The Art of Chris Froelich

USA Pro Cycling XC Mountain Bike Championship, Missoula MT On July 23, 2011 Missoula hosted is first ever US Professional XC mountain bike championship at Marshall Mountain.  The course was grueling, but the day was perfect. I had to work until 5:30 and the race started at 6:00 so I was a little late in getting the the race and had to "run" up the mountain to get to a good location. After my heart exploded and my lungs popped like a walleye's that's been brought up from the deep too fast, the oxygen delivery to my brain suffered the equivalent of a mild stroke. I just set the ol' Rebel to auto, and jockeyed spots that gave me good comps.  The race leaders. It was close through the first 4 laps. They are coming up about a 5-10% grade here and going faster than I can go on flat ground. I don't normally take pictures of moving people or things but this was an opportunity to get really close to world class athletes. Winner and Local favorite Sam Schulz.

Ruby Beach part 2 Here are some more pictures of Ruby Beach, WA.  As per request, I put shooting information in the caption of the photos and how they were processed. These were from the second night I was at this beach and I had a pretty good idea of the picture I wanted to make, but didn't know if I knew how to pull it off technically. I was pretty happy with what I got, it looks just like I wanted it to within the limitations of my equipment, with the most notable limitation being my ultra-wide lens doesn't seem to be tack sharp - ever. It is an off brand, but I expected it to be better at its reported sweetspot. Maybe I have a bad copy. I should send it in and have it looked at. Ruby Beach Sunset - Canon Rebel T1. Tamron 10-24mm lens.  17mm  f/11 2.5 second exposure. Circular polarizer. 2 stop hard grad filter. Raw conversion with IPhoto and cropped to 8x10 ratio. This picture rocks for me for a number of reasons. First - its cool. Second - it is what I tried to do.