In late April, one of my trip guides and team members, David Griffin and I attended Sports Shooter Academy in LA. Our main goal was to get the chance to photograph sports that we had not already done (which is quite the feat considering I have shot over 20 different sports). Anyhow, horse racing and swimming were on our list to experience. The first day was swimming and while the level of competition was not what I had expected, I captured some neat images and the one above was voted as Picture of the Day by our instructors. This was a surprise to me as there were some very talented photographers participating. Secondly, it motivated Dave and me to work together even more as a team for the following two days of shooting to push our boundaries in our photography skills. This paid off as both of us had top images for the next two days. It was also a great reminder of how we value teamwork in a profession where people can be pretty individualistic. Beyond the new sports shooting opportunities, we learned in our critiques with some of the staff about how tight cropping can make images better. We shared this concept with our team photographers when we returned and have worked on it as a group for the remainder of the year. This one experience has changed the types and quality of the images all of us produce, so it was well worth the time to participate in SSA. By the way, we loved photographing horse racing and here is one of the more creative shots I had the chance to capture.
