Depth of field is the distance between two planes, a closer one and a farther one, in which objects  can be positioned to have an "acceptably sharp" image formed in a camera.

There are two formulae for calculating Depth of Field (DOF), a simple one as described below which produces an approximate value and more a more complicated one which produces a more accurate value. The latter is not discussed in this document.

I will focus on the simple formula as below.

           DOF = (2 u² N c)/f² 

Where:

• C = circle of confusion*
• F= focal length
• U = distance to subject
• N – F number

*circle of confusion has been defined as the largest blur circle that will be perceived by the human eye as a point when viewed at a distance of 25cm. Note there are more specific definitions but for the purposes of this document the above definition is considered sufficient.

The formula shows that DOF varies proportionally with the aperture, and with the square of the focal length and distance to subject.

Example: what is the DOF of a 50mm lens, when the circle of confusion is 0.029mm, f-stop is f/4 or 4 for the calculation, with a focus distance of 1200mm (1.2m)

Answer: square of u = 1200 * 1200 = 1,440,000

So DOF = 1,440,000*2*4*0.029 = 334,080 divided by square of focal length = 50 *50 = 2500

Ie 334,080/2500 = 133.632mm = 0.13m

AA1V4356" TULLYORIOR and R A Devine ( 10 , PURPLE; white sleeves; red cap,white star ) Trainer: Catherine Barry , Owner : Catherine Barry"

In late 2020 my Camera Club held a "Show & Tell " session where members had to present 12 photographs taken from the same place.
I entered this sequence of 12 photographs depicting a horse jumping the last fence at the Portrush Point to Point in May 2018, stumbling on landing and as a consequence unseating the rider and throwing him over the its head where he eventually fell to the ground. The rider was uninjured as he can be seen can walking back in front of the spectators to the changing room.
This was a good example of the use of the "Back Button Focus" on my camera whereby the focussing and taking of the photograph are separated and spread across two buttons. The shutter button which usually focuses when pressed half way down and takes the photograph when fully depressed is only used to take the photograph.  A button at the back of the camera is configured to focus the lens. I depressed both buttons for this sequence and followed the horse and rider such that the camera kept the rider in focus throughout. The rider was Rory Devine and the horse was named Tullyoroir.

The full sequence of 12 photographs can be viewed at:  https://www.hmphotographs.com/p878971621
 

1 Limerick Lace (1 ,emerald green and orange hoops ), Jockey - L P Dempsey ,Trainer - G P CromwellFT8E4411.jpg

First Event if 2023

My first event if 2023 was horse racing at Down Royal. The event was the Molson Coors Raceday national hunt meeting.  It was also Students’ Day and was noisy. There were three hurdle races , three steeplechase races and a flat race to complete the meeting. The meeting was the only one in the UK and Ireland on the day so got good coverage on Racing UK TV. The weather was good considering it was January- dry and bright and not too cold for most if the afternoon. I took photographs with 24-70 and 70-200mm lenses on both sides of course at the the last hurdle and fence as well as some at the finish. I had 5 photographs published in a weekly newspaper. Photographs from the day can be viewed at gallery https://www.hmphotographs.com/p193199369

As of March 2022 I have attended and photographed 270 horse race meetings. I thought it would be interesting to document the things I do for each meeting in terms of pre-meeting, at the meeting and post meeting activities. I have attached a chart detailing these activities.

Event Activities - jpg-2023-01-10_15-36-16
 

Stephen Metcalfe (Leeds City AC) Triple Jump-3rd place 15,03m

This is the top viewed photograph on my site in 2022. The list is at: https://www.hmphotographs.com/p189364346

I took it at the GRE Games at the Antrim Forum in Northern Ireland in 1982 and shows Stephen Metcalfe jumping in the long, ship and jump comptetition.
 

Rory - IMG_1479This is the image in question. I took this on 12th July 2005.
It is of Rory McIlroy on the 18th green at Royal Portrush after he had broken the course record for the course. He shot an amazing score of 61.
He was playing in the second day of the five day North of Ireland Amateur Golf Championship. The competition is played each year in July over the Royal Portrush and Valley Courses. The first two days are stroke and the top 64 players enter a match play competition over the last three days with the final on the Friday afternoon. I have attended this competition for many years and watched Darren Clark win it as well as watching Graeme McDowell, Padriag Harrington and Paul McGinley compete when they were amateurs.  

I presented this slide set to Larne Camera Club members via Zoom on Tuesday 13th October 2020.
The title of the members talk was " The Impact on my photography of setting up a web site"
I covered my photography pre-web site from 1978 to 2005 and post-web site from 2005 to the present showing photographs that I considered had been successful in my terms and talking about the subjects and the background to taking the photographs in each case.
 

hmphotographs | 2020-10-08th-Camera Club Slide set V1
 

The photograph below is of the 2010 JNWine Champion Chase at Down Royal and shows Killyglen ridden by Paul Carberry on the left and Kauto Star ridden by Ruby Walsh in the right. Killyglen was owned by David McCammond of Killyglen and trained by Stuart Crawford at Magheramourne near Larne in County Antrim, N Ireland and finished 5th in the race. Kauto Star, winner of the race was trained by Paul Nicholls from England.

Killyglen , Jockey Paul Carberry 5th & Kauto Star , Jockey Ruby Walsh - Winner - T8E4723-e2Killyglen
Trainer - S R B Crawford
Owner - D L McCammon

Collection of Photographs of Champion Race at Down Royal referred to below: hmphotographs | 2023-01-06th-Where to Stand?

Ansel Adams states that “A good photograph is knowing where to stand” and best selling author Tom Ang states in one of his books  “The essential foundation for every image you make is your choice of viewpoint”
I agree with these statements and thought it would be interesting to attempt to relate them to my own experience.

At each event I attend the most difficult decision I make is usually where to stand. I have attended the same events on many occasions and struggle with this decision each time.

My most attended event is horse racing at Down Royal. I have attended this race track on 104 occasions ( as at November 2022) and with 7 races at each meeting photographed 728 races so I have focused on this location for the purposes of this discussion.

I will state at the outset that my objectives in taking horse racing sports photographs are to capture action pictures of horses galloping and jumping as well as interesting photographs recording the events such that parties involved with a horse will consider buying a print or jpg file and newspapers editors will consider publishing in the sports section of their newspapers.

In most races at Down Royal the horses and riders pass you two times if you stand in the correct place so you get two bites of the cherry. I usually  photograph from the same place on both circuits but I have moved from the last fence to nearer the finish for the second circuit  to be able to get to the winners closure in time. 

At Down Royal the direction of the light is not usually a problem as the horses run towards the light at the last fence and the finish. Backgrounds are a problem as there are car and bus parks near the last fence and overhead electric power lines and poles near the finish.

Each time I attend Down Royal I to and fro on where to stand for each race. A horse race is an exciting, colourful and dangerous event.

There are a number of viewpoints at Down Royal and it is tempting to try to summarise where I stood for each of the 728 races photographed. I may attempt this analysis in the future however for the purposes of this exercise I have considered one race which I have photographed 12 times. This is the Grade 1 Champion Steeplechase which is held at the two day festival of racing in early November each year.

It is a major National Hunt Race in the UK and Ireland Racing calendar and it attracts the best horses, owners and jockeys as well as the top sports photographers from across Ireland. A National Hunt race means the race includes fences. Where to Stand for Flat races poses different questions than jumps races.

I photograph a horse race at Down Royal from a number of locations  ie parade ring, leaving the parade ring, going down to the start, running on the course, jumping - usually the last fence, running up the finishing straight, crossing the finishing line, entering the winner’s enclosure and in the winners enclosure.

The photographs which cause me most indecision are:

- running up the finishing straight and
 - jumping the last fence.
 - approaching/crossing the finish line.

In each case you can stand on the horses’ left or right side as they run to the finish line.

At the last fence there is also the option of standing on a ladder which can get you above spectators and/or provide more of the horse as it jumps the fence.

I have compiled a collection of photographs from the galleries of the 12 races to demonstrate where I have stood for the various races.  I have also included photographs taken in the parade ring, leaving the parade ring, going to the start and entering the winners enclosure and in the winners enclosure. Where to stand is less of a problem for these photographs because they were mostly staged and arranged or are random shots. Problems arose though if the groups were standing with their backs to the sun and a flash unit was needed in those circumstances.

I have listed below the various races attended by year, winning horse name and in each case which side of the course I photographed the horses jumping the last fence or running up the finishing straight. I have also indicated when I used a ladder at the last fence. The ladder allows the photographer to get above spectators heads and also provides for a fuller view of the horse as it jumps the fence.

Factors that affected the decision as to which side to stand:

1 It was easier to get to the winners Enclosure from the left hand side before horses returned to the winners enclosure

2 The location of the last fence also affected whether the last fence was the chosen – the further away the last fence was from the finish line the longer it took to get to the winners enclosure.

3 The location of the last fence also affected the background – some locations on both sides had cars and buses showing

4 In the 2010 Kauto Star Race a fence past the finishing post was chosen which had the Grandstand in the background. It was not possible to get to the last fence for the final circuit so photographs were taken from the run-in near the finish.

5 The last 4 races were photographed from the left side using a ladder primarily because it was possible to get to the winners enclosure in time to photograph the winning representatives. The ladder also improved the background.

6  I have photographed this race from the left hand side of the course on 8 occasions compared to 4 on the right primarily because of the ease of getting to the winner's enclosure on time. 

7 My preference is to photograph from the right hand side of the course as the horses run to the finish as for 2015 Don Cossack and 2016 Valseur Lido. The background is better if the fence is positioned in a certain place at the final fence when the photographs were taken from a kneeling position. On the run-in to the finish it is possible to get the spectators in the photograph which adds to the atmosphere.

8 The photograph shown above of the 2010 Race showing Kauto Star jumping was taken at a fence beyond the finish on the left hand side of the course and is probably my favourite of all photographs taken of the race, mainly because it is of Kauto Star, a very famous race horse but also because the horse on the inside (Killyglen) was a locally owned and trained horse. Also I liked the fence location, the background of the grandstand and the direction of the light. I only shot from this position once because the horses only passed once and it was not possible to get to the last fence on time.

Gavin Bland (12) Borrowdale - winner in 1:43:00 - FT8E3138-3

Between 2005 and 2017 I photographed 43 Mountain Running events in Northern Ireland. There were mostly in the Mourne Mountain.

I have over 10,000 photographs in my gallery - https://www.hmphotographs.com/f691398371

Mountain Running is organised in Northern Ireland by the Northern Ireland Mountain Running Association (NIMRA) and the two Athletics Clubs most involved are based in Newcastle- Newcastle AC and Mourne Runners.

The same races are run every year which provided the opportunity to photograph the races from different locations.

Some of the races I have photographed are as follows:

- British Championships: 2017, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 2008,2007

- Lurig Mountain Race in Cushendall - 2011, 2010, 2008, 2007,2006

- Race over The Glens - 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2008, 2007

- Sevens Sevens in The Mourne Mountains - 2010, 2009, 2007

- P&O Irish Sea International Mountain Race at Knockdhu - 2006

- World Police and Fire Games including the Mountain Race in the Mourne Mountains - 

As of March 2022 I have attended 270 meetings which equates to photographing 1,754 races - a track meeting normally has 7 races and a Point to Point meeting has normally 6 races - though sometimes if there are two many entries in a race it is divided into what is called into a Division 1 and a Division 2 race. I was once at an East Antrim Hunt Point to Point Meeting at Loughanmore, near Templepatrick where 11 races were run.

I have attached a spreadsheet showing the horse racing venues I have attended.

Zen forst page v2 - 2022-05-17_20-32-21 There are many ways to configure a web site.

I set up my first sports photography web site in 2006 and have been using Zenfolio since 2010.

IN early 2010 I decided to set up Zenfolio by type of sport ie all photographs for a particular sport in a collection of galleries eg Cross Country Running, Mountina Racing, INdooor Athletice etc.

I created a gallery for each event I attended.

When you enter my site you will be presented with galleries for each sport eg Horse Racing, Golf, Mountain Running, motor Cycle Racing, Sailing, Rugby, International Cross Country, indoor Ayhletics, Hockey, General Sports and some other ad- hoc galleries.

If you select Horse Racing you will be presented with the Horse Racing tracks I have attended and within each of the tracks I have grouped the photographs by meetings in each year.

In Zenfolio photographs are uploaded into Galleries. Galleries can be combined into Groups of Galleries to many levels. Zenfolio also has a Collection facility which contains a pointer to selected photographs in their Galleries. This means that the original photograph is only stored once in the system.

In order to allow the viewer an alternative way into the galleries of photographs I have created an index by year from “2005 and earlier” up to the “current year”. Within each year I have listed each event attended with a pointer to the gallery containing the photographs of the event. 

Zenfolio also has a blog facility and I have included items which interest me mostly related to the events I have attended. 

Zenfolio gas a “Customs Page “ facility which I have used to create an index to my blog which shows a heading for the log entry and a pointer to the blog details.

Zenfolio has many different front page styles and format for displaying sites. I have selected a basic format where I have selected a number of featured galleries followed folllowed by Galleries recently posted with finally the galleries in my site.

Kauto Star , Jockey Ruby Walsh - Winner followed by Sizing Europe , Jockey A E Lynch 2nd - CU2D1114-e2

The last meeting at Down Royal Racecourse , arranged by the Down Royal Corporation of Horse Breeders was held on on Boxing Day 2018. The Corporation had run race meeting for 35 years at the course but the lease was not renewed by owner of the Course Mike Roden of Dublin based Merrion Property Group who purchased the site in 2005.

Racing has continued at the Course organised by new owners Merrion Group. 

I have taken photographs at the site since 2010 and thought it be appropriate to create some collections of photographs under different headings of photographs I have taken at the course.

The first collection shows the winners of the JNwine.com Champion Chase, a Grade 1 Steeplechase held in November each year, followed by some Ulster Derby winners, Down Royal staff, Spectators, Familiar faces, Best Dressed and members of the press.

The photographs can be viewed at: https://www.hmphotographs.com/f400896471

I submitted 6 photographs as shown at the attached link taken at the second day of the two day race meeting at Down Royal on Friday  29th and Saturday 30th October 2022 - https://www.hmphotographs.com/p453452691

This is a significant racing weekend in Irish Racing with total prize money ofer the two days of 405,500 Euro - 144,500 Euros on Friday and 261,000 Euros on Saturday. 

Pic5-HArryMarcus-"01st Frodon??and Bryony Frost ( 2 , blue, white chevron ) Trainer - P F Nicholls , Owner - P J Vogt" yal on Friday

Picture 1This rectangle represents a Golden Rectangle where the width is 16.28 units and the height is 10 units - the ratio of the width to the height equals the Golden Ratio which is 1.618
Note the vertical line in the middle of the rectangle creates a square of 10 unit sides and a vertical rectangle on the right which is 10 units high by 6.18 units wide- the ratio of the the sides is 10/6.18 = 1.618 - the Golden Ratio.

The Golden Rectangle (See pictures at:  https://www.hmphotographs.com/p113904293 }

The Golden Rectangle is a rectangle where the dimensions adhere to the Golden Ratio ie the ratio of the width and height is 1.618.

For example if the height is say 10” then the width will be 16.18” (10 times the Golden Ratio of 1.618)

Interestingly the Golden Rectangle can be split into a square with a vertical rectangle at the end (Picture 1). This vertical rectangle also has the dimensions of a Golden Rectangle which can be split into a square and rectangle at the top or bottom and again the new rectangle is a Golden Rectangle and so on. This is the basis of the Golden Spiral.

Back to the original rectangle (Picture 1 ) discussed and the square and vertical rectangle at the end. The vertical rectangle if rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise fits into the bottom left of the square (Picture 2). It will also fit the bottom right part of the square drawn for the right of the overall rectangle (Picture 3 ). This also applies to the mirror image of the original rectangle where the square is at the right side of the rectangle (Picture  4).

The end result is a Noughts and Crosses shape which is similar to the Rule of Thirds shape with the four focal points (Picture 4 ).  Note in Picture 5 the Golden Rectangle is represented in Blue and the Rule of Thirds in Green

I have seen it said that the Rule of Thirds is based on the Golden Rectangle and that the Golden Rectangle focal points are more effective from an atheistic point of view than those in the Rule of Thirds.

The other interesting feature of the Golden Rectangle is the closeness of the shape (1.618 ratio) to the 35mm wide film ratio ( 36mm by 24mm = 1.50 ratio) and the modern full frame camera sensor ( 36mm by 24mm = 1.5 ratio)

There are many architects, artists and photographers who have made use of the Golden Rectangle in their work.

Well it is fairly simple.

The number sequence is related to the area of a circle and the fact that the difference between 2 full f-stops doubles or halves the amount of light that gets through the aperature ie the area of the circle doubles or halves. 

It turns out that if you multiply the preceding number by the square root of 2 ie 1.414 (to three decimal places) you get the next number in the sequence ie 1.4 multiplied by 1.414 = 1.9796 or rounded up =2 or  2 multiplied by 1.414= 2.828.or 2.8 rounded to one decimal place.

It is also interesting that the number either side of a number is either double of half ie 2 and 4, or 16 and 8

I have written out the mathematics explaining the relationship between the numbers and where the square root of 2 comes from.

F stop mathematics 001

I liked the colours, that the spectators are out of focus which gives an impression of movement and that the rider is in reasonable focus.

This was taken with a Canon camera with no auto focus, an obviously slow shutter speed and with camera panning.

  Joe Dunlop 1987 B4-NW-3 b-edited  

CU2D1031-Edit-1

I had a rummage and identified three photographs under the title of "Snow" as shown in this gallery.

https://www.hmphotographs.com/p270587138

This was an interesting exercise and in trying to decide what photographs to include I uncovered some photographs I had forgotten about. It was educational to attempt to critique the images and explain why I had chosen them. 

I choose the 150th running of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby at the Curragh race course 20 miles or so west of Dublin in Ireland on the 27th June 2015.

The first Irish Derby was held in 1866 with a first prize of £421. The prize for the winner in 2015 was 725,000 Euros with a total prize fund of 1,25 Million Euros. 

The race was run over a distance of 1.5 miles.

The round trip for me was approximately 300 miles - I left home at !0:30 in the morning, arriving at the Curragh at 13:00 for the first race at 15:00. I arrived back home at 23:30.

I had 5 photographs published in the Belfast News Letter. 

I took 1,261 photographs over the day and published 608 on my web site:

https://www.hmphotographs.com/f483823752
 

Photographs in the Show and Tell are at: 

https://www.hmphotographs.com/p80991667
 

Winner - Jack Hobbs ridden by William Buick - Pic 1This is the winner just about to cross the finishing line. The horse is named Jack Hobbs and was ridden by William Buick, trained by John Godson and owned by Godolfin.
The race was over 1.5 miles and the winner took 2 minutes 30 seconds which is an average of 52 feet per second. My camera was capable of taking 10 frames a second so the the distance travelled between frames was about 5 feet. It was probably greater than 5 feet as the horse would have been travelling fastest at the finish. This distance was important to me as I was trying to get the horse placed in front of the hoarding to show the race details to give the photograph context.
The photograph was taken with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 Zoom lens with camera settings of f3.2, shutter speed of 1/1000 and ISO 400. The time was 18:30 in the evening and the light was good.
Where to stand was limited, accreditied photographs could stand where I took this photograph or on the other side of the track. The other side would have allowed me to capture a photograph of the horse crossing the finishing line with the crowd in the background but no hoardings. After much thought I decided the stand with the hoarding in the background though on reflection I think I would have got a more dramatic photograph on the other side with the crowd included but would not have got the context of the race.

2nd MARC SCOTT ( 6 ) 01:00:39AA1V2190.jpg

My camera Club held a "Show and Tell" Zoom evening where members presented photographs taken during COVID.

I presented 9 photographs taken at various events.

https://www.hmphotographs.com/p1027101417

These included photographs taken at Downpatrick and Down Royal race courses, Point to Point racing at Portrush and Kirkistown and runners including Mo Farah running in the Antrim Coast Road Marathon in September 2020.

In my preparation for the talk I mind mapped a number of possible topics and came up with a list of 10.

I documented these and eventually chose number 6.

I developed this topic into a presentation and delivered it in October 2020.

My presentation slides can be viewed here: 

https://www.hmphotographs.com/blog/2021/1/impact-of-my-website

The exercise of thinking about the possible topics and the creation of the eventual presentation I found to be challenging and interesting as it forced me to think about what my ambitions and goals were in the early days, what I had accomplished and what the current state on my interests were in the Digital age.

Consequently I have decided to publish the document I produced as it is the nearest I have come to producing a photography CV and also it may assist others if they are faced with the request to talk about their photography.

The document I produced can be seen here: 

https://www.hmphotographs.com/possible-topics

• Northern Ireland Daily Newspapers - 10 photographs 
• Northern Ireland Weekly Publication - 84 photographs 
• Local newspapers - 62 photographs 

My web site provides a blog facility and I have used it occasionally over the past eleven years. I have written 51 blogs posts and posted them to my site over this period - an average of 5 posts a year. 

I have paid scant attention to visitor numbers for these blog posts, concentrating on regularly tracking visitor views of my photographs.

However, I noticed recently that a few posts were attracting visitors and decided to investigate further.

To my surprise I have had 33,191 visitors to my 51 blog posts as at 2^nd July 2021 - a visitor to number of posts ratio of 650:1.

On the other hand the ratio of visitor views to number of photographs on my site is 46,848 to 101,297 ie 0.46:1

So the ratio is 1413:1 ( 650/0.46) in favour of visitors of blog posts to photographs - a surprising result  if the software has accurately captured the views in each case.

I thought a picture was worth a thousand words, obviously not in my case. I have to admit surprise and a slight disappointed that the photographs rated so poorly compared to the blog posts.

The five top rated blog posts are:

1. Mark Shearman – Athletics Weekly Photographer
2. Index to events attended so far this year (as at Sept 2014)
3. 20,000 visitors on Zenfolio
4. Famous photograph of Tony Duffy
5. Race over the Glens on 2/1/12

The top 9 posts attracted in excess of 1,000 visitor views each.

On my blog I write about events I have attended, significant statistics, references to sports photographers that I admire etc.

See the Blog Index at: https://www.hmphotographs.com/blog-index

These photographs cover many sporting events including:

• Steve Ovett winning the Belfast International Cross Country at Mallusk in 1978
• Gregg Hannon winning the first Belfast Marathon in 1982
• Joey Dunlop riding in the North West 200 at Portrush in the 1970s
• Rory McIlroy breaking the Royal Portrush course record in 2005
• Kenesisa  Belele winning the World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh in 2008
• James McIlroy (Olympic Athlete) winning the Irish Indoors 800m Championship in 2010
• Irish Open Golf at Killarney in 2010
• Kauto Star winning the JNwine Champions Steeplechase at Down Royal in 2010
• Horse Racing at Ascot in 2012
• Giro Cycling Race in Northern Ireland in 2014
• World Fire and Police Games in Northern Ireland in 2013
• British Fell Running Championship Races in the Mourne Mountains – 8 years from 2007
• 150th Irish Derby at the Curragh in Ireland in 2015
• Horse Racing at Royal Windsor in 2015
• British Amateur Men’s Golf Championship at Royal Portrush
• British Amateur Ladies Golf Championship at Royal County Down Golf Club in 2006
• Tiger Woods at the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush
• Mo Farah running in the Antrim Coast Half Marathon in 2020

04th Drummullagh Rocky and E Walsh5 ( 9 , royal blue, orange chevron ) Trainer - S McParlan , Owner - Martin WardAA1V6749-Edit.jpg

01st Dixie Flyer and Mr B G Crawford ( 11 , green, red braces ) Trainer - S R B Crawford , Owner - Martin BakerAA1V6384-2.jpg

The last event I attended in 2020 was at Down Royal on 17th December 2020. The meeting was held under strict Covid-19 conditions whereby no spectators were allowed to attend. It was held before Christmas on the 17th rather the usual date of Boxing Day to accommodate live TV viewing.

The picture shown is of Ben Crawford riding Dixie Flyer trained by his brother Stuart at Magheramourne near Larne winning the Bumper Race - the final flat race of the meeting

IMG_0029-e2a (1)

I gave a Zoom talk to a few members of my local camera club on Thursday 26th November 2020.
The topic was on local sporting events I have attended that did not require accreditation. I showed some photographs from these events in order to demonstrate the variety of shots that could be captured in an attempt to encourage those members who were interested in trying sports photography.
I am the only member who regularly photographs sport.
As is obvious from the photographs shown, sports photography does not just include action but also presents opportunities to try: landscape, portraiture and street photography.
I covered 7 sports: rugby, cycling, cross country running, mountain running, road running, sailing and horses.
I presented from my iPad using an app provided by my web site provider Zenfolio which enabled me to download a collection of photographs from my website to my iPad.
I used mindmap software Simplemind to create the text slides saving them to jpgs.
For those interested here is a pointer to the slide presentation:

https://www.hmphotographs.com/p665421097

Kirkistown is flat and open , it is beside the car race track, so it was extremely windy and cold but was dry and sunny to start with but as the afternoon wore on it darkened and rain threatened.. The ground was firm and dry so no cars or lorries had to be towed out by tractor as has been the case at recent meetings at thus location.

There was a good turn out of horses but a smaller crowd than normal for this event. The was schooling after the racing with many horses taking part.

The rain came as I was driving  out of Belfast and got heavier as I approached home. I was happy to het home dry with my change of clothing still in my bag.

I took 758 photographs and  239 keepers posted on my website.

My camera setting at the beginning were ISO 160, f2.8 and 1/2000th second and at the finish were ISO 800, f3.2 and shutter speed 1/1600th second.

It was dry day, dull and cold with a medium breeze and there was a good turnout. It was my first proper photographic outing since I was at Maralin in May 2019 because of a hip problem and subsequent operation in September but after a cautious start for the first three races I was able to move around almost normally for the last three - getting to the last fence and also the parade ring for the presentations.

I was pleased with my progress. 

See photographs at: https://www.hmphotographs.com/p979756747

AA1V7637"01st THE GREAT WHITE and J C Gainford ( 21 , PINK & YELLOW CHECK; pink sleeves; yellow cap ) Trainer: Warren Ewing,, Owner : Warren Ewing"

I attended 12 events in 2019 as follows: 10 Horses Racing and Point to Points and 2 Golf events.

I had 91 photographs published in various newspaper -  local, 2 national and 1 international.

The Horse events were: 

• 2 Down Royal
• 2 Downpatrick
• 1 Armagh P2P
• 2 Kirkistown P2P
• 1 Maralin P2P
• 2 Tyrella P2P

The two golf events were at the British Open Golf Championship at Royal Portrush in July.

The number of visitors to my site for the year was 1955 and site page views were  28,585.

The visitors came from 71 countries.

My year was restricted because of a hip problem - see separate post .

This was a shorter than normal list as I had been persevering with a hip problem for some time which was slowly reducing my mobility to the point were I was unable to attend events from April.

I managed to attend the Open Golf Championship in July with the aid of a crutch and got some images but was unable to move around the course to any degree so photographs were taken from limited viewpoints. I was unable to get to the new holes or any of the holes near the sea which was where the scenic images were.

I had a full hip replacement operation in September 2019 and hope to be back to full fitness for the 2020 season.  

Zenfolio records all access requests related to your account, and makes this statistical information available to you in real time for each photograph, gallery, group, and account overall.

A gallery is counted to have a visitor if at least one full size photo from it is viewed (viewing of thumbnails does not count). It's important to realise if the same visitor looks at another photo in the same gallery, only the photo counter will be incremented but not the gallery counter.

A photographer's "visitors" are a sum of all unique visitors to his or her photographs. The number of unique visitors determines your popularity, as well as the popularity of any gallery or photograph.

I joined Zenfolio in February 2010 after using a number of other website providers.

I first began posting photographs to the web in 2006 and used a provider called Beanpix which met most of my needs but it went out of business. I then joined Fotopic which also met my requirements but again it went out of business. Whilst using these two services I used Clikpic which I liked but I needed a facility which allowed me to load 1000s of photographs which Clikpic did not provide for.

A year before Fotopic went out of business I began to use Zenfolio as I could see the writing on the wall for Fotopic - slow response to problems. unexpected downtime, delays in producing prints, until eventually it just went off the air.

I try to annotate all my photographs and all my time spent uploading and annotating photographs  - hundreds of hours - on Beanpix and Fotopic was lost- a very annoying experience.

Rory birdied this hole to score 61 to break the record for the course. He shot 33 on the front nine and 28 on the back nine and had 26 putts.

The course layout was changed for the 2019 Open - 2 new holes were added with the old 17th and 18th being replaced - so a new record exists for the new course layout. Rory's record will therefore never be beaten.

Rory McIlroy leaves the green after beating the course record at Royal Portrush during the qualifying round of the 2005 North of Ireland Amateur Championship - IMG_1478-e3Sixteen year old Rory McIlroy on the 18th green at Royal Portrush during the qualifying round of the 2005 North of Ireland Amateur Open Championship after breaking the course record with a round of 61. McIlroy scored 33 out and 28 back and had 26 putts.

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry3508YPyew
 

The start - IMG_0004 (2)-e2Steve Ovett (16) eventual winner in 24.08.
Left of picture - Nat Muir (22?) ??

Picture by Norman Potter of Roger Bannister breaking 4 minutes for the mile on 5th May 1954.

http://neilleifer.com/portfolio/secretariat-at-kentucky-derby/

Photographs of the Senior Men's and Womens Races at:  http://www.hmphotographs.com/f75810648

I attended the second running of this race in 1978 at Mallusk Playing Fields near Belfast. Steve Ovett won the race on that occassion

Photographs of the race at: http://www.hmphotographs.com/p557284311

http://neilleifer.com/portfolio/overhead-shot-of-the-1965-kentucky-derby/

McCabe, of the Observer and at that time double winner of Sports Photographer of the Year explains how he worked at events too far away from London for a messenger service. The article took as an example photographing the Grand National where:

"One photographer will cover the first and last fences, while the other will attend to Beechers. McCabe shoots normally, quickly develops the films , in the already erected and prepared tent, knocks off a couple of !0 by 8 inch prints and puts then on a "wire" machine which feeds them to the newspaper HQ in London".

Changed times.

For exmples of McCabe's sports photographs, see -  http://www.eamonnmccabe.co.uk/gallery/sport/view/

• 2 Point to Point at Loughbrickland and Broughshane and
• 4 track at Punchestown twice, Downpatrick and Down Royal.

I have got a bit behind in processing photographs and my processes are being severely tested.

In some instances, as I write, I have only updated winners.

I will catch up eventually.

Very interesting to anyone involved in sports photography.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2015/12/19/olympics/shearman-details-life-behind-sporting-lens/#.VqDyNlLz7VI

See some Marks images at:  http://www.athleticsimages.com/

and  http://www.britishathletics.org.uk/e-inspire/gallery/

I am very satisfied with Zenfolio functionality and support having been a bit disgruntled a number of months ago when the User Interface was changed. In fact I enrolled for a trial version of Smugmug at the time and used it in the background for a time. It had good functionality and better statistics than Zenfolio but in the end I decided to stay with Zenfolio as I found Zenfolio easier to use (I suppose this is obvious as I have been a user of Zenfolio since 2010 and is a bit unfair on Smugmug), have got used to the new User Interface and although I rarely have to make support calls to Zenfolio but when I do support is second to none. Another major reason is that I did not want to have to transfer all my photographs to another provider.

Here is a link to my post of a year ago when I described my history of using photo sites.

http://www.zenfolio.com/hmphotographs/e/pages/blog.aspx#229101590

1st No 4 Peace Mission (IRE) (1) - Jockey: G F Carroll - Trainer: T Mullins - Colours: orange, brown sashFT8E7806.JPG The photograph was shot on a 24-70 mm zoom lens at 30mm with shutter speed 1/1600th second , aperture setting of f3.2 and ISO 100. It is shown straight from the camera with some cropping only.

http://www.hmphotographs.com/p768706793

The winner is a photograph taken of Christine McMahon of Ballymena & Antrim AC running at the Indoor Athletics Championships in February 2011 in the Odyssey in Belfast.

Christine achieved notoriety during the European Athletics Championships in August 2014 when she ran in a heat of the 400 metres hurdles and had to avoid a falling athlete at the final hurdle.

Christine McMahon (165) Ballymena & Antrim AC - Women's 400m Heats - CU2D3304-e

Christine McMahon

http://www.hmphotographs.com/2014---15th-jan-2015

• 26 Horse Racing and Point to Point Meetings
• 5 Giro Events
• 2 Cross Country Running
• 2 Mountain Running
• 2 Golf Events
• 1 Athletics
• 1 Cycling Event
• 1 Sheepdog Trials even
• 1 Horse/Foal Event

Of the 25 Horse Racing and Point to Point Meetings

• 8 were at Down Royal
• 6 at Downpatrick
• 1 at Laytown
• 1 Leopardstown (Champions Day)
• 2 at Loughanmore Point to Point
• 2 Loughbrickland P2P
• 1 at Largy P2P
• 1 at Necarne P2P
• 1 at Toomebridge P2P
• 2 at Tyrella P2P

Site viewing figures for the year were as follows:

5759 visits

4450 unique visits

48,532 page views

Visitors from 76 countries

My top viewed photograph for the year was a photograph taken of Christine McMahon taken at the Irish Indoors Athletics Chanpionships which was viewed during the European Athletics Championships - see separate blog entry

2015 started wet and windy at Glenariff Glen near Waterfoot on the Antrim Cost Road for the Ballymena Runners organised Race Over the Glens.

This is a popular race over 5.5 miles and this year the race started in the top car park and progressed out towards the exit of the park for a few hundred yards and then up to the upper sections of the glen to the swirls of a lone piper down to the Larragh Lodge end of the Glen and back up to the upper section to finish alongside the entrance road in the corner of the lower car park.

Over 400 runners, which is a record, finished the event which was won again by Ballymena and Antrim runner Jarlath Falls for the ninth time. 1 Jarlaith Falls (386 ) Ballymena Antrim AC 00:36:40AA1V8126.JPG

FT8E4723-e2-arKauto Star amd Ruby Walsh at Down Royal in Northern Ireland

Kauto Star and Ruby Walsh at Down Royal in Northern Ireland

Just noticed that I have 50,000 photographs on my site.

Christine McMahon (165) Ballymena & Antrim AC - Women's 400m Heats - CU2D3304-e

Billy McKay - 2-IMG_0012-e3a4j-Edit-2Billy McKay - 7th from left ( green vest, black shorts)

I was going through some of my pre-2010 Fell Running photographs to prepare to load them to my site (I had them on my fotopic site but it was shut down in 2010) and came across photographs I took at a Fell Race held at Knockdhu near Ballygally in 1991 - 23 years ago.

I recognize a few of the runners , Billy McKay, Denis Rankin RIP, Jim Patterson and Bill Magee.

I would be grateful for any other names -  if you send them to me via the comments facility I will update the photographs.

Billy McKay is 7th from left ( green vest, black shorts). Denis Rankin RIP, Jim Patterson, Peter Howie and Bill Magee are in this photograph but can be seen more clearly in another photograph.

http://www.hmphotographs.com/2014--18th-sept--

Below is a photograph taken at the most recent event on 13th September at Leopardstown on Day 1 of Irish Champions Weekend showing the finish of the featured race between Australia (right of picture -  purple, white seams) ) ridden by Joseph O'Brien and The Grey Gatsby (2nd form right -  light green and dark green diamonds) ridden by Ryan Moore.

01 The Grey Gatsby and R L Moore - - 01st (7 ,light green and dark green diamonds ) Trainer - K A Ryan 02 Australia and J P O'Brien - - 02nd (5 ,purple, white seams, purple cap ) Trainer - A P O'BrieCU2D9250.jpg

01 The Grey Gatsby and R L Moore - - 01st (7 ,light green and dark green diamonds ) Trainer - K A Ryan  02 Australia and J P O'Brien - - 02nd (5 ,purple, white seams, purple cap ) Trainer - A P O'BrieCU2D9250.jpg

I am interested in Sports Photography and Chris Smith has been a "hero" of mine. -  see earlier post.

There is a photograph in the book taken at Laytown Races in 1977 and accompanied by words from Brough Scott, titled Winners' Exposure. 

I was at Laytown last week and have just looked up Chris' photograph and Brough's report - they are masters of their trade.

If you are interested in Sports Photography this book is a "must" if you can get it.

Zenfolio records all access requests related to your account, and makes this statistical information available to you in real time for each photograph, gallery, group, and account overall.

A gallery is counted to have a visitor if at least one full size photo from it is viewed (viewing of thumbnails does not count). It's important to realize if the same visitor looks at another photo in the same gallery, only the photo counter will be incremented but not the gallery counter.

A photographer's "visitors" are a sum of all unique visitors to his or her photographs. The number of unique visitors determines your popularity, as well as the popularity of any gallery or photograph.

I joined Zenfolio in February 2010 after using a number of other website providers.

I first began posting photographs to the web in 2006 and used a provider called Beanpix which met most of my needs but it went out of business. I then joined Fotopic which also met my requirements but again it went out of business. Whilst using these two services I used Clikpic which I liked but I needed a facility which allowed me to load 1000s of photographs which Clikpic did not provide for.

A year before Fotopic went out of business I began to use Zenfolio as I could see the writing on the wall for Fotopic - slow response to problems. unexpected downtime, delays in producing prints, until eventually it just went off the air.

I try to annotate all my photographs and all my time spent uploading and annotating photographs  - hundreds of hours - on Beanpix and Fotopic was lost- a very annoying experience.

Since joining Zenfolio over four years ago I have been extremely satisfied with the excellent service provided. System response time is good, there has been no down time other than planned maintenance which is well advertised and notified to clients if they attempt to log on, there has been a regular flow of functionality enhancements to the system, the cost is reasonably priced and support to queries and questions is first class - within hours of posting a call.

I currently have almost 48,000 photographs uploaded to Zenfolio.

My site URL is - http://www.hmphotographs.com/

Back Row - Miss K O'Farrell , Ms M Carberry , Miss G Ryan , Miss N Fahey Front row - Ms K Walsh, Miss R Blackmore & Ms L O'NeillFT8E0137-Edit.jpg

Lady jockeys before The Racing Post Ladies Flat Race at Downpatrick.

Back Row - Miss K O'Farrell , Ms M Carberry , Miss G Ryan , Miss N Fahey  Front row - Ms K Walsh, Miss R Blackmore &  Ms L O'Neill

FT8E0137-Edit.jpg

First on the list is Robbie Bryson who is  probably the most famous of Irish Mountain Runners.    Robbie now in his fifties still holds the record to the summit of Snowdon from way back in 1985 - an amazing 39 minutes and 47 seconds.

http://www.hmphotographs.com/?q=robbie%20bryson

Robbie Bryson - Fire and Rescue Service - winner in 1:13:41 - FT8E8988-9 The photographs show Robbie descending from the summit of Slieve Donnard during the WPFG in 2013.

http://youtu.be/ZHrtmPAONbc

They had approx 50 photographers, and 20 support staff

They had 10 photographers and 6 editors at the 100 metres and circulated pictures to clients 3 minutes after race started.

http://youtu.be/RqGsbcTJZMM

• 25 Horse Racing and Point to Point Meetings
• 3 Cross Country Running
• 3 Mountain Running
• 1 Athletics
• I Open Sea Swimming
• 1 World Police and Fire Games ( Press Conference)
• 1 World Police and Fire Games Opening Ceremony

Of the 25 Horse Racing and Point to Point Meetings

• 10 were at Down Royal
• 6 at Downpatrick
• 1 at Laytown
• 1 at Maralin P2p
• 2 at Loughanmore Point to Point
• 1 at Limavady P2P
• 1 at Necarne P2P
• 1 at Taylorstown P2P
• 1 at Toomebridge P2P
• 1 at Tyrella P2P

Site viewing figures for the year were as follows:

6821 visits

5840 unique visits

67,755 page views

Visitors from 69 countries

My top viewed photograph for the year was a photograph taken in March at the UK Mountain Running Championships in the Mourne Mountains of Gavin Bland the eventual winner of the race descending towards Ben Crom Dam  with the snow capped Mournes in the background. See separate blog entry for details of this photograph  -

http://www.hmphotographs.com/blog/2014/1/to-viewed-photographs-in-2013

2014 started wet and windy at Glenariff for the Ballymena Runners organised Race Over the Glens. This is a popular race over 5.5 miles and this year the race started at the Visitors Centre and progressed to the lower car park , half way along the entrance road towards the entrance of the park , up to the upper slopes and then down to the bottom of the glen and back to the lower car park by the return route.

As I was trying to find a posotion to photograph the race the runners passed me on the outward leg and I witnessed the dangers of this type of running as one of the leaders had retired from the race with a serious gash to his knee with blood running down his leg. He was attended to by first aiders who were following the runners but I am sure the wound required further attention possiblilty at casualty after the race.

The race was won by Jarlath Falls of Ballymena Runners for an amazing 8th time I think. I have shown a photograph of Jarlath when he was well clear of the field as he was about to start the descent to the finish.

Conditions were horrendous for the race - wind and rain, yet 331 runners finished the race incluging about 80 plus ladies.

Two "aged over 75 category " runners completed the race - Ken Hawtin of North Down AC in 306th place in 1:11:49 and Michael Spotswood in 325th place in a time of 1:24:26. Well done to these two gentlemen, I imagine they are both well in excess of 75 years which makes their achievement so impressive.

I should also like to mention Bridgid Quinn of Ballymena Runners AC who ran in the "over 65 age category" and finished the race in 232nd position in just over 60 minutes in 1:02:21 (Brigid finishing posiiton is listed two thirds down page 5 and the results finish two thirds down page 7  - very impressive running! 01 221 Jarlaith Falls MO Ballymena & Antrim AC 00:38:44 - CU2D0262-7 )

http://www.hmphotographs.com/p685233917

The winner is a photograph taken of Gavin Bland descending to Ben Crom dam in the Mourne Mountains in the British Mountain Running Championships. It was taken in mid-March when there was snow in the Mournes. In fact the course had to be altered for the race as parts of the original course were dangerous. Gavin won the race.

Photographs of Gavin dominate the top 20 with some from Ladies Day at Down Royal.

I watched Gavin descend this slope in awe as he skipped at speed from one foot-hold to another like a butterfly flitting between flowers in a garden. Watching a top mountain runner descend a mountain is something that you really have to see to appreciate the skill, dexterity, fitness, balance and nerve required. One mistake and he would have been sprawling amongst large rocks with serious consequences.  He was amazing to watch, as foot-holds were difficult to find even when trying to walk down as I recall the difficulty I had getting down to the dam after the race.

I believe this photograph is a worthy winner - I could have lightened it a bit but I wanted to try and capture the day - it was dark and misty in the Mournes -  the mist was just above me when I took this photograph. I like the action in the photograph and I was trying to show the speed and balance on display by a top mountain/fell runner.

Comments welcomed.

Gavin Bland (12) Borrowdale - winner in 1:43:00 - FT8E3138-3

I had just arrived at Royal Portrush and positioned myself at the 18th green as Rory approached the green.

He sank his put, broke the course record and was on his way to shake hands with his partner. I did not realise at the time that he had such a low score and that he had broken the course record as I took this photograph.

Rory McIlroy beats the record at Royal Portrush during the 2005 North of Ireland amateur Championship at Royal Portrush - IMG_1479-e3Sixteen year old Rory McIlroy on the 18th green at Royal Portrush during the qualifying round of the 2005 North of Ireland Amateur Open Championship after breaking the course record with a round of 61. McIlroy scored 33 out and 28 back and had 26 putts.

http://www.eamonnmccabe.co.uk/gallery/sport/view/1.php

Look at Borg's eyes

Photograph by Tony Duffy of Bob Beamon setting the world record at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico in the long jump.

https://www.worldathletics.org/news/series/tony-duffy-bob-beamons-world-record-photo
 

I attended the GRE Games At Antrim Forum in the 1981 and Tony Duffy was there - his pictures were publlshed in Athletics Weekly, I still have a copy. I took a photograph of Tony in action:

Athletics- Tony Duffy -2-clikpic

http://www.camerawize.com/chris-smiths-olympic-memories/

CU2D5552-e2

I found this - coverage of the full race:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWqwi6FcyH8

http://www.hmphotographs.com/p32134262

The Ballymena Runners mascot ran this race suitably attired in club colours.

http://www.hmphotographs.com/p32134262/h309e6ec7#h309e6ec7

Men's Race -         http://www.hmphotographs.com/p579765394

Women's Race -   http://www.hmphotographs.com/p1018879086