If I could have hand-selected a venue to capture a few 2021 California State Championship composites, I would have chosen Arcadia High School. It is the perfect venue for capturing these images. So I decided to create more than my typical number of composites. They can all be viewed and downloaded at full resolution here: 2021 CA State T&F Championship Composites.

So what makes Arcadia the perfect venue? It’s simple… the jump pits are perfectly situated to keep people from stepping in front of my shots. Add to that the fact that Arcadia is synonymous with outstanding high school track and field and you always have the potential for great shots. This past weekend was no exception.

On Saturday, the girls treated the crowd to a real shootout in the finals of the long jump. Lauren Fowler (shown above jumping 19′ 02″), edged out Kylee Davis and Sydney Johnson. Kylee jumped 19′ 01″ in her second attempt, but fouled on three of her last four attempts (one shown below), and Sydney jumped 18′ 11.5″ on her next to last attempt (also shown below), but also fouled on her final attempt. Congrats to all three, and to all of the competitors!

I captured some of the boy’s jumps as well, long jump and triple jump. The triple jump pit is really the only pit at Arcadia that is limited for these kinds of captures. Thankfully, no running events were occurring during the event so I was able to take advantage of the open track.

And I was able to recreate the first pole vault composite I ever captured. That was a shot of Sondre Guttormsen setting the California State pole vault record at the Arcadia Invitational in 2018. Since Paige Sommers holds the National High School pole vault record, it seemed like a fitting tribute.

I love sharing these shots, but they do take quite a bit of time to edit and get right. Here are a few more samples from the two days of competition. Again, you can see all of the composite images and download the originals here. All I ask is this — if you share them, just give proper credit and link back to this post when possible. Thanks, and enjoy!