Photography: 2023 NYC Marathon

Photography: 2023 NYC Marathon

I’ve spent the last two weeks or so of 2023 and the first few days of 2024 tackling an extensive array of unedited and unpublished photos — including a batch of photos I took a miles 13 and 14 of last year’s New York Marathon in Long Island City, Queens. (I took like half a billion photos that day, and honestly, going through that many photos was something I wasn’t all that thrilled to go through at the time. The photographer’s curse y’all.)

There’s a story behind this: A friend and colleague was running in the marathon and I attempted to catch her. I also found out that I knew three other people, who were running. But it’s difficult to find people in the mass of arms and legs unless there’s something truly distinctive about them — i.e., they’re exceptionally tall, wore a costume, had a country flag draped around them or in one case, was astoundingly pregnant. One of my friends is pretty short — she’s 5′ if she’s lucky — so, she got lost in the crowd. The other two were dudes, who were fairly average height and fairly average build. They got lost in the crowd. Plus, the Marathon’s tracking app was real wonky: The app would say that your person was like half a mile away and then a few minutes later, it would say that your person passed you. Huh? How? I’ve been standing here for hours! (Seriously, NYC Marathon, fix that app. Yikes.)

Still, it was a great, deeply inspirational day. Some photos are below.