I love shooting track...

Last weekend I shot the NCAA Div. II national track meet for NCAA Photos. Track is a close second only to football in my favorite sports to shoot. And since football happens in the fall, and track is in the Spring so it's the perfect balance. However, track is truly at its best when it means something. This is when you get those nice raw emotions from the athletes.

Now, as someone who went to a major Division I college, I've always sort of looked down on the lower divisions of the NCAA. Normally, the talent is a little watered down and not as enjoyable to watch. Track is a lot different though. Division II, however, has become the destination of a lot of international athletes and it's not uncommon to see current or future Olympians competing at D2 schools.

The great thing about shooting for NCAA Photos was I was always covering the winners. The problem with that though was, I was always covering the winners. Since I had no idea who was going to win the event, I had to rely on the seed times of the runners. So, my idea was to shoot a wide shot first so I would get most everyone in top seeded lanes to cover myself then try and quickly figure out who was going to win. It worked out well in all but one of the races when the racer didn't come from one of the top 3 seeded lanes (For those who aren't track junkies, lanes 3-5 are where the top three seeds are usually placed)

Of course, the best way to get these results was to know who was going to win as they crossed the finish line. This was a lot easier in the distance races, since they field was more spread out the longer the race. This also allowed some time to either shoot other events or gave me time to be creative, shooting pans, the turns etc.

The steeplechase is one of my favorite races to shoot. I mean who doesn't love shooting people splashing through the water during a race? It's also one of those races that I rarely get to shoot (I really wish they would add it to the high school lineup). I'm still waiting for the big wipe out shot to happen while I'm shooting the race... hasn't happened yet.

Overall I think it turned out pretty well, I didn't get to shoot a whole lot of the field events since they were spread out over three days and I was only shooting on Saturday's events. But it made for a nice tune up for the high school state track meet next week. More on that later.