Discussion: Photo essay on a recent orienteering course

Ben Legg created a photo essay giving his analysis of last Sunday's Brown course at a BAOC B-meet. Ben's combination of marked up photos, map segments and text gives tremendous insight into good orienteering thinking while on a course. As it happens, I had run that course, too, and thought I'd done reasonably well, but Ben's analysis pointed out several things I'd missed. Even if you've never been to Briones, this "essay" is worth checking out.

And both DWildfogel and Ben Legg have very kindly posted their runs on Route Gadget, which gives a much better look at the course details as you scroll through Ben's excellent photo essay.

Route gadget is a nice enhancement to the photo essay. This was really well done.

Well Ben had the winning time on Brown...by a good margin. So he knows whereof he speaks.

That's really cool, and works very well for the semi open area. I'd be interested to see if it was even possible to do something similar in the woods over here.

Also, did he win and take the pictures at the same time? If so, respect!

Good stuff. Are the pictures headcam frames?

No headcam, I just stopped and took photos with a digital camera several times per leg.

I hadn't checked this out before, and it is wonderfully done. It's something that could be very valuable for permanent courses, and just general beginner O education. I think a beginner starting out, once pointed in the right general direction, could make it around that course with just that essay as a guide. Kudos.

Very nice job, I have sent this link to a few friends who are starting out and could always use some reinforcement. Come to think of it, I better study this myself.