A Cool Shot from the State Cross Country Championships.

I really liked this image I captured at the Maryland state high school cross country championships Saturday.Through out the day I was not really happy with the shots I was getting of the races. For this race I decided to go down farther from the start of the race and get something different than the usual starting shot of the whole group running across the field towards me. I went down to the first turn.

I knew that they would still be somewhat grouped up, which was good, but also starting to thin out a bit. I laid down on my stomach, pre-focused where they would be and waited. While waiting I fired off a few test shots and nailed down my exposure. As I started to hear the thundering footsteps approach I began to think I might be a little too close to the rope separating me from the course. Was I going to get trampled by these skinny teens? Not that their size would make it hurt any less. Well it was too late to move, I would miss the shot. So I stood, or should I say, laid, my ground.

As they ran by I composed my shot and started shooting off some frames. I got a little trigger happy and after a few seconds my buffer filled to the point that I was only getting one shot per second. They finally ran past and I started to look at my images, going backwards with the newest ones first. I started to worry that none of the kids in the frames were from my area. While they make cool pictures, they are unusable for the paper. Then I see an Annapolis High jersey and it is in a frame that I really like. Jackpot. All I need now is for him to do well in the race and then I really have something.

He wound up finishing fifth in the state, not too bad. Would have been great if he was first, but I got a cool image and I was happy.

Check out the rest of the images in my slidshow here http://www.hometownannapolis.com/slideshow/1321125542CrossCountryStateChampionships