My friend Martin has a teenaged son who fences competitively. Last year he spent some time with me at the U.S. National Fencing Championship held in Charlotte, North Carolina, while his son competed at his first really big tournament. Martin had purchased a new point-and-shoot camera with lots of bells and whistles, and he had lots of questions for me as he tried his hand at shooting some fencing in the huge convention center venue.

Martin quickly found that the shutter lag, lighting, and fast action of the hall was more than he had anticipated for his camera, which he was learning on-the-fly. He got an occasional good shot mostly due to the fact that he has a pretty good eye for composition and he anticipated the action, but he became frustrated trying to get good images with good exposure taken at the right moment.

So I worked with Martin and explained how to set his camera at least on a partial manual setting optimized for the environment. When he understood a little more about what the light was like, the settings required for the shots, and how to position himself, he found that he was taking very nice shots — better than he had expected to accomplish.

It became clear to me at that point, that the world at-large struggles with technology — whether it's how to burn a disk, how to download photos to their computer, or just how to deal with shutter lag. In addition, the fundamental concepts and principles of photography, which still apply in full force with digital as with film, aren't necessarily obvious to the average weekend photo enthusiast.

The emphasis of this book is to provide consumers, enthusiasts, and even semi-pros that love sports and who are adapting to a digital photography world a means to create and produce better photographs, more efficiently, easily, and with higher quality that will be appreciated more deeply by a wider audience. I've tried to do this in plain, simple language with both visual and written examples that can be applied to nearly any type of sports photography.

By far, I've taken more photos of fencing than of any other sport. But I also realize that fencing isn't what most sports-minded photographers are out to shoot, and especially not in the far-reaching corners of the Earth I tend to frequent. Hopefully you will find, as I have, that fencing — even if you've never seen anyone do it and you know nothing about the sport — will offer itself as a good metaphor for other types of sports photography.

In addition, I've invited some other photographers to lend their images and experiences in this book to ensure it has a comprehensive perspective on sports photography. Some, like Terrell Lloyd, are professionals who shoot for a living; others are amateurs relating their experiences and how they overcame various challenges you might chance to encounter as well. Their insight to sports photography is an integral and important aspect of this book.

In our book published last year, Total Digital Photography: The Shoot to Print Workflow Handbook, Dave Karlins and I focused on concepts of digital photography workflow and oriented our messages to more of a working photography audience. In this book, we strive to apply many of the same principles, but to a broader audience. Nonetheless, this book addresses many of the same photography and technology issues while delivering a workflow methodology and advice for shooting sports with digital cameras.

We hope you enjoy this book and that it helps you take great digital photos to last a lifetime, whether it's of your kids, your favorite team, or for a keepsake of wonderful moments in your life. Your thoughts and feedback are always welcome and interesting to us; you can contact me directly through www.fencingphotos.com.

Good luck with your digital sports photography!

Serge Timacheff

Seattle, Washington