A question I’m asked often while shooting the Iditarod is, “how many photos do you take?” During this year’s race, and really any recent year, I shoot A LOT of photos. But it’s not how many I shoot that matters, it’s really how many photos do I keep. That’s the bigger question! Of any one subject I shoot more than one image. How many photos I shoot depends on what the subject is. The goal for me for any one subject is:
A; Get the “decisive” moment of the subject. The peak expression.
B: Make a “sharp, in focus” photo.
C: Make a properly exposed image.
In order to get all three of the above I shoot various amounts of photos depending on many various factors. I shoot 3-4 of a subject that is not moving and is fairly simple. Of a running dog team or some medium action I’ll shoot 5 frames-per-second and shoot 5-15 shots. Of some fast-action, like a dog jumping at the start line, I’ll shoot 14 frames-per-second and wind up with 15 or 20 frames.
So, all told I imagine I shoot nearly 10,000 frames on the Iditarod. And I’ll end up keeping and captioning a somewhere around 2,000 of those.
Here are three of my favorites from this year:
Shot with a Canon 1DX Mark II and a Canon 70-200mm f 2.8 lens at 100mm f2.8 1/2000th second ISO 1250
Shot with a Canon 1DX Mark II and a Canon 70-200mm f 2.8 lens at 100mm f3.5 1/2000th second ISO 1000
Shot with a Canon 1DX Mark II and a Canon 16-35mm f 2.8 lens at 26mm f3.5 20 seconds ISO 100
