Not Unwieldy

I happened to be in the vicinity of a Youth Ultimate Summer Camp so I stopped by to take photos. Of course it was high noon and thus the lighting (direct overhead unforgiving sun; this was San Mateo, not San Francisco, after all) was at its worst. The kids were sent out to chase down curving hucks (long throws) and unfortunately, the curve of the throw was so that the kid faced away from the sun to catch the disc. As a result I have all these dark figures catching frisbees.

Anyways, I stood around in the middle of two side-by-side hucking drills. The great thing about knowing the sport so well is that I know pretty much as soon as the disc is thrown from any distance by any player in any weather, whether the disc is going to come within a 3 ft circumference catching/clobbering distance of me. Thus I could stand very close to the action and not worry about getting my lens smashed. I don't think non-ultimate players realize the accuracy to which discs can be thrown, and that where they land is very predictable (well, "reading" a disc is a learned skill). I remember tossing a disc once with a friend when a woman sitting under a nearby tree told us to move away so that she wouldn't be hit. I was quite insulted, as our throwing was very accurate and the disc wouldn't land anywhere near her. However, I suppose to a non-ultimate player, frisbees are unwieldy and unpredictable, and her bad disc reading meant that every throw threatened her picnic space. The point is, knowing a sport inside out really helps photographing a sport. And in the shutter timing too. And in knowing what's important to document and what's not.

These kids were really good already. Age 8-14 maybe? And playing better than a lot of grown-ups I see in SF leagues. At this rate, they'll easily be college champs.