Photography, since its inception, has offered visual insight into things not normally seen with the unaided eye.  Thus, high-speed exposures have shown that galloping horses actually have all four hooves in the air (a matter in great dispute until Muybridge photographed them) and that snow flakes have unique and beautiful crystals.  In context of ski racing the camera allows insight into what actually happened in the milliseconds of a single turn, showing, for example, that a stubbie slalom pole deflects - collapses, actually - when the racer's shin hits it and that both skis of some racers - in analogy to Muybridge's horses - are sometimes fully off the snow momentarily (setting aside considerations whether a coach might have thoughts about whether that is really the fastest way to make a slalom run). The on-hill observer, whose mind may be overloaded by the visual and auditory stimulus of watching a racer thread through a course, possibly in adverse surface and weather conditions, can rarely see these details.

But the photographer sitting at the computer display processing the day's catch can, and sometimes these details are the most intriguing part of watching the racers' a few frames at a time.

For me, one of the most intriguing images is a racer's face in close-up.  One interest in shooting race images is to take, in essence, action "portraits." Even though Richard Avedon might not have considered these true portraits, to me they are potentially more revealing than a studio session with modulated and controlled lighting, because they reflect real people striving to do something challenging, to whatever standard they have set for themselves, in a real arena. 

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The photos used in most of the blog posts are available through my ski race galleries.  Just email me, tell me the date of the blog post, the name of the racer, and which photo (first, second, etc.) in the post is of interest.