The Quest Begins

Saturday was the start of the Yukon Quest dogsled race in downtown Fairbanks. For those of us who care about such things it is kind of like the superbowl of the local mushing scene. The Quest is a much more difficult race than more famous Iditarod. The lengths are about the same but the Quest has less support, less checkpoints, less of about everything except wilderness.

The start (and thus finish) alternate each year between Fairbanks and Whitehorse Canada. This year the start was in Fairbanks and the mushers will cross the finish line in Whitehorse after crossing 1000 miles of snowy and cold wilderness.

The start is also great fun to photograph. Some years I get a press pass for the backstage view, which is usually a much better option, but this year, I forgot about it until it was too late so was relegated to watching from the crowd side of thing. This allowed me to get a few different perspectives on the race. I got a few, like the one above, that is typical of mushing races. Though a fine shot it doesn't really tell much about the scene.

This second image was taken from the pedestrian bridge over the frozen Chena River. This perspective allows a different angle on the scene. It shows some of the crowd and, importantly, the sign indicating the start line. This one makes for an acceptable stock image, but again, isn't terribly unique.

This last image is my favorite from the morning and was completely serendipitous. I was trying to inch in and get some shots similar to the first one, when this woman in a bright red parka stepped right in front of me and raised her point and shoot to snap an image. I made lemonade from the situation, turned my focus on her camera and snapped this image.

Any thoughts?

Open North American Championships

Each March Fairbanks hosts one of the major sprint mushing races of the season. Mushers from across the country show up for the three days of racing. It is also one of my favorite events to photograph. Mushing, like any fast-paced sport is tricky to photograph. Focus is major challenge so I take a lot of photos to make sure some of them have the right subject in focus (generally the musher or the lead dogs). This year I shot for two days, Saturday and Sunday. The image above incidentally is Egil Ellis who has now captured the record for most wins by a single racer. His team is made almost entirely of hounds instead of huskies. Damn fast though. Here are a few images I think worked out fairly well: