Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Who says being handicapped can't be a bonus?


            When a great assignment goes bad.  One of the great things about digital is that you can know whether or not a picture is good before you leave your assignment.  A quick peek at the LCD screen and you know if your favorite photograph was in-focus and exposed correctly--most of the time.  At the start of this assignment the wide angle lens I was using stopped focusing on anything beyond five feet away.  I never knew it until I was back at the office because the photographs looked okay on the camera's tiny LCD screen.  I was left with only the photographs I took with my telephoto lens.  I think it was a loss since I thought I had been using the wide angle to create dynamic photographs of the sleds.  Although I enjoy this photograph for the expression, I think about the other photographs I lost and miss them.
    The organizers for the Adaptive Luge Clinic say that Luge may be the only sport in which it could be an advantage to be handicapped.  The logic goes like this: Luge requires a strong upper body and no movement in the legs, therefore people who cannot move their legs and spend all day every day exercising their upper body could be become the best lugers.  The theory makes sense.
    The man in this photograph told me that Luge was too tame for his preference, he said he enjoyed sky diving a lot more.  Incidentally most all of the handicapped people I spoke to at the Adaptive Luge clinic became handicapped because they were thrill seekers.

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