My nickname among the Reuters photographers in Tokyo is "Crasher".

They call me that because I always seem to get pictures right at the moment of a crash whenever I cover motorsports.

One colleague sometimes teases me saying "You’ve got to stop pouring oil on the track," and I answer: "I would never use oil -- I only use banana skins!"

In motorsports the most exciting moment you can capture in a picture is a crash.

That instant can be the difference between life and death, and it’s a picture that is most difficult to capture.

My technique is to pay attention to any unusual movements. Racers usually all try to keep to the same optimum path through a curve.

Any deviation from this can mean a crash may be imminent.

This is how I  caught the full sequence of Dani Pedorasa's crash in the 2007 MotoGP (top).

In much the same way, in the 2008 Formula One race, I caught the crash of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Felipe Massa as they fought hard for the championship.

But my crash experience at this year's Formula One Japan Grand Prix was very different.

During qualifying, I heard the voice of our chief photographer crackle over my walkie-talkie, "Toyota crash... Looks serious...".

I ran to the scene and when I arrived Toyota driver Timo Glock was lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask.

At that instant, I feared I was looking at something that motorsports fans never want to see happen to the drivers.

But the next moment, Timo Glock's hand moved, and in a moment he was clearly waving to the crowd as he was put in an ambulance.

As I took another picture I felt my camera’s shutter clicked with a sense of relief.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Bob Radocy of TRS Inc. lost his his left hand when he fell asleep at the wheel and side swiped a semi-trailer truck. He now designs and builds prosthetic attachments that allow amputee athletes to participate in multiple sports. Bob tells photographer Rick Wilking about his motivations in this multimedia piece.

I came to New York in 1971 to work for the Associated Press and I covered the weekend shift at both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, where the Mets played. I’ve spent a good part of my life covering baseball in New York, the last 21 years for Reuters.

The Yankees ballpark had the air of a grand old lady, slightly down on her luck. At first sight it was an impressive structure with the historic field and that magnificent original copper frieze that lined the stadium’s roof above the upper deck. But a close look revealed a stadium deteriorating almost everywhere.

For a working photographer it was no fun, one had to kneel in an aisle to shoot pictures or work in a “crows nest” box hung over the upper deck wall behind the Yankees dugout. But there was a palatable sense of history present, for me, every day I worked there.

In 1974 they closed the park and the Yankees played at the Mets’ Shea Stadium–a building that was uninspired and unexciting the day it was built in 1964. For two years the old Lady was given a major face-lift, but when I returned to cover opening day in 1976 my reaction was the surgery had gone all wrong. Instead of keeping the architectural hallmarks of “the House that Ruth Built,” the architects tried to make a brand new stadium that looked modern. While the outside walls and the lower seating bowl remained, much of the original was gone forever. As a last-second thought, the frieze was recreated only on the outfield area’s exterior wall. Even the improvements were minor, a few luxury boxes, and still inadequate photography positions. I hated the place. The real Yankee Stadium was gone.

The new Yankee Stadium certainly recaptures the grandeur of the original ballpark. Intimate–unlike the cross-town Mets’ new CitiField–it is not. It is impressive. The footprint is bigger than the old ballpark yet it seats roughly 10,000 less, and while I never spend much time wandering the upper deck in any park, it seems that if anything, the seats above the field are farther away. The foul territory around home plate has been reduced to bring the costly seats closer to the field, while there appears to be a bit more space between the foul lines in the outfield and the stands.

Monument Park is a disappointment. In the original stadium the monuments stood in centerfield and mounted on the outfield wall–if a ball could be hit into them it could be converted to an inside-the-park home run, unless the center fielder was very good maneuvering through them. In the rebuild the centerfield fences were brought in and the park was behind the wall, but still very visible to almost everyone in the stands. In the new stadium the park is still behind the centerfield wall, but it is longer and not as deep. To its disadvantage much of it is recessed under the overhanging structure that holds a restaurant and the monuments to the Yankees storied past are “buried” under it.

The fan amenities are fantastic–places to eat and drink are everywhere. The seats appear to be comfortable and there are broad concourses to move people in and out. I’ll reserve judgement on the working positions for photographers until I’ve had more time to shoot there, but first impressions are that they are not much better than the old stadium, which is a shame because there was an opportunity to provide so much more for the visual recording of the continuing history of this most famous team.

Frankly, all three stadium incarnations for this storied franchise reflect the type of organization the Yankees are—the new Yankee Stadium is big, bold, and confident–and overwhelming.

But the biggest plus for me is that glorious frieze that lined the original stadium’s roof above the upper deck is back, and it defines the ballpark as THE home of the Yankees.

If the Babe ever returned, he would feel at home.

People often ask “what is the hardest sport to shoot?”. I always say “downhill skiing”. Sure there are 5 hour long baseball games and 5 day cricket matches, football games in the rain, sleet and snow. Heck just making it through an Olympic games is a bit like boot camp. But when you add up all the work and skill that goes into making a good downhill skiing picture, for me, it’s the most difficult sport to shoot.

Lake Louise hosts “Winterstart” each year. The season’s first World Cup alpine downhill skiing races is held at what has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. They come because Lake Louise is cold.

It’s beautiful, but it’s cold. If it’s -20c when you head up the hill in the morning with 50 lbs of cameras on your back it’s an average day. The cold means snow making , and they always have enough snow here early in the season to hold the races; take that global warming!

Now downhill skiing is hard not just because you’re having to shoot a skier coming at you at over 100 kilometers an hour , but the course they ski is some 3 km long and you need to find a position to shoot the race. You need to think about what the line will be, how the skier will come in and out of your limited focal range. You place your bet, set up your gear and wait for the race. Photographers have to be in position one hour before race time, so now you have to say warm. There are lots of ways to do this, but good ski boots, hand warmers, toe warmers and good gloves are essential. Ask any photographer that works in the cold and they will not have enough fingers on there hand to count all the different type of gloves they have tried.

So your camera is out . Your lens is usually long , meaning over 400mm. The skiers come fast. Safety has become a huge concern of the race organizers so each year we get pushed farther and father away from where we want to be on the course. The 400mm lens turns to a 600mm lens and 600’s turn to 800’s and now your dealing with F5.6 and very little depth of field. You become a little more blinded in picking up the skier as they come into range the longer the lens. The best pictures usually come from a lip or edge in the snow, that helps separate the skier and his skis and gives the picture depth. It also makes the position more blind as your down below the skier and they just appear on the edge of the lip out of nowhere, and zoom, they are gone. We are able to work around this by knowing when the timing intervals are for each race, if the racers leave the start every 1:15 seconds we can time our watches so we have a better idea of when to put your glove on a frozen lens and a frozen camera to your face. This all goes to hell if they have to make any repairs to the course, or a racer goes down. Then it’s back to a waiting game, making sure you don’t breath too hard and fog up your viewfinder. I would say most of what I shoot is zone focused, you focus on a location on the course where you think the skier will come through and then hit the button when they do. The new cameras are capable of autofocus, but that means being able to pick up the skier and hold them on target, it works for some positions, but for others it’s not the best option.

So you have been standing on the side of a mountain for an hour or more (not counting the time and effort it took to get there) and the race begins. There are more than 60 racers usually, but realistically the winner will come out of the top 40 at 2 minute intervals. That means another 80 minutes trying to stay warm and not miss a single racer, because anyone can win and you need to have the winner.
I filed from my position this year. Using an OQO, our paneikon software an EVDO cell card and the help of Shaun Best to edit from the bureau in Montreal. We had our action from the hill on the wire before anyone else. Andy Cark was at the finish area and Shaun was able to edit him off the snow as well. With all the effort our images made it into Europe to make deadlines from an 1130am race in Western Canada. The men travel down to Colorado for the next week of races and the women arrive here for the start of their downhill season.
Then it’s home to California to warm up.