Category Archives: Kayak

The 50th Annual Mascoma River Slalom was held yesterday in Lebanon, NH.  It was a cool day with occasional sleet. But the river was running strong and various types of craft made it through the gates.

The Mascoma Slalom has been held every year since 1963. It is the oldest consecutively run slalom race in the country. Dartmouth College’s Ledyard Canoe Club hangs temporary gates on the Mascoma River near the Packard Covered Bridge.

I enjoy photographing many active sports using a variety of shutter speeds. A fast (short duration) speed will freeze the action rendering the athlete sharp as in the photo below taken at 1/1600 sec.

But I like the effect of blurred motion, particularly when water is involved, which can come from relatively slow shutter speeds like the photo below taken at 1/13 sec. The trick  is to get the athlete relatively sharp.

Getting a kayaker relatively sharp with nicely blurred water can be accomplished by panning with the moving boat or photographing the kayaker as he or she paddles through an upstream gate. It also helps to get lucky. Your luck increases as the number of photos taken increases.

In the slide show that follows, 21 of the photos were shot between 1/10 and 1/40 sec, 16 between 1/80 and 1/320 sec, and 10 between 1/400 and 1/1600 sec. All where shot aperture priority. I use my aperture, ISO, and sometimes a polarizer to control my shutter speed.