Congratulations to the Kamiakin Braves for taking both the Girls and Boys title. I missed getting a shot of the team with the trophy. Guess I don’t have enough experience at these events to know when to start packing up my gear and when to hang around the finish line.

Here is a photo put I found on facebook of the team with their trophies:

Kamiakin Braves Track - 2012 CBBN 3A District Champions

Photos: 2286 photos in 14 galleries
More: SunfairRun.com

Finally got all the photos published for the Pasco Invite.
I took 2623 photos and after getting rid of shots of the ground, blurry photos, and near duplicates, I published 2283 photos.

I do need to figure out a way to speed up my process.
I need to either get better at framing a photo correctly and exposing it better when I take the photo or get quicker at running it through lightroom.

Anyway, hope everyone enjoys the photos!

2012-04-14 Pasco Invite Galleries

Photos: Coming Soon!

Lake Washington is an all-girls meet attracts some of the top athletes in the state.
Boys are over at Shoreline.
Last year 70 teams were represented.

I plan to take photos here at Lake Washington and then, when the meet is over, head over to Shoreline to catch the last half of the boys’ meet.

Photos: 862 photos in 10 galleries

JV track meets are always interesting.
You get to see inexperienced athletes giving it their best shot.
Events like the hurdles and the pole vault take a lot of skill and are not mastered quickly.
A distance runner or sprinter may go slower than their varsity counterparts but it is not noticeable in a photo.
The form and grace that make hurdlers and pole vaulters look amazing in a snap shot is an acquired skill.
It will be fun to follow these athletes over the next few years and see them improve not just their times and distances but their form and skill.

Photos: 1730 photos in 14 galleries
More: 1792 photos by James Thomas

The Davis Invite is always a busy place.
The events seemed to move along pretty well and I was able to get quite a few photos.
James Thomas was there shooting too, so I put a link to his photos above.

Photos: 6 galleries with 976 photos

Realized I don’t have enough time to enter a page for each event and wanted to get links up to the various track meets.
Edgar Brown Stadium is always interesting to shoot in since it is ‘buried’ 40 feet below ground.
Runners never have to worry about the sun in their eyes and it helps cut the wind some but gray river rock is not the prettiest background for photos.

Smugmug: 152 Photos – Walla Walla Big 9 JV Meet – 1600 Meter Men

Since only 2 of the Kamiakin boys ran in the 3200 race, there were a lot of red jerseys in this race.
Of the 31 runners in the race, 18 were from Kamiakin and the school only gave up 1 of the top 15 places.
Cameron Glade and Brent Christianson, both from Kamiakin, were able to finish the 1600 meter race in under 5 minutes.

Event: Walla Walla Big 9 JV Meet
Race: 3200 Meter Men & Women Races
Date: 2012-03-27
Location: Borleske Stadium, Walla Walla, WA
High Schools: Kamiakin, Walla Walla

Smugmug: 57 Photos – Walla Walla Big 9 JV Meet – 3200 Meter Men & Women

The 3200 meter race was not going to be run then rescheduled as the first race of the JV Big 9 meet at Martin Field in Walla Walla next to Borleske Stadium.
The boys and the girls races were run concurrently.
Except for the 2 Kamiakin boys in the race, the rest of the runners were from Walla Walla.

If you are on the right correct side of the pit then you have a chance of getting a good photo.
If you are on the wrong side of the pit then not much reason to even press the shutter button.
The pole vaulter will usually pivot around the pole as he goes up.
This means that if the athlete starts down the runway with the pole on his right shoulder, you want to be on the opposite side to capture the photo.
I have found it near impossible to switch from one side to the other once an athlete has taken his place on the runway.

Lighting is just as important to a good photo.
Although it is possible to pull details from a poorly exposed photo, it is much better to get the exposure correct in-camera.
Problem is you are almost always shooting up into a lit sky.
If you cannot get the sun behind your back to light your subject, you will probably just get silhouettes going over the bar.
Even with the correct light you must be sure to expose to the right but not to blow out the highlights in the sky.
You want to see the fluffy cloud and the blue sky, not a white blob on a grayish background.

One of my best spots for getting pictures is right at the front of the pit next to the helpers who set the bar after each athlete.
Shooting almost straight up at the athlete makes even a low bar setting look impressive with clouds as the only background.
I have a couple of those shots in this small collection.

Photos:
• Smugmug: 2012 Ram Relays – Field Events (Pole Vault)
• Facebook: 2012 Ram Relays – Field Events

High jump is no exception.
It along with the Pole Vault are even more difficult because the top athletes will sit out of the competition until the bar gets raised to higher standard.
I come back to the pits during the day only to miss the athletes when they finally take their turns.

This image is a composite of 5 seperate images.
I think it turned out pretty well.
My ideal set up if I was to plan to do a shot like this would be to

• set the camera on Manual mode so that the exposure would not change between images
• set the camera’s field of view wide enough to capture all five images without having to move the camera
• set the camera on a tripod so the images are all aligned to start with and not require so much hand work
• read my camera manual to find out how to have the camera automatically take 5 shots (if it’s even possible)

Photos:
• Smugmug: 2012 Ram Relays – Field Events (High Jump)
• Facebook: 2012 Ram Relays – Field Events