First event of the New Year was the Antrim International Cross Country.

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

Brilliant shot of the 1965 Kentucky Derby by Neil Leifer

http://neilleifer.com/portfolio/overhead-shot-of-the-1965-kentucky-derby/ - no longer accessible

The picture is included in this group below on Neil's website.

https://neilleifer.com/collections/horse-racing
 

I came across the August 1980 edition of "Camera" magazine and a feature on three sports photographs of the time, namely Eamonn McCabe, Leo Mason and Don Morley.

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/

Just realised I have been to 6 events in the last 2 weeks

• 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.

I came across this piece on Mark Shearman the Athletics Weekly photographer.

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/

My site has, as I write,  63,778 photographs loaded which have been viewed by 25,380 visitors. I reached 25,000 visitors on 12 September 2015.

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

As a sports photographer you need to be where the actions is taking place and you cannot wait as a landscape photographer can for the light to appear. At Down Royal on Friday evening last the action and the light came together in combination as shown in the photograph below.

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.

I have analysed viewing statistics for 2014 for my site using Google Analytics and grouped the winners into a collection.

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

I attended 41 events in 2014 - select this URL to view the lists of event I photographed.

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

I attended 41 events in 2014 as follows:

• 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

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

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.

This is the top viewed photograph on my site so far this year - between 1/1/14 and 30/9/14. Christine came to prominence during the European Athletics Championships.

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