The 10-Second Window That Makes This Race So Hard to Shoot

People break ankles, wrists, and legs chasing a wheel of cheese down one of the steepest hills in England, and someone decided to shoot the whole thing on a camera from 1999. Cooper's Hill in Gloucester hosts this event every year, and it presents every problem a photographer dreads: no space, no time, and a crowd that keeps growing.

Max Kent heads to the annual cheese rolling with two friends, Josh and Traf, the latter taking his first job as cameraman in 95-degree heat. Kent shoots the race on a Portra 800 film stock through a camera released the same year Tony Hawk landed his first 900. The tradition runs back to at least the 1830s, and nobody fully agrees on why it exists. Kent's approach is straightforward: get to the location, find a position, and work fast when the runners come down.

The plan almost falls apart. Kent, Josh, and Traf hike all the way up Cooper's Hill only to realize there's no room to shoot from the top. Having covered the event twice before, Kent has watched it get busier each year, so he makes the call to hike back down to the bottom for the first race. He reaches for a long lens, which he admits isn't his usual style, because the situation demands it. You get about 10 seconds per run to land a usable frame, and that constraint shapes every decision he makes on the day.

Anyone who shoots film in fast-moving conditions knows the tension Kent is working under. A 36-exposure roll gives you almost no margin, and there's no chimping the back of the camera to check what you got. That scarcity forces a discipline that digital shooters rarely practice. You learn to read the moment before it happens, to pre-focus on the spot where the action will peak, and to hold your finger until the frame is actually worth burning. The 10-second window Kent describes is the whole game in miniature: limited chances, no do-overs, and a subject that won't repeat itself. If you want to sharpen your timing and your eye, few exercises beat handing yourself a single roll and a chaotic scene and telling yourself that's all you get.

The day throws in complications that no amount of planning covers. A camera opens accidentally and exposes part of a roll. A herd of sheep appears out of nowhere and starts leaping over people sitting on the grass, with one landing on a person. The final position is where he pulls his favorite shots, and by his own count, he walks away with somewhere around 10 to 12 frames he's happy with. Watch the video above to see how Kent's film shots turned out and whether that gamble on a 1999 camera paid off.