Keeping track at the track

There is so much action going on at a track meet it can be overwhelming.

I was fortunate to be offered the opportunity to shoot the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field meet in Charlotte, N.C., by Jamie Schwaberow of NCAA Photos last weekend. It was bloody hot, and the work space was (to put it politely) a bit small for the job, but the volunteers, meet officials and athletes were top notch.

The problem with covering a track meet is two-fold.

One, there's so much going on at one time it wouldn't help if you were triplets. High jump, pole vault and discus are competing as the 100-meters hurdlers are screaming down the track. Everywhere you look, it's running, jumping and pictures galore--but where do you start? And what are you missing over THERE while you're over HERE?

Two, because of all the pandelerium, it's very tempting to wimp out and make the "easy" pictures so you can try to get to every event. Hurdles--snap! High jump--click! Discus--duck! (Only once, fortunately, and it wasn't really that close. But I don't turn my back on those folks, or the javelin throwers...for obvious reasons.)

A word of advice on taking the easy way out: DON'T.

Sounds pretty trite, doesn't it? But it can be done.

How? First off, tell yourself "I will miss pictures...and I won't cry."

Once that's out of the way, you can move on to planning. Get to the track early, before the competition starts. Scout the locations of the different events, and compare them to the handy schedule you should have close at hand. Is the long jump pit close to the high jump? Is the pole vault close to the 4x200 meter handoff zone? Remember that high jump, pole vault and most of the other field events have several flights (groups) that get at least 3 attempts before winnowing down to the eight- or nine-member championship flight. High jump and pole vault can go on (seemingly) forever, with the elite comeptitiors waiting until very late in the event to make their first jumps, so you have opportunities to float in ad out of these events between the running events.

A few key items to remember: background, angles, peak action and emotion. Pictures live and die on their backgrounds no matter what you're shooting. Track is an especially difficult sport in which to find clean backgrounds, but keep moving and looking until you find the best possible angle for every event. Climb up in the stands, lay down on the ground, switch up lenses and and shoot wide open, but work it until it's as good as it can get. And while clean is good, don't be afraid to make a background work for you. I saw the background of the picture at the top of this post while walking behind the javelin takeoff lane, and sat and worked it for almost 30 minutes until everything came together. I specifically framed the steeplechase photo below to include the scoreboard with "Johnson C. Smith."

Peak action is pretty self-explanatory.

Emotion is the lifeblood of sports photography. A pole vaulter clearing a bar is...well, not something I could ever do, but still, it could be happening anywhere, anytime. Give me a pole vaulter screaming on the way down after clearing 19 feet any day of the week. Or maybe two N.C. Central runners (at left) sharing a quiet moment before one of them absolutely dusts the field in the 400 meter.

Finally, don't be scared to take chances and give yourself extra opportunities to make a picture you couldn't make otherwise. I carried a 20D with a 20mm lens around as a remote body that I moved all over the track as I cycled between events. I put it under the netting for the discus (a place I would never be allowed to shoot), on the foul line for the javelin, in a turn for the distance races, and next to a hurdle, just to name a few spots. The shot at left was next to the water hazard of the 300 meter steeplechase, another spot I couldn't be. Of the 10 or 12 different locations, I made maybe 5 pictures--but they were 5 pictures that I wouldn't have made otherwise.

In closing, plan ahead, accept that you'll miss some frames, and...don't freak.