Surrey School District Track Meet - June 3, 2013

My son was on the track team for this year. I went and photographed his track-meet. This was the Surrey School District track meet. Now a sporting event like this one is a very unique experience to cover. I don't restrict myself to shooting photos of my kid. I go at it as if I was assigned to cover the track meet by a newspaper. I look for the key shots that people would be interested in if they were going to headline a newspaper with it. I shot this track-meet with a Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII G ED lens with a TC-20EIII attached for the duration of the entire track-meet. What shots I got were all between the 140 and 400mm range. With photographing a sporting event, it is too easy to get into the "I must get the action" mindset and ignore the drama playing out on the faces of the competitors. That drama gives it the 'human element'. And above all, the track meet gave me the opportunity to photograph faces unobscured by face-guards (as it is in hockey).

These are just some of the images that I photographed at the track-meet. No matter what the outcome, no matter how much competitiveness there was out there, they competed for the fun and accomplishment. Whether they fell short in their attempt doesn't matter. It is the spirit of competition; and it is the spirit of fairness and gamesmanship that was in evidence today. All too often we adults forget that in our pursuit of what's "the best". Maybe its time that we realized that.