Boulderfest 2009
This weekend I went to the 2009 Oklahoma Boulderfest, an annual rock climbing event held in Chandler Park here in Tulsa. I had a great time. The weather was beautiful, one of those mid-October days were you can take your jacket off and feel the wind but not get chilly.
I brought a lot of my camera gear but once I started climbing around I only brought my 100-400mm attached to the 5dII. One of the volunteers pointed out who some of the better climbers were so I tried to hang around them and take photos, but I also branched out and tried to get a shot of everybody who was there. Having the widest my lens could go being 100mm was a bit of a pain, I had to back up from a lot of the action to get everything in frame. It was really helpful though for when I couldn’t get close to the climbers.
Anyways, here is a link to the full gallery of photos I took. You can also watch a slideshow by clicking this link. You can use your keyboards left and right arrow keys to easily navigate through the gallery.
The following photos are some of my favorite photos from the day.
Ok the last isn’t just one photo but I do enjoy making animated gifs.
As usual I tried to take some non-action photos in addition to the regular climbing photos. I didn’t get too many but I do enjoy it when I can find some. It’s nice to take photos of fun, friendships, exploration, and equipment.
There were a wide range of climbers, beginners to experts and both male and females climbing. It was pretty cool to watch the different ranges of skills. Some people climbed with ropes, while others only relied on a mat to break their fall.
For some of the photos I tried different styles of post processing that I don’t normally use. I wanted to highlight physical strength (think the movie 300) and the new autumn colors that have been popping up over the month. The problem is that they turned out darker than I’d like, so I didn’t do it to all the photos. Also they kind of look over processed to me. I like them, but I’m not totally sold on it.
I’ve got a Facebook fan page now, you can tag yourself in the photos I uploaded there if you’d like to do that. I didn’t put all the photos up there but I can add more at a later date if anyone would like me to. I’ll eventually tag people I know like Isaiah and others.
I wish I had taken one of the guides the event organizers had made so I could label some of the harder climbs. I know each has a name but I don’t remember any of them. Next time. I also dropped my camera for the first time ever. Exciting! I tripped, and at the same time my camera strap got caught on some shrubbery. It only fell about a 1 foot onto dirt, but damn did it make a scary thud noise. Picked it up, dusted it off, took a photo and it looked fine. No damage I think. Not really worried about the 5D2 since it’s built like a space shuttle, but the 100-400 is probably the most flimsy/expensive lens I own.
Links:
- View the full gallery of photos here
- View a sideshow of Oklahoma Boulderfest 2009
- Become a fan on Facebook
- View the Flickr set here