We had another awesome day at the flyball tournament–I haven’t done the final point tally yet, but I think Zoey picked up around 750 points for the entire weekend. And, she ran in every race her team was in–57 races total.
When I wasn’t running Zoey, I usually had a camera in my hand, snapping pics of the amazing flyball dogs.
These are of our teammate Grace–a difficult dog to photograph since she runs down and back the flyball lane in about 4 seconds!
July 13, 2009 at 5:55 am
The second photo is SO cool!
July 13, 2009 at 7:55 am
Thanks Julie–I really like using panning as a technique to capture the speed and motion of the dogs in flyball. I think it gives a sense of just how fast they are running!
July 13, 2009 at 6:26 am
What great action photos. We need to meet somewhere, sometime so you can photograph Chase in action (and hopefully) in inaction.
July 13, 2009 at 7:57 am
Thanks Penni! I have a great time photographing the flyball dogs–it’s a sport that is so different from all the others! The action and speed (and noise) is utterly unique to flyball. At least with a camera I can try to capture the action and speed aspects of it–and it’s probably best that I can’t capture the 120+ decibel sound of 200 dogs barking!
I too hope we can meet up someday for a photo shoot!
July 13, 2009 at 9:21 am
Those pictures of Grace are wonderful. You really get a sense of the motion with the in-focus dog against fast-moving background. It’s almost like the dog is still and the world around Grace is moving.
July 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
I really like using panning as a technique, but you sure have to shoot A LOT of pics to get one good one. I’d say the ‘delete’ to ‘keep’ ratio on panning is about 50-to-1! That said, I’m kind of addicted to it because I like trying over and over to get that one ‘perfect’ picture.
July 13, 2009 at 9:40 am
These are totally awesome! Thanks so much for capturing the little devil in the moment!
If you look closely at the second shot, you can see Grace has her “game face” on, snarling as she’s heading down the course.
July 13, 2009 at 9:48 am
I’m glad you like them–I was really determined to try and get a couple of good ones of her but she runs so damn fast, it isn’t easy! I love that she snarls as she runs down to get the ball–too funny.
July 14, 2009 at 8:21 am
Love that second pic. The essence of border collie speed, intensity, focus…..
July 14, 2009 at 8:26 am
Grace is the quintessential Border Collie for sure–speed, beauty and…well…grace!