This young heifer which leaped into the bullring on the morning of the 8th of July would never have imagined that it would feature as one of the most awarded photos of 2015. And now Álvaro Barrientos has been awarded the gold medal at the XII China International Press Photo Contest (CHIPP) for this shot of the young heifer leaping out of the pen and into the arena.
Sony recreated an image of the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls from the summer fiestas of 2012 to publicize its new camera endowed with a projector, in Indonesia. Probably the Sony DCR-PJ5 video camera does not mean much to you, but the possibility of recording film and being able to project it at the very same time was a real advertising challenge for the Y&R creative publicity agency from Jakarta.
Photo: ©Rodrigo Sebastián Cabrera
Nobody would have thought that within a few years we could be asking a question like this: Might there be a Sanfermin 2016 Running of the Bulls of under two minutes duration? This premise is a logical one because on the 14th of July, 2015, the Miura bulls clocked a record-breaking run of just two minutes five seconds. This is a first-ever record for the Running of the Bulls because the whole pack of six bulls completed the whole distance of 875 meters that constitute the length of the course, running at an average speed of 25, 2 Km per hour. You can watch the best photos of these day HERE. And the answer that we feel we can give from Sanfermin.com is an affirmative yes that it is possible for a Sanfermin bullrunning to be completed in less than two minutes. And indeed, we may not need to wait much longer than 2016.
It is pretty obvious that the Sanfermin fiestas are a big annual event for the city of Pamplona. The novelty lies in the fact that now someone has come up with a means of measuring the repercussion that such grand events have for each city that holds some such event. And it seems that the Sanfermin fiestas obtained such a high placing that only the annual soccer games between Real Madrid y Barcelona achieve a higher rating. Who were the voters? More than one thousands councillors and other such representative citizens from all the provincial capitals from around the state who responded to the study in December 2015.
Our photographer and friend, Maite H. Mateo last Saturday innocently opened a packet of chewing gum in New York and she was pleasantly surprised to find an allegorical image of the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls in the interior of the wrapping. She wasted no time in letting us know and we too can’t resist letting everyone know about this curious case. The fact is that the American Stride Brand of chewing gum has decorated the inside of its packet of 14 wrappers of Spearmint with an image taken from the Pamplona Bullrunning, although we cannot pin down the exact day or year.
The Guiness book of records has just recorded the bull with the largest horns in the world. The animal is called Lazy J´s Bluegrass and he has horns of 2, 97 meters in length from point to point of each horn. It might just squeeze through the entrance gate of Pamplona’s bullring, if it were taking part in the Running of the Bulls, as the entrance gate is exactly three meters wide. More than a bull, it would seem like some kind of snowplow with horns as wide as that. In any case, with that kind of frame, all the bull could do would be to steamroll the runners and knock them to the ground.
Once again bulls and, more precisely, the Running of the Bulls feature in TV publicity spots in The USA. This time it is American Express that is promoting its financial services for new business initiative. In this TV commercial we see Jomaree Pinkard, a co-founder of Hella Bitters, a firm which makes hand-made bitter cocktails in New York. The shots show a taxi driving through the financial sector in New York as the protagonist is narrating his situation.
The Asociación Deportiva Caravaca Vera Cruz Sports association has a football team which plays in the XIII group of the third division league. Yesterday, they displayed their new team kit for the coming season and it has to be said that the gear could easily serve as authentic dress for the Sanfermin fiestas, without any doubt.
It has become the “meme” of Sanfermin 2015, the most popular viral content in all the social networks. Practically everyone or everything that has a connection with Sanfermin and with Pamplona or with the fiestas, yesterday received this photo which shows a young man holding desperately to one of the fencing posts, as the worker is taking down the bullrunning fencing.
SEE ALL THE PHOTOS AND THE VIDEO OF THE 12TH OF JULY RUNNING OF THE BULLS
The Running of the Bulls event is like a big catwalk, full of colorful T-shirts, caps, cloaks, and – today we have seen the proof – glasses. Most runners run with the minimal apparel – a pair of trousers, a T-shirt, sneakers… to ensure that nothing superfluous might upset them during the running. Other runners might wear something for luck, like one of the regular runners in Estafeta who always wears his cap and who, in the previous running of the bulls, even took a moment to adjust his cap as he ran just in front of the horns of the bull. Some another runners turn up for the event with some gimmicky thing of other that they have acquired in the early hours previous to the bullrunning.
At today’s Running of the Bulls, perhaps expecting some irritation or bother from the sun and the sunlight, one runner came down the stretch at the entrance to the bullring, with a pair of bright shiny green glasses on his head. As the chasing Conde de la Maza bull drew closer, the same glasses were falling over his eyes. As the runner continued his tight run, almost squeezed up against the fencing, he found time to relinquish the glasses and pull aside just before the bull could charge him. Some real style. With glasses.
Curiously, the City hall norm is a bit hazy and simply states that “It is prohibited to carry inappropriate objects for the good of the Running of the Bulls.” And runners must not wear “inappropriate clothing or footwear at the bullrunning.”
Fotos: Iñaki Vergara
