April 28th, 2009 by admin

© 2009 Loren Worthington

The Desert Challenge is the biggie for adaptive sports in Arizona.  The annual event, sponsored by Arizona Disabled Sports features swimming, weight lifting, archery and various events in track & field. The 3-day event is held in Mesa and is sanctioned by the various governing bodies for the respective sports. Basically it’s fun event for local athletes of all ages and a tune-up for a few of our national athletes with 2012 London Paralympic ambitions.

A special thanks to Jodi  of Jodi Davis Photography for letting me come shoot with her.  She’s the ADS team’s official photographer. Any participant wanting event photos should visit her site.  She does great kid photos too.

Click the jump for some photos of  Track & Field, Swimming, Weightlifting and Archery.

Track & Field

The field events took place on Saturday morning.  Some of our top prospects from around the U.S.  were competing in the shot put and discus throw.  It takes a few minutes for each athlete to saddle up for their throw, so I decided to tinker a bit.  Below are two identical photos taken very differently.

I like this photo because is takes the background out of focus and your eye is drawn right to his face. It's pretty obvious the disk is about to go for a ride. 70-200mm, f2.8, 1/6400th, iso 200.

This time the disc is in motion which I think adds to the image, but the trade off is the background is sharp, and to me somewhat of a distraction. The difference is that I'm slowing the shutter way down to get the motion of his arm. I was betting I could keep his face sharp due to the much shorter amount of motion. The key here is to blast him with a strobe and crank the f-stop way down. 70-200mm, f22, 1/125th, iso 200.

I like both but in a competition I’d make sure I got at least one of the upper shots.  If there was a descent background, I’d probably also try to get a 2nd like below.  That’s assuming they wouldn’t mind 2 or 3 strobes going off as they go  through the motion, and they promise not to move their head much.

-

Above is a chance to see the chair these guys use to get some serious push behind each throw.  This guy’s arms look like my legs and his legs like my arms.

-

Here, I caught fellow photographer Jodi Davis trying to get a shot. I got yelled at for being in the line of fire right about now. Had this clobbered me, she’d have a picture to enter into “World’s Dummest Photographer” contest for sure.

In the evening, the track portion of the event occurred.  The event pitted the local ADS team, The Heat  against a very  good team from U of A (Tucson).

I basically camped out at the finish line for the entire evening using the 70-200mm and a 1.7x converter.  I was hoping to get some elated celebration shots. And also there was a few patches of sunset that might create some unique shots.  Only the latter materialized.

Above is about 5pm. Perfect light.

This shot is midway through the events.  You can forget shooting any type of mishap along the course from my spot as the shadows blanket the entire track, but right as they slow up you get some slivers of sun that are really great.

As the last events are wrapping up I’ve sorta stopped shooting the event as the shadows have won, but as they come around the stands there is one last shot to be got.

Judges should award a bonus point to all athletes who turn into the sun as they cross the finish line.

Swimming

In adaptive sports, athletes are assigned various ratings based on their disability. In a small event such as this you have athletes with various ratings participating in the same event so the events themselves arent too competitive. For most, what matters is their individual times.  This allows me to look for more creative shots of the athletes, rather than the competition.

The swimming event took place right at dusk.  It’s a 60 meter pool with minimal florescent lights.  The bottom of the pool does have a nice blue tone so I really like the water color in most of the shots.

This was one of the few competitive heats that allowed me to get two swimmers in the same frame. I won

I hope this girl (name available on request) makes it to the Olympics some day because my research indicates the media always needs a shot like this from the early years. 70-200mm f2.8, 1/500th, iso 1600

This shot gave me the idea to try and get a photo of the "ADS" logo underwater.

. . . . . . I let the shutter wide open for two laps and this was the closest I got to seeing a clear "ADS" on an underwater cap.

Weightlifting

Its a good thing there was only 3 people in the weightlifting competition because the room where the lifting took place was about the size of a 1-car garage.  This meant minimal room to roll around for photos.  Taking a still photo of someone pumping weights isn’t too thrilling unless the veins in the forehead are about to blowout. I witnessed two very strong men but could not find much drama.

Names and details available on request.

If anyone was there, you’ll know why this guy had such a grin.  Lets just say that sometimes things pop up that remind you what makes the world go round.

Below my trusty sidekick Karla got the flash in a nice place to get some highlight on the face.

Archery

Archery was the final event on Sunday morning.  The event took place at Papago Park in Phoenix which makes for a nice background, but I can’t say archery is the most fun sport to shoot as its hard to take a photo that offers any emotion or pain or team spirit.   You get some descent colors and its nice because they hold still, but each event has 12 rounds and I was done after one.  Its a snoozer after that.

Name available on request.

Three days of shooting means I have way too much editing and archiing but it was a great experience.  Again, my photos are available for commercial and editorial use.  Participants wanting to buy photos should contact Jodi Davis.

Note:  Read more at the East Valley Tribune

Here’s Jodi taking a quick shot of Heat captain, and also her husband, Troy Davis.  Thanks for letting me shoot with you.