AKC Lure Coursing

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click photo to enlarge		 I am not going to pretend to know anything about this. We were working at the Mt. Baldy Visitors Center and a woman came in and was telling us she was in town with her dogs for this event and had some time to kill. So after listening to her we decided on Sunday to go see what the Lure Coursing was all about. She had told us that a plastic trash bag was pulled around a course and the dogs chased it and by golly it really was a plastic bag they were chasing. There is a specific set of hounds that are bred to hunt by sight. The Lure Coursing event is meant to test the breeds on how well they hunt by sight.

click photo to enlarge		 The breeds are called sighthounds and boy do they go after the plastic bags. It was a lot of fun to watch and for me it was all about photographing it. Anybody can set a modern DSLR camera to a high shutter speed and freeze the action but my goal is not to freeze it but rather show motion. I pan along with the dog and use a slower shutter speed so that I get the dogs face is sharp focus and the rest of the dog is blurred showing legs in motion etc. It is a challenging type of photography but the results just look better and convey motion.

click photo to enlarge