RE: #401

Ted, your comments reminded me of how I started with sports. Nowhere near your Olympic level, but a similar experience.
When I first photographed mountain bike races in the early 1990s, I began with beginner and sport class events close to me in the Santa Clara Valley. Then I went to Mammoth Mountain (California) for the pros in 1995. My first efforts were just OK. As I improved, I started getting press passes to NORBA National Championship Series events. A highlight was photographing Ned Overend the last year he competed. He was ranked second nationally in cross-country in 1996, racing guys half his age - and winning.
As time went on, there were more and more photographers, and some wouldn't ask if they were in your way - they'd just jam into your sight line so THEY could get the shot. So I learned to work around increasingly crowded courses, especially dual-slalom where I stayed just out of the way but close enough for intimate pictures (sometimes being crazy-close weeds out other photographers), and downhill events where natural obstacles plus the course determine where you shoot.
Can't say I've ever gotten a spot at Olympic-level events. But what I learned shooting races has helped with wildlife. You can't ask 'em to do it again... and picking placements and groupings on the fly is very necessary. You've got to be ready for unusual behavior when it appears. Previsualizing a composition helps. Knowing the line a racer's likely to pick, or likely feeding behavior of your wild subject helps too. 

*****************************
Graham, I like the color 'postcard' version better than the black and white. I'd love to see a hi-res print of this one - bet it's stunning. 

Mark Bohrer
Wildlife Photography on the Urban Edge
www.mountain-and-desert.com


At 01:54 PM 12/29/2007, you wrote:

Subject:#401
geebee wrote:
>Colour version of previously posted M6 b&w shot.
>>Leica Minilux : Agfa Vista 200
>>http://www.geebeephoto.com/2007/07401.htm<<

Hi Graham,
Pure simplicity at it?s best! Beautiful! J
If we consider the bulk of your photography comes from ?your own back yard,? you constantly prove the old whine by photographers is pure nonsense! ?I?d be much better if I were in (name your own country) and I?d be a smashing great photographer!? You always prove otherwise!
If one can?t cut the mustard in your own town, city, country you sure as hell aren?t going to do it in another country.
It?s much like people when looking at my work from the Olympics who say? ?Well these are good because it?s at the Olympics! That?s why your pictures are interesting!? Followed by, ?If I could go to the Olympics I?d shoot great stuff because there?s so many super athletes to photograph!? WRONG!!!!!!!!
Dumb ass photographers don?t understand you have to shoot great photos at the local high school track meet first? then maybe the quality of what you produce there will get you a spot to cover the Olympics!
I mean if you haven?t been shoulder to shoulder trying to shoot something different than the other 300 sports photogs crammed around you like sardines in a can, then you have absolutely no idea what the pressures are to succeed at the Olympics!
The high school track meet is a piece of cake because you could be the only photog in sight! And the whole place is yours without any ?Photo positions? designated where you have to shoot from whether the light, angle or otherwise is good, bad or ugly!?
So what you do Graham is, you teach us day after day it?s quite possible to find very interesting photographs in our own areas if we just go out and look for them. 
Thanks again for another great teaching photograph!
ted








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