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.