Like just about every Engineer, I've always had an interest in photography. Unlike most Engineers, I also have an interest in triathlons. Sunday I got to put those two interests together.

Triathlons have a "Transition Area" where we setup our bikes, shoes, nutrition, etc. so that when we come out of the water we can throw off that wetsuit and put on those biking shoes/helmet/gloves. Then, after biking we have a place to put our bikes and get our asses running.

These transition areas are off limits to spectators, including photographers, because 1-we don't want people stealing/messing with our shit and 2-when we race in from the legs, we don't want to have to crash into some lollygagger who didn't see us coming.

Usually, as a participant, you are in these transition area as little as possible--you need to be out, tearing up the course! But if you are part of a relay team, then you can come and go as you please while waiting for your team to finish or for your leg to start.

Well, last Sunday I was the swimmer on my team. That meant I was done early and since it was a 1/2 Ironman distance, the biker was out close to 4 hours and the runner was a speedy 1 1/2 hrs. So I had a lot of time to hang out with my camera in the Transition area.

I posted some of my friends' pictures on Facebook, but also took some other shots that I thought were interesting from a photographic perspective. Those went on Flickr.

I still feel a bit like everyone does photography and I really hate getting onto bandwagons. But I do enjoy the process of figuring out what is a good shot and how to make my camera take a good shot. I think it will be years before I'm consistently good at it, but you gotta start somewhere!

And knowing just how hard it is to train for triathlons, I have a huge amount of respect for these people who come in at the top of the event. They deserve to have their achievement recorded.