Here I am in Boston, and I’ve never even heard of this thing. Apparently it’s the largest Regatta in the world! Someone told me about the race at one of our camera club meetings, luckily I remembered the date and woke up early enough to catch some of the action. It doesn’t look that cold, but it was actually snowing a bit during the morning. Packed my 300mm f/2.8L IS and headed out to Harvard Square to see what I could get.
I was only around for the first day of this event (there are two days total). The second day it was rainy and gross and I didn’t really feel like leaving the house. But the first day was pretty fun – basically a small festival along the Charles River from Boston throughout Cambridge and such. I ended up walking a LOT to see where the most interesting spots were. First time shooting rowing, or anything in the water really.
Some of the shots I tried to get as low and close to the water as possible. I usually try to shoot sports head on.
Risked slipping into the water a few times. It was really slippery down near the shore. A few of these boats were moving really fast, so generally had the shutter 1/500 or faster. A little overcast for my liking, so used f/2.8 or f/3.2 the majority of the day.
From atop the foot bridge near Harvard. The ‘sidelines’ of this bridge were PACKED with people. There were people from all over…I didn’t see Virginia Tech, but caught some of the UVA team downstream later on.
Golden retrievers I saw with some of the spectators.
Here’s the bridge I was up on.
Most of the people there taking pictures were on top of that bridge with 18-55mm lenses or the like. There were only a few other photographers taking pictures, probably covering the event for a website or something. Some guy had a Nikon 600mm f/4…a little over kill in my mind, I was at 300mm on full frame and it was usually long enough (as long as I wasn’t lazy).
Bridge in the background links Harvard together.
Shot of some of the lady rowers heading through one of the bridge tunnels.
Started to get bored and experiment with panning here. I only took a few shots, and none of them were dead on – but this was probably the closest I got. I think it’s a pretty cool result. Panning sports photos = super difficult, besides motor sports that is.
Then I was off on a walk to the finish line – maybe a mile west of where I had started from. Spotted a group of ducks hanging out and took a few pictures of them.
Then took probably my favorite picture of the event. It kind of looks like they’re out at sea or something, instead of just floating around in the Charles.
Some more as I walked to the finish line:
That’s the bridge people told me was ‘dangerous’ and there had been ‘wrecks’ earlier on in the day. It’s not like the tunnel is really tight – there’s plenty of room for at least two boats at a time. I was hoping there would be a good angle to get teams as they came through, but there was too much foliage and stuff to get over there.
As I arrived near the finish line, there was a little floating dock that extended out into the river. I sat out there for a little while as boats passed by.
I didn’t have to crop these much (or at all sometimes) because I was so close to the action.
And some generic water shot as I was walking back to Harvard.
Cute dog sighting!
The sign just looked funny, so I asked him to hold up and let me get a picture.
Shot through a window.
After walking that much and carrying probably 25 lbs of camera gear, I was a little beat at this point. After a short T ride I was back home and editing these pictures.
Glad I remembered to go – and hopefully I’ll be there in future years! A few people even asked me about the pictures I was taking…these were for my own personal use, but from the sounds of it I shouldn’t have trouble finding a media source to shoot these for next year.