Cross Country Season's Around the Corner; Don't Miss a Photo
It has been a long time since my last high school cross country meet, but running has been a staple in my life verging on 9 years now. Cross country meets aren’t something you soon forget, both the highs and the lows. The groggy early morning slog on a dimly lit and strangely chilly, dew filled path never really struck the chord with me that it did many of my teammates, but the excitement of the event always made the frustrating parts worth it. Like our FlashFrame founder, Griffin, I have access to criminally few photos from my cross country days. There are a few grainy Motorola Razor pics (tbt to Razors) that somehow perfectly capture my pre-pubescent un-athleticism, but sadly no photos I’ve ever been happy to call a cherished memory from my many years of running. The frustrating part is that there are tons of pictures being taken at events. I always remember parents lining the racecourse taking hundreds of pictures at every race, but curiously never saw a single one, except for the brief flash on the PowerPoint at the end of the season banquet.
Griffin has already talked about the motivation for FlashFrame and our passion for running, but when we think back on it we find the best place to start is the exact place that this project began, the start line on a cross country course. So starting in June we formed the idea, and after a few months of hard work and a little luck FlashFrame graduated from an idea to reality, and we decided to go back to school, high school cross country specifically. Our goal is to begin FlashFrame’s journey by giving back to what offered us so much. We want to create a place where every spectator at an event can share pictures. When you’re out at the local XC meet snapping pictures of your daughter, nephew, cousin, grandchild, etc. you’re also inadvertently taking pictures of hundreds of other runners, and, if you are as devoted to photography as many people we’ve spoken with, anyone that poses an opportunity for a beautiful shot. Those pictures will often never reach the people that would truly appreciate them and so we want FlashFrame to change that.
We have been partnering with High Schools in the greater Chicago area to use FlashFrame at their events. We encourage spectators to upload any photos that they take to the event album on our website. Once uploaded, runners can search for their pictures by way of bib number or team name, or if they want, scroll through the entire album the hard way, because old habits die hard. The photos are free to download because everyone deserves the chance to find their picture and we hope that it will encourage others to use FlashFrame. The bigger FlashFrame grows the more it can offer to runners and that’s the goal we’re trying to pursue.
We’re excited to see where FlashFrame will take us and hopefully we’ll see some of you out at a race sometime. Make sure to get out there and take, share, and find pictures, you never know what memories you might find.