I managed to get a copy of this book recently.

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.

The Twenty Thousandth (20,000) visitor accessed my site this morning - Wednesday 10th September 2014. This has been a major goal.

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

I have included a new item on the Featured Individuals Tab which appears at the top of my home page of Mountain Runners.

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.

How Sport Illustrated photographers shoot football

http://youtu.be/ZHrtmPAONbc

Interesting video of Reuters coverage of the Olympics.

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

I attended 35 events in 2013 as follows:

• 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

First of all, I would like to wish all my viewers a Happy New Year.

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 )

I have analysed viewing statistics for 2013 for my site using Google Analytics and grouped the winners into a collection.

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

This photograph has been included in a recent new book on Rory McIlroy called Rory's Club  - see page 38 of the book.

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.

The start - IMG_0004 (2)-e2 Top viewed photograph in 2013:

Eamonn McCabe was another sports photographer I used to follow:

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