The Mascoma River Slalom Kayak Race, the oldest continuously run event of its kind in the nation, was held Saturday April 22 at its traditional location near the Packard Covered Bridge. This is a great event that I have photographed many times. It also served as the topic for a magazine article I wrote and photographed and several blogs on other web sites.
I love photographing the event with a slooooow shutter speed to capture the motion and excitement of the event. Stopping the action cold at 1/1000 sec just doesn’t work for me. All of the photos here were taken between 1/10 and 1/50 second, with the majority at 1/20 second or slower.
There was an upstream gate set up in a very difficult spot near shore. Quite a few missed this gate and several dumped when trying to make the sharp turn. Here is a nice save via an Eskimo roll.
Here is an interesting lay down move.
And here is a time that resulted in a swimmer.
I give a lot of credit and admiration to all the folks who braved the cold, raging river. They all deserve a medal.
If you want to see photos from a few of the past events that I photographed, please click the links below.