January 07 2009 The Race Track

"Mom, will you play cars with me?" And out come the tracks, the kind with the loop-dee-doops and two-D-battery-powered car accelerators. An hour and several configurations later, two loops, two accelerators, and seven cars that passed the track test became the finale for the project. How many can go at once? Who can knock whose out of the track? Who will be a winner?


Catching toy cars in motion is tricky business with a simple point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot A710 which is what I carry. Shh...don't tell: after about twenty unsuccessful action shots, the car, for the moment, is still, and I still have weakness in my trigger finger leading to a nice, deceptive blur. See how the carpet's pile is smudged across the frame? The double track? Truly, I did not move the camera with the shutter open on purpose. One couldn't get that car to look like that if they tried.