Photomarathon Sheffield returned to the city last month for a long-awaited comeback, following a three-year hiatus. The Sheffield Photomarathon began in 2016 but the concept of the Photomarathon has been around much longer, starting in Madrid in 1984. Since then, the event has been held in cities across the globe, including New York, Copenhagen and Nairobi. The competition encourages participants to “explore the city with curiosity, creativity and spontaneity”, with either a camera or phone.
The aim of the game is simple: you have six hours to take six pictures, each based on a different prompt. The themes are given to competitors at the start of the day, and you must take the pictures in the order of the prompts. This year, the prompts were: ‘In Space’, ‘Out of Sight’, ‘In the Flow’, ‘Out of the Ordinary’, ‘In the Way’, and ‘Out of Time’. The themes are completely open to interpretation, so you can run with it however you like.
For me, that meant grabbing a willing participant (my partner!) to be my subject and venturing out into Sheffield city centre, armed with nothing but a sense of determination and my iPhone 14 (my original weapon of choice was my Canon 500D, but alas, the South Yorkshire mist and rain forced me to leave it behind).
Dan and Rachel, who have been competing in Photomarathon in Sheffield since 2018, commented on how the competition makes you see the city in a different light: “Usually if you’re walking around, you’re going somewhere, whereas we’re actually looking for stuff…It definitely gets you looking at things in a different way.” For Dan, the competition isn’t just a mental exercise; it’s a workout. “I think [the themes] are really good ideas, they’ve definitely got us thinking. We’ve done lots of walking around and that’s the main thing. It’s more the marathon than the photo.”
By the time 4pm rolled around, it was safe to say that we were utterly exhausted after zig-zagging our way through Sheffield and managing almost 20,000 steps in under six hours. We digitally uploaded our photos through a QR code, and now all there is to do is eagerly await the naming of the winners and their prizes. An exhibition will be held in the Winter Gardens with pictures from the day, celebrating the city of Sheffield and the creativity of the participants. All in all, the day was a great demonstration of people taking pride in their city, and a lesson in learning to look up.
Rating: ★★★★★
Photomarathon Sheffield 2023 took place on October 28th. An exhibition featuring photos from this year’s entrants will be open from November 25th to December 8th at Sheffield Winter Gardens
