Friday, June 6, 2008

Dragon Boat Race Practice on June 4, 2008

I won't pretend to know the ins-and-outs of dragon boat racing, but I will make educated guesses based on the movement, the body language, and the faces of these people, educated guesses as to what is going on.
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These two teams appear to be taking advantage of one of their last chances for a hard practice before the actual races on Saturday. They are hot at it.
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Once the boats got close to the west bank of the river, they eased around and headed back out into the river.
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It appeared the people on this boat were practicing their response to some cue from one of the non-rowers on the boat. They held their paddles up at a certain angle, then dug deeply into the water, over and over and over.
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Then they headed back out onto the river proper for more practice.
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Depending on the weather, my chores at the apartment and timing of life in general, I plan to attend Saturday's races, and take more photos, of course!

By the way, about these photos, I don't have any photo-altering software other than iPhoto's enhance and/or lighten and darken slider thingeys, so please don't think I'm talented enough to outline those flowing-dragon-parts to make them stand out in front of the river. It's serendipity brought on by the angle, I suppose.

6 comments:

Jim Klenke said...

They are great pictures, it looks like everyone thats practicing is having fun doing it.

Chuck Pefley said...

These are so vibrant! I've never gotten to these native American races here in Seattle, though my sense is our boats are not nearly so colorful. Great post!

Anonymous said...

I do like this post and it looks like the people are pooped out in the last couple of pictures. Such beautiful boats are to be enjoyed. Nice photography.

George Townboy said...

Awesome post. These boats look like fancy sculls, complete with a coxswain. Fantastic photography!

Andrea said...

Wow, this is so colorful. Great post.

Anna said...

Great series of photos - I love dragon boats! Before moving to another province, we used to volunteer at the dragon boat races in Winnipeg for the cancer society. I always ended up painting faces while the rest of the family twisted balloons for donations. The down side is that we never got to see the races! *L*

A.