Note: I'm attaching just a few of my favorite pictures here, in low resolution; this is to avoid overloading you with images. For high-resolution versions of all of these and many others from the night (a total of 333 pictures), check out my flickr collection.

My Job
(as I chose to accept it)

I was staff photographer. I've always felt that Journey has some amazing chases: moments where you have that primal experience of predator or prey, of flight and pursuit. Unfortunately, in that situation, neither the runner nor the chaser has the time or the incentive to whip out their camera and capture the moment, so there have never really been any good authentic chase pictures. My job was to travel the route and make sure to capture some of these moments.

I thought that this would be easy.

I mean, really--how hard could it be?

Right?

I ended up running more for this Journey than for any other I've been in. I hadn't realized, when planning this role, that I had to find the action, wherever it was happening, and I had to get there. In fact, to really get good shots, I had to get there before the action started; so, really, I just had to look into the future, with enough time to run to the right place. I didn't just need to spot people and take pictures; I had to not only catch up to them, but get ahead of them, in time to turn around and take pictures as they ran towards me.

Also, I had to do it over hills. Hills are hard. :(

Next time, the staff photographer gets a bike. :)

Some Animated Pictures
(to keep you interested before I throw more words at you)

So, one of the things that I did after taking all these pictures was to make some animated .gifs. Because the people cry out for animated .gifs. Sadly, in a fit of irony, I have no animated .gif of Shalaco. But here are a few (click on them to see the animation):

Early runners, doing what they do best.


A Late Night chase, stymied by little kids!

(Their guardians were distressed that the little ones had gotten in the way, but I assured them that it was fantastic.)

The Early Journey

I had a great elaborate plan set up with Qarly--we'd originally planned for her to come speeding out of Howe to MacArthur, letting me get pics of her barreling in and scattering a mass of players. After checking it out and deciding that we didn't want to drive players into heavy traffic and be responsible for the first serious injuries at a Journey, I set up on Piedmont, with her lurking behind a dumpster, ready to come out when people turned onto Piedmont from MacArthur.

But it turns out I don't have the best intuition for player decisions. As I stood on the corner watching for players so I could alert Qarly, I could see them a few blocks away coming from the park along roadway, a huge mass of players (this was going to be great!), streaming into the intersection...and not turning, continuing on roadway, northeast, right past MacArthur. Crud. I let Qarly know, and booked it into the hills to find the other chasers and hopefully get some pictures.

(As it later turns out, I just didn't have enough patience; after the initial rush went along Broadway and I ran off, it turns out the next large mass of players came just as predicted. Qarly, with her bike, was able to travel around and dive into huge groups of players. Next time, players!)

So off I went, into the hills (the hills, the cursed hills!), and soon realized that the odds of me running across a chase while it was happening were actually pretty slim. I wandered around, seeing just a few players, not quite sure where I should be. At this start, I started to panic a little bit and wonder whether or not i would get any good pictures to justify my spending the whole game as a photographer.

I soon realized that if I wanted a chase, if I wanted to get pictures, I had to bring runners and chasers together. So I contacted a few chasers and tried to get ahead of them, to be ready for where they were going to go. I lucked out a couple of times with this strategy: I would actively look for players and chasers, figure out where they would meet up, and run to the "danger zone" to set up pictures. After this happened once or twice, a few players noticed what was going on. Even though I wasn't wearing an orange armband, they soon recognized that I meant danger. After some players saw me a third time, they knew that this was a sign of trouble--and promptly turned around and went another way!


In fact, you can see here (if you click on the image) a runner who takes a moment to realize that there's a reason I'm taking pictures of him. Sadly, it is not enough to save him.

I recognized that I was going to need to step it up. So I started running around, looking for groups of players, getting past them, then calling one of the staff chasers with their location and direction, so I could just wait where I was and let the chaser drive them back towards me. It felt like being a double agent, actually. I was an informant for the chasers, an agent wandering the course. The last time i did this, a couple of players eyed me warily as we passed, and looked back as I was on the phone. When I saw them again, running past me in the other direction while I snapped pictures, I heard one say, "I knew when he went for his cell phone it was trouble!"

Interlude: Chasers

The staff chasers were definitely great. Rubin looked pretty scary.



And Lank...Lank looked amazing.



Lank also performed in one of my favorite chases of the night. He spotted a runner across the street, and called out, "I'll give you ten seconds! Ten...nine...eight..." She took off running, of course.



And a few seconds later, Lank bolts across the street in pursuit. Terrifying, I tell you.


You can see the animation sequence if you click below.


But I also got some nice pictures of the many players-turned-chasers. Some on the run:


Some posing:


And my favorite chase of the night was from player chasers, team Gravedigger:

The last picture is one of my favorites from the night; long hair does a great job of showing motion and speed.

If you click below, you can see the chase animated:


The Tide Turns

I kept seeing more and more player chasers...many more than had been expected, this early in the game. I became another informant, then, for Dax--calling in the number of chasers I was seeing, and letting him know to rein in the staff chasers. Especially given the density of chasers, it was nice to be invincible--walking around, involved with the game, but with my only responsibility to get where the action was. Strangely enough--partly from this invincibility, partly from the running--I started to regain some of that feeling of confidence in my own movement, knowing that I could easily get across the street without getting hit and take pictures of the chase. I eally did feel kind of invincible.

Fairly soon, I also realized that I had the same problem that chasers have; after the first few checkpoints, the remaining runners are scattered along the route. Trying to find them is kind of like trying to find a needle in a haystack; and even though I was staff, I wasn't getting many updates on how far along the course the runners were (though most of that was because they were being blocked and caught by chasers). As the players very rapidly thinned out, I started to be more on their side. At the beginning, I had to stick with the chasers to find those interactions and chases (knowing that they would find runners). Now, I had to find and follow runners, knowing that chasers would find them.

But I did try to help the players I ran into--a sort of conservationist streak, hoping that some of them would survive to the end. I went ahead, not simply for shots, but also to scout out chasers and give advance warning. As time progressed, though, the players dwindled and the dark took over.

Eventually, I started to play with the chasers I saw. I knew how, as a chaser, your sense goes off when you see someone acting nervous or eying you. This is especially true later in the game, when you're desperate to find prey. So I started to walk like a runner, act like I was trying to ignore them and still move quickly...or look at my map, or keep looking over my shoulder. once I caught their attention, I'd start to move faster, so they'd start to move faster to keep up--and eventually they'd start running, so I'd take off running! Then, when they've finally caught me, I'd turn to them and say, "Nope, sorry--just kidding!". I think I was tagged four times during the night.

Interlude: Players

I do love that moment, when you hear people running behind you, and turn to look...to see that you should be running, too.


The best thing for runners to do, of course, is run.


Sometimes, though, one suddenly turns back from chaser...to chased. These are the first two resurrected chasers, who narrowly escaped from the challenges before them:
Interlude: Checkpoints

I didn't get to all the checkpoints during the night (I was preoccupied with trying to stay ahead of the players), but the four I saw were great.

I helped Bex and Yellowbear put together the Journey Tarot cards for the first checkpoint, and was pleased with how they turned out. Did anyone notice the SF0 logos slipped onto The Fool and The Magician?


At the third checkpoint, I met Dax's mom.

The conversation went something like this.
Me: So...who are you?
DM: I'm Dax's mom.
Me: Really! That's amazing! I love Dax!
DM: That's great! Me, too!

Checkpoint four gave me another one of my favorite pictures.


Checkpoint six looked great, too; everyone there looked good, but this picture of Herbie Hatman captured it best.
The End/Interviews

The end location was fantastic; good people, all pumped from the Journey. In particular, though, the projected map that Dax put up was amazing. It was a great way for people to share their stories.

Also, Myrna looks great in the light of the map.


One other thing which I tried to do was record some stories from people at the end. At the end of Journey, everyone is excited--everyone has a story to tell, a narrow escape or near-escape; a thrilling chase; a sudden realization that the city is not laid out the way you think it is. I was pretty tired at the end (see my earlier note re: hills), but I did manage to get a few stories.


Oluwaseun arrives: While interviewing Lank about his experiences as a chaser, the first runner (Oluwaseun) finishes and everyone cheers. WARNING: people cheer very loudly, and I kept the volume maxed to convey the experience.


Interviewing Oluwaseun: "Be cautious, constant vigilance, and pretend you're not a runner when you get to the end." When asked what he's drinking, he reveals that the brown paper bag-wrapped bottle is in fact camouflage, a prop he received at the last checkpoint.


The boy who cried "Chaser!": Find out why he did.


Alexei gets caught: A sad story.


Alexei gets resurrected: ...another sad story.


Life lesson: Journey teaches us things sometimes, things which will be important for us later in life.


Conclusions

Great fun! Great Journey! I suggest all future Journeys have designated staff photographer(s) and interviewer(s) if possible! Thanks to everyone who made this happen!