Anguish, beauty or both?

Earlier this year, I posted a few photos to one of my regular online forums and a user asked "what on earth possessed me to post photographs of folks in distress?" Clearly, the respondant wasn't any kind of athlete because what he found disturbing I found awesome and exciting. It isn't distress, it is effort - competitors train to race and when you race you let it all hang out and when you cross the line you want to make sure that you left nothing on the course or field of play, nothing; and to do that you have to give it everything, absolutely everything. It is the job of a sports photographer is to capture both the beauty and anguish - but to me anguish is simply a different flavor of beauty. This shot should simply be called 'Competition': awesome.This photograph was published in New England Runner magazine.

Getting the most from poor lighting conditions

Often, the opportunity is presented but conditions are not favorable. Case-in-point, while awaiting the return ferry from Martha's Vineyard, I observed a male Osprey depart for dinner, knowing that it would most likely return with a fish and would give a good photo op., I prepared my 100mm-400mm zoom. Problem was that I was facing directly into the bright, low evening, sun and I had absolutely no room or time to make an adjustment. So, I simply exposed for the bright sun underexposing the Ospreys ,and nest , creating a sillouette and captured the image that I sought. To finish the image off to meet my needs, I adjusted the black point on the levels histogram on photoshop and then converted the image to black and white. A great image from awful conditions.