Ski Racing Group»2021-22 Ski Season Group»Alyeska Cup Group

This group contains the galleries for the races I photographed in this series. For various reasons, I did not photograph every run in every race.

The time commitment to photograph every racer, every run is excessive and is not sustainable for me (and wouldn't be for anyone else). Covering every run on each race day and then editing and uploading images translates to about 10-12 hours of work for each day of racing and the rewards for me are not sufficient to continue that effort. The rewards to me are seeing and photographing great racing and great effort (not always the same thing), being able to contribute to the ski club through publicity and sales, maybe entertaining racers who can see their images, and providing publicity to the racers in a non-school sport.

But three factors have now diminished those rewards. Limitations in the space available in the Anchorage Daily News have decreased publicity opportunities, both for the racers and for the photos that accompany stories and results. Plus, Beth Bragg retired. Second, although some people express appreciation for the photos, it is hard to measure the actual benefit to racers or viewership by anyone on the galleries. Almost no one leaves a comment.I encourage free viewership, of course, but the actual sales are very limited, which also limits the value of my contributions to the club.

Finally, the club has informed me it will not submit stories and results for this series (and implicitly for future series this year) to the ADN. That reduces the chances the ADN will run any race photos. I get pleasure, of course, out of seeing my photos published, but I also get pleasure out of seeing the racers and the sport get recognition among the broad readership of the ADN.

The ADN audience contains many readers who will never see the club's social media, who don't normally care about skiing or ski racing, who have never heard of the ski club, and who will probably never see a non-Olympic ski race live or broadcast.

The club is justified in being disappointed at the frequency the ADN publishes stories and photos of racing here. But that disappointment shouldn't justify failing to attempt to get something published, sometimes.

So, making efforts to shoot races and meet deadlines for submissions that are unlikely to be published since they won't be supported with stories or results is unrewarding for me.

One of the frustrations for me arises out of the fact that for many years I was the contact with both local papers for race stories and results, long before I moved into race photography. And the club has tried hard in past years to publicize the races. Morgan Haymans and Kendra Sticka in recent years did great work, at great effort, in submitting stories and results. And the club started the year attempting to continue their success. But now it has changed course.

This change is very disappointing, and what it potentially means is that some racers' achievements won't receive the broader recognition they deserve. And it also diminishes the chances of recognition for any racers whose local race careers are likely to end soon.

As a result of all this, I will be taking, processing, and uploading many fewer frames during races. And except maybe for one run on any given race day, I will not try to photograph every racer in every race. "Every racer, every run" certainly makes sure everyone is in every gallery multiple times, but no-one seems to find that important, and it prevents me from experimenting with high-risk, high-reward photos in which maybe only one of ten is publishable, but which will at least encourage me to attempt to achieve the highest quality photographic results sometimes.