Competitive Edge

"I like to be up and at it really early, but on that morning there was dense fog instead of golden light. A few hours later it was still foggy, but I thought that might be really cool, let me make some pictures. At about ten o'clock the fog started to lift enough to show the palm trees. I got down in the dirt by the outside rail, and the yellow wraps on the legs made this the right horse to photograph—just a little color to offset that fog." D3, AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G

Andrew Hancock's challenge was choosing just the right shutter speed for "enough blur for the great lines from the railing, track and cable fence I shot through, while still keeping the detail." One-fifteenth second did the trick as he panned with the rider. D4, AF-S Zoom-NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED.

"I love the way water lights up, the way things happen and how they look. I had my camera in a waterproof housing and three strobes on the pool deck firing down into the water. I'm outside the pool, holding the camera under the water. The thing was to figure out at what depth I had to hold the camera to get the shot I wanted." D4, AF-S Zoom-NIKKOR 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-ED

I do a lot with remote strobes and cameras and I have a lot of photos with players' shadows angling through, but at harsh angles from the sides. After a shoot I look to see what I like and don't like and how I can be more creative if I get to go back to that arena. For this I knew exactly what I wanted. I set the strobes up on both sides, perpendicular to the lane so the shadows would come straight in. The camera was in the rafters, fired remotely. I took this as a free throw was made, and I got a two-page Leading Off spread in "Sports Illustrated." D3X, AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED

"I like to be up and at it really early, but on that morning there was dense fog instead of golden light. A few hours later it was still foggy, but I thought that might be really cool, let me make some pictures. At about ten o'clock the fog started to lift enough to show the palm trees. I got down in the dirt by the outside rail, and the yellow wraps on the legs made this the right horse to photograph—just a little color to offset that fog." D3, AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G

"I'm doing a personal project on surfers and the surf culture, and I went to Hawaii for a week or so without any set plans, just to see what I could find. I got this shot of a surfer warming up for a competition at Honolua Bay on Maui from a cliffside overlooking the bay. It looks like the wave is chasing him down. Shooting surfing was a blast." D3X, AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR

"In the morning, when the light's good, there are some special pictures to be made in the stable area of a racecourse. In this one, all the water droplets just lit up and exploded in that great light. It's all about depth of field here, and I shot at 1/8000 second wide open to get blur beyond the point of focus." D3S, AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8D IF-ED II

"With a picture like this the two essentials are good background and good light. I liked how they were packed together, all the lines of legs and hooves and the one horse bending down every now and then to snack on the grass. I was crouched down. I love shooting from as low a perspective as I can. A lot of times I don't like shooting standing up because of the background—getting down low gets better, and different, backgrounds." D3S, AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8D IF-ED II

"Home of the 12th Man is the slogan at Texas A&M, and I was thinking about this picture for a week before the [2010 A&M/Nebraska] game. I walked the field three times to find an angle where I wouldn't get any glare through the lettering, and I played around with exposure, half a second up to four seconds. Too long and there'd be too much blur on the 12th Man towels; too short and I'd lose the fog effect. This one was two seconds. It was all about experimenting to find just the right balance of blur and sharpness. As soon as I made the picture, I said to my assistant, 'We've got ourselves a special frame here.' "Sports Illustrated" ran it as a two-page Leading Off spread." D3, AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED

"I took this at the Eddie Adams Workshop on one of my assignments. I was in the front cockpit of the 1941 biplane, and we're doing a hundred miles an hour over the Catskill Mountains. I unbuckled, turned around, got on my knees and fastened the seat belt over my lower legs. I was holding the camera above my head to get over his windshield, trying to get a really cool shot. I wish somebody had gotten a picture of me doing it." D2X, AF DX Fisheye-NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED

"I'm doing a personal project on surfers and the surf culture, and I went to Hawaii for a week or so without any set plans, just to see what I could find. I got this shot of a surfer warming up for a competition at Honolua Bay on Maui from a cliffside overlooking the bay. It looks like the wave is chasing him down. Shooting surfing was a blast." D3X, AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR