopefully only needed 1 point to win the league on their first attempt. Over the past few months I decided to sell all my Nikon gear which served me very well over the past several years and transfer over to the Sony brand so I was excited to put my A7r4 and the Sony 70-200 2.8 G Master to the test. I hoping for a break in the weather as from around midday all I had was rain, more rain and even more rain. There was the odd break and some sun did manage to pop through the clouds but that was always short lived.

Playing second in the league means the game is hopefully a fairly matched affair with both sides certainly not wanting to be on the losing side and walking away disappointed. The first 10/15 minutes was a edgy start with neither side showing any real gamble. Mainstone did take the lead though and this seemed to open the game up. I deduced to shoot the majority of the game with the sun behind me so when it did break I didn’t get any harsh light. I managed to capture a varying array of images throughout the match which saw Maidstone eventually winning 5-1 and crowned champions. They loved the images so much I was asked back to photograph their last match next week where they eventually get to lift the trophy which was well deserved for their hard work throughout the season.

All images were presented to them on my online client gallery within 2 hours of getting home and online for all to see that very evening.

Hard work and perseverance equals rewards!