Switchbacks May 2013
Covered an hour or so of the Switchbacks event this weekend and the photos are posted now. It was an abbreviated visit due to other family obligations, but Claire and I enjoyed what we were able to catch!
Raffle winner during Post Race Festivities of the 2012 P-Town Throwdown.
Spring has sprung and with it the first big event on the Portland skate calendar is just around the corner. Hosted by Robin “Robskey” McGuirk of Eastside Longboards, the P-Town Throwdown is held on Memorial Day Weekend each year. This week’s Image of the Week; Winning Joy, is from the 2012 event.
The event is a “push race”, a longboard skateboard endurance race running 8.5 miles from Mt. Tabor Park to Sellwood Park. McGuirk has won every event run on this course dating back eight years and will be trying to make it nine this year. Following the event there is a raffle for the participants held at Sellwood Park. Winning Joy was captured during this raffle at last year’s event. The young man in the photo had just won one of the top prizes, the board he’s holding over his head. Everyone enjoyed how excited he was with the possible exception of the young man over his left shoulder!
As always this year’s P-Town Throwdown is a benefit for the Oregon Food Bank. Come on out on Sunday, May 26th to join in the fun and help set a new record for food donations!
Technical Specs:
SCCA RallyCross presented by the Oregon Rally Group. Held at the English Gravel Pit in Vancouver, WA on April 7, 2013.
Earlier this month Todd of Alternative-shots arranged for us to shoot the Oregon Rally Group’s RallyCross event held in Vancouver. It was a wet and muddy day but we had fun and captured many images. I’m proud to present my favorite, Kickin’ It Up, as this week’s Image of the Week.
I must admit that going into the event I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I had covered Rally and other Motorsports, but never RallyCross and never an event held in a gravel pit! The weather was going to be another twist, rain makes mud and brings with it the expectation of some good mud-slinging photos! Rain also presents challenges with keeping the lens, the gear, and the photographer dry and functioning! Fortunately most of the rain was relatively light with just a few passing heavy showers that were short lived. I was pretty soaked leading into the lunch break but was able to take a short drive for food with the heat kicked up to do a reasonable job of drying out.
After tech, registration, the driver’s meeting, and a short orientation we were out on course and shooting the event. We got great access and while we were getting our feet wet (literally) we even had a volunteer spotter to keep us safe, point out some of the ins & outs, and of course make sure we were following the rules.
While I was getting acclimated I left the camera in Aperture Priority mode to best deal with the changing skies (and therefore light) so I could concentrate on finding good shooting angles and locations. I knew that would result in freezing all of the action with shutter speeds faster than ideal, but the pictures would still be good and cut down on the variables early in the day. Once things settled down I switched to Shutter Priority and ultimately settled on 1/60th of a second for a good compromise between showing a bit of motion blur but keeping the cars in sharp focus. That was still a bit faster than I would have ideally liked, but with the constantly changing light it was a choice that would work consistently. I shot throughout the day with the D300 with the battery pack for it’s rapid fire burst mode and the 70-300vr so I could bring the action close without having to be so close as to become part of the action!
Kickin’ It Up was my favorite shot of the day for a couple of reasons. I liked the way the gravel being kicked up by the right front obscured most of the background and brought the focus in on the car. I liked the sense of speed that the image conjures up. I also liked the bright colors in the frame and the fact that it wasn’t visibly raining. If the cone wasn’t between the car and I it would have been that much better, but with action shots it’s awfully difficult to control all of the aspects of the image.
While this was my image of choice yours might be different, I invite you to visit the galleries from the day and see what else I shot! Check out the super fast slide shows like the one at left. You’ll see every still image captured during the day shown for 1/10th second makes for the digital equivalent of an old flip book video!
Technical Specs:
Morning Images from April 7th RallyCross are posted
Images from the morning session of the RallyCross event produced by Oregon Rally Group at the English Gravel Pit on April 7th are posted. It was a wet and muddy day, but we had a lot of fun shooting it. Afternoon images will follow shortly.
Playing some catch up on photos from this past summer at the Maryhill Festival of Speed. Just posted about 850 shots from Saturday qualifying and practice for stand up and lugers. This supplements the roughly 1400 images previously posted and I’ll be adding images from Wednesday – Friday soon.
I’ve tagged the qualifiers so if you search for a name of interest those images should come up. I’ve tagged some but not all of the other images. If you are looking for a specific athlete the search is not all inclusive but is a good starting point. Their is a search box at the top of each gallery page that searches all galleries.
Search Box
Search Result Categories
Keep an eye out here and at skate.krollimages.com for more updates.
Ethan got separated from his sled on this run, doesn’t look like he’s too concerned though!
Our family hasn’t had the opportunity for very much snow play this season. This week’s Image of the Week looks back six years to a day of family fun on the mountain. Forgot Something! features Ethan getting separated from his board while flying down the mountain.
We spent the day with the Todd (Alternative Shots) and family enjoying a day on the mountain. Little John Sno Park, located off of Highway 35 on the North Eastern flank of Mount Hood, is one of the more popular sliding hills on the mountain. Ethan had a new sled and was making the most of it careening down the hill at every opportunity. On this particular run he got separated from the sled and kicked up his own snow storm as he came to a rest at the bottom of the hill.
This image is featured in the Gresham Art Committee‘s current Passport to Adventure show that has an artist’s reception on Tuesday, February 12th. Perhaps I’ll see you there!
Technical Specs:
A climber in the western Columbia River Gorge during the December 2009 freeze.
Most of the sports I cover go dark in the winter. On a winter visit to the Columbia River Gorge I stumbled across a very adventurous group of climbers practicing their sport on an icy winter day. Captured about 40 minutes after Green and Icy Multnomah Falls this week’s Image of the Week is Finding the Path.
After finishing at Multnomah Falls I headed west hoping to catch one more waterfall before dark. A short time after passing Wahkeena I saw a few cars and people pulled of to the side of the road and slowed to see what was happening. There were a group of climbers scaling one of the smaller falls that was frozen solid by the continuous days of cold weather.
Darkness was closing in but this climber was still at work. They had obviously been at it for quite some time as their ropes were anchored out of site over the top of the falls. I shot for several minutes and was fortunate enough to capture Finding the Path. It is a sport I know very little about, but it was certainly fun to watch even a few minutes of it.
This image is featured in the Gresham Art Committee‘s Passport to Adventure show that opens on Monday and has an artist’s reception on Tuesday, February 12th. Perhaps I’ll see you there!
Technical Specs:
Dr. Kelly Silverthorn driving Car #89 fielded by GI SHO Racing.
The latest Kroll Image to be published in a magazine is this week’s Image of the Week. Racing Dentist is an auto racing image captured on a rainy track at Portland International Raceway this past spring.
I worked the Chumpcar World Series event with Todd (Alternative Shots). The race director put me in touch with Dr. Kelly Silverthorn, a Dentist from Canada who was writing a magazine article about making his series debut in the event. He was in need of photo support for the article and I was looking to build up some auto racing images for my portfolio so the match was made.
Racing Dentist Article
The “Stumptown Sweet 16″ was a two day event with a 10 hour endurance race Saturday followed by 6 hours on Sunday. The photos used in the article were captured early in the day on Saturday when Dr. Silverthorn took the first driving shift in a steady, soaking rain. The inset shot was as the team prepared to go out for the opening green flag. Racing Dentist was captured from the elevated flag stand (which was not used on this day) at start/finish very early in the race. I was looking for images that showed the speed and conditions, but still froze the action enough to make all of the paint and graphic details visible.
Doctor Silverthorn’s article is in the current issue (Jan/Feb 2013) of Just for Canadian Dentists magazine. He describes very well the fun racing, comradeship, and teamwork that exemplifies the grass roots road in Chumpcar. The cars may be beaters but the competitors are there to race hard and have a great time! His article will also publish in an upcoming issue of Just for Canadian Doctors.
The whole organization and all of the racers were very welcoming, I hope to have the opportunity to shoot their events in the future!
Technical Specs:
Meyers Leonard’s first NBA field goal on the sweet dime from Damian Lillard who drew the defense of Dwight Howard.
This week’s Image of the Week is a departure. It combines my passion for photography with that for basketball and the Portland Trail Blazers. Last night was the season opener and featured the very promising debut of two new rookies. In Leonard’s First Field Goal they combine on a play early in the victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
Sometimes photography is more about capturing the memory than it is about the quality of the image. Shooting from my seat in the upper level of the Rose Garden Arena is a perfect example. My goal was to try to catch the first points and assist from Damian Lillard and the first points and rebound from Meyers Leonard for my own photo scrapbook. Cameras with removable lenses are not allowed in the stands so the WX10 was my tool. That requires a bit of anticipation to capture the image, and some compromises to image quality with a higher ISO. The image is certainly not of gallery quality, but the memory is!
As it happened Leonard’s first points were free throws. Leonard’s First Field Goal however was one to remember! You could see the play developing all of the way from my perch on the far corner (although apparently not from Gasol’s perspective as he failed to rotate). Lillard drove past Steve Nash drawing help from the paint in the form of Dwight Howard. This left Leonard all by himself busting to the hoop just in time to hammer home the perfectly placed lob.
It was a game I won’t soon forget, in part because I have these photos to supplement my memories. Even when circumstance prevents the use of your full camera bag, an image can still be worth a 1000 words!
Technical Specs:
Alex Tongue & Patrick Switzer in the Championship race of the signature downhill event at the 2011 Cathlamet Downhill Corral.
This weekend marks one of my favorite skate events of the year; the Cathlamet Downhill Corral. My son and I attended for the first time last year, I’m sure it will be an annual pilgrimage for years to come. I’m proud to present Tongue Sliding Through to Victory as this this week’s Image of the Week.
CDC is a smorgasbord of skating events covering three action packed days. Friday features the slide competition, long jump, and slalom events. Saturday features the morning push race, the sidewalk showdown, and the wild & crazy boardercross and big air events. The weekend concludes on Sunday with the signature downhill race on a course featuring ramps and high speed corners. The CDC is not on the International Gravity Sports Association schedule, but has quickly gained prominence as one of the top independent events in the world drawing top riders from around the globe.
Tongue Sliding Through to Victory was captured during the finals of the downhill event. Alex Tongue is a young local racer (from Happy Valley) who is a threat to win the World Championships and World Cup Series (currently 4th) this year. Patrick Switzer won the 2011 IGSA World Cup Series Championship and is a very close second in this year’s standings following his win at Maryhill. Throughout the day last year they were consistently at the top of their heats and seemed destined to clash in the finals. As they approached me in “Catastrophe Corner” Switzer had a slight lead over Tongue and Chip Wood. The corner is very challenging with riders employing a variety of strategies to navigate the very sharp left hander at the base of the fastest hill on the course. Alex chose a more aggressive inside slide to try to steal the apex from Patrick in what would be the deciding pass of the event. Alex slid through and claimed victory in the 2011 Cathlamet Downhill Corral.
I am very much looking forward to this weekend in Cathlamet. One of the best things about it is the people; the longboard community has been very welcoming and I’m proud to call many of them friends. I get to shoot the event with photo buddies like Jon Huey, Todd Frary, Rodney Evens, Eric Hovey, and many more. It is great to spend the weekend with my son Ethan who will be riding, volunteering, and photographing throughout. The organizers, lead by Skate Mom Judy, put on a terrific event that has become one of the major tourism draws for the county. In conjunction with presenting sponsor Rip City Skate and the many associate sponsors they are offering an enhanced prize pool this year.
If you have some free time this weekend you will not regret the short 90 minute drive from Portland to take in some wild and crazy action in Cathlamet!
Technical Specs: