2012 LEXINGTON INVITATIONAL--

Junior High School Girls Cross Country Race

Mackenna Curtis-Collins (my adopted grand daughter) is blazing her way through the leaders of the pack early in this annual event on the Lexington High School cross-country track Saturday.

In sight of the finish line she found yet another passing gear, rocketed by her last competitor and breezed to a first place finish with a time of 13 minutes and 13 seconds topping the second place runner by 3 seconds.

There were 39 finishers from five schools in this competition.  Mackenna topped the last place finisher by nearly 14 minutes in this 2 1/2 mile race.

Surely you can imagine my BIG smile hidden behind the camera as she paced through the mid-point (above) and slammed across the finish line (right).

Now, ponder this!  This 71+ year old photographer was with her near the start of the event (top), at the mid-way point (middle) and was waiting for her at the finish line (right).

Pretty amazing, dontcha' think.**

Photography comments:

To enhance the illusion of speed I reduced the ISO (sensitivity) of my camera to its lowest setting of 100 then used a slow shutter speed of 1/15th of a second.

I also used the camera's continuous shooting mode and panned (moved) the camera, trying to precisely match Mackenna's speed.  The streaks of light in the top photo are evident against the dark, wooded background and were created by the distance the camera moved during the exposure.

Anything that moved in precise synchronization with the camera appears sharp in the photos.  Since Mackenna's body is moving slightly up and down with her pace and her arms and legs are moving in a somewhat circular motion, they are a bit blurred in all the images.

At that slow shutter speed lots of light enters the lens so the size of the aperture must be reduced to prevent overexposure.  The top photo was done in the shade of the woods at f/10.  The two smaller photos were done in sunlight at f/22.

**Confession time:  While Mackenna was dealing with the circumference of the race course, I had to deal only with its diameter. < Smile >