Westfield Half-Marathon

Had fun taking photos in the light rain at the 2014 Westfield Half-Marathon today. Some sample shots below:

 

 

and here's the full gallery of photos

2014 Holyoke St. Patrick's Day 10K Road Race

I took photos at the annual run / party / parade known as the Holyoke St. Patrick's Day 10K Road Race in Holyoke, MA. Here's some samples:

 

and here's the full gallery

Falls in Spring

I'm documenting the onset of spring at Chapel Brook Falls, a series of cascades along Chapel Brook at a TTOR conservation property in Ashfield, MA. The site is located about 12 minutes up the road from me, and is one of my favorite local places to set out on fun trail runs, chill out atop a ledge with a view, or just sit and listen to the sounds of the waterfall. I've also posted several of the shots on my flickr site. My intention is for this to be a progressive blog post, with updates every few days, or as often as I can get back up there. Newest additions will be here at the top.

April 14

Only a little bit of ice left on the fringes now...

the upper falls

video of the upper falls

the upper upper falls

April 10

A little over a week has passed since my last visit (how did that happen??) and it seems like just the right amount of time to show noticeable change. Most of the snow has melted on the surrounding hillsides, but a decent fringe of ice remains, especially on the north-facing side of the brook.

upper falls (compare to March 29)

upper falls

lower falls

April 1

After a couple of warm days and some steady rain, the flow is high and the ice has been broken.

upper falls, all the way open now

the upper falls flowing free

the lower falls emerge

March 29

Very little in the way of development this past week. It got really cold again a few days after my last update, and I suspect some of it froze back up again. Today, the falls appeared just slightly more open than 8 days ago. 

30 second video of the lower falls (now slightly less frozen over)

upper falls, taken with the 12-24mm Tokina lens (1.3 exposure at f/20, 100 ISO)

March 21

close up of the upper falls, taken with a Nikon f/1.8 50mm lens (1.6" exposure at f/16, 64 ISO)

 30 second video of the upper falls

 30 second video of the lower falls (still mostly frozen over)

March 19

wide angle view of the upper falls, using a 12-24mm Tokina lens that I really need to clean.

Shooin’!

In the past couple of weeks (since my last blog post, anyway), I’ve had the pleasure of shooting at three pretty great showshoe race events. Here's a little background on each, and links to the photos.

The first event was the Woodford Whiteout, a 10K that was part of the Dion Snowshoe Racing Series. It was held at Prospect Mountain Ski Area in Woodford, VT (near Bennington, just up the hill along Rte. 9). The weather was ideal for that race: cold, but not so cold it was brutal, with nice light and enough of a breeze to kick up some snow. I shot down low on the mountain, mostly catching runners as they came down the series of switchbacks near the end of the race. There's some pretty sweet splashes of dramatic snow spray in some of the shots. The full gallery can be viewed here.

The second one was Curly’s Record Run at Pittsfield State Forest in far western MA. That race was also part of the Dion Snowshoe Racing Series. I shot at two locations, first just past the race’s high point near mile 1, and again about a half a mile before the finish near mile 5. The full gallery can be viewed here.

The third event was nothing less than the US Snowshoe Nationals, which included a Women’s 10K, a Men’s 10K, and a “Citizen’s Race” 5K. It was held at Prospect Mountain Ski Area again. For that one, there were several other photographers present, including Scott Mason and Joe Viger, two seasoned pros whom I admire and finally got to meet in person. We spread out on the mountain, but I had told Tim Van Orden, the race director, that I really wanted to shoot at the top of the mountain that time. So I took some shots of the start of the women’s race, which was first, then caught a snowmobile ride to the top, where I remained for the rest of both the women’s and men’s races. Then I came back down for the 5K. I wish I’d had a fast wide angle lens with me to make the summiting shots seem more dramatic, but ya gotta work with what you’ve got. I still think there's some pretty cool stuff in there. The full photo galleries can be viewed here (men's, women's, citizens).

Here are a few of my favorites from all three races.