Refuge
Category
Documentary
Location
Walltown Visitor Centre, Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, England.
Gear
Leica Q3
Description
Five days into the 268-mile Winter Spine Race, three ultra-runners found temporary refuge in the toilets at Walltown Country Park on the Pennine Way. It was the middle of the night, and after days of moving through the British winter, the simple warmth and shelter of this small space had become somewhere to stop, eat and recover before continuing north. The runners allowed me into this private moment and gave me permission to photograph them. What interested me was the contrast between the scale of the race and the complete ordinariness of their surroundings. There is no finish line, mountain summit or obvious sporting spectacle here — just three exhausted people sitting on a toilet floor, eating and drinking, trying to gather enough energy to continue. I photographed the scene several times, repeatedly lowering my position until I found the angle I wanted. Shooting from almost floor level allowed the muddy sole of the nearest runner’s shoe to dominate the foreground and lead the viewer into the other two figures behind. My intention was to document the reality that exists away from the more recognisable images of ultrarunning — the improvised refuges, exhaustion and small moments of recovery that become enormously significant when someone has been travelling on foot for days. Photographed on a Leica Q3 with a fixed 28mm Summilux f/1.7 ASPH. lens at ISO 800, f/1.7 and 1/50 sec.
Photographer
David Miller
Social Media
Instagram: Davidmiller.photography
Twitter: Dav1dmiller
Facebook: David Miller Photography
Website: https://david-miller.uk/
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