The Navy Race
July 8, 2023 // News
Recently, I retreated back to my home country after spending 3 weeks in the mountains in Iran. I'm supposed to use my free time to recover from getting hit by food poisoning twice. Use my free days to relax and explore northern Norway. But I felt that pulse deep down inside me I get when I want to keep shooting. For years and years people have told me I should try to relax, try to slow down, but the reality is I don’t know how to switch this instinct off, nor do I ever want to learn how.
The Navy Race has its annual competition in Karljohansvern, Horten. The participants are required to be burdened with a 10kg weighted vest. The contest is lined up with the design to break you— 8 km of hell and heavy exercises that make your own body an obstacle to overcome. My twin brother, Vemund Baksaas, and my third cousin, Thomas Hov signed up for this experience. In this photo series, I run beside my relatives to capture their coping agony throughout.
The audience is stacked up by the sidelines to witness this live event. Even Norway`s former prime minister, Erna Solberg shows up to pay her tribute.
At all times, I let my fingers dance around the camera's buttons to correctly adjust the settings in the current environment. It's like an internal autopilot system, that specifically focuses on the manual setting. Only then I can have enough energy to translate the feeling of exhaustion and despair into a visual format.
For each obstacle, I had little time to position myself and frame a durable composition. I run ahead to see how the participants in front tackle the climb. In seconds I prepare by utilizing them as test models and see how the light bends around their human anatomy. Then I got a glimpse of how the photo will turn out. It's the usual correction I typically go for; go in closer, and make sure the background compliments the subject (with respect to natural contrast and leading lines).
Passing the finish line to victory!
What was supposed to be a personal project, turned out to be a paid gig. These photographs have now been sold to Nocco.
LB.