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I had a few extra photos that didn’t make it into our coverage of the Western Valley District track meet that ran in the sports section today, so I thought I would share them here.

Sports can be difficult to shoot for several reasons. Lighting can be challenging if it is a really bright day or a night event outside or in a poorly-lit gym.  Along with dealing with our surroundings, photojournalists are looking for peak action and reaction shots, which are often occurring  simultaneously.

With all of these technical issues, sports can be one of the most rewarding situations to photograph. The reaction from players often make for  great moments, and you are in the middle of the action instead of in the bleachers.

A member of the Halifax County boys 4x800 meter relay covers his face on the sideline after finishing his leg of the race.

Savannah Bowne from Franklin County pole vaults during the Western Valley District track meet. Bowne received second place in the event.

Patrick Henry's Shaheed Fitzgerald placed 5th in the discus throw during the Western Valley District track meet held at William Fleming.

- Jeanna Duerscherl

Tamecia Preston, a fifth-grader at Westside Elementary School, laughs with her friends during the Chef and Child program, an after-school program that teaches kids about cooking and healthy eating, at Westside Elementary School, on April 20, 2012. Tamecia said she loves the Chef and Child program.

Rebecca Barnett

Every time I am standing in a downpour of rain or a snowstorm or baking in the middle of the NASCAR track in the hot sun, I remind myself that it is a good thing I love my job and it’s nice being the first of my friends with a good tan.

On Monday night I shot girls and boys soccer in my favorite blue poncho from about 5 pm until 8pm. In other words, I basically stood in a torrential downpour for most of my night.  The challenging part of shooting during the rain, minus the obvious reasons you could come up with, is that even though we use professional gear it is not waterproof. Because of this, everything must be covered with rain gear which is hard to see through, fogs up often and is pretty annoying all around.

Through all of this whining though I was able to get a few photographs last night that I really liked. Since the boys game between Patrick Henry and William Fleming was cancelled during the first half we weren’t able to use this photograph, so I thought I would share it here.

William Fleming teammates celebrate after scoring against Patrick Henry.

- Jeanna Duerscherl

A field used to grow soybeans is covered in a golden cover crop of barley spread that spreads out across the Smith Farms' field in Glasgow, Va. off of Virginia 130 East.

Barley skirts the edge of the Smith Farms' field where soybeans are planted.

-Jeanna Duerscherl

 A robin croons in the darkness — spring’s alarm clock for a pre-dawn journey.

Soon its song harmonizes with another, farther out, then another, closer this time, and still another until they have a choir in full crescendo outside the open kitchen window while coffee brews.

Few will view sunrise today from the Pine Tree Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a few miles north of Roanoke. One of more than 200 such overlooks along the parkway’s 469 miles, there’s nothing much special about this one, except the view of the sun as it rises between Flat Top and Sharp Top.

It’s a 20-minute trip on the winding two-lane road that stretches no farther in the darkness than the reach of high beams. No other cars face east in the pullout, but there could just has well be as the relative solitude of parkway views lures an assortment of thinkers, mourners, writers, hand-holders, picnickers, the occasional string picker and the reverent; many are flatland pilgrims seeking the clarity of high places. As with much that’s familiar, the splendor fades into little more than a backdrop for a valley commute for those of us fortunate to call these peaks and valleys home.

But the faithful are always rewarded for a purposeful journey here: A lifetime of brush strokes hasn’t lessened the wonder Roanoke painter Eric Fitzpatrick feels before such a transitory scene. Brush in hand, he won’t shrink from the struggle of arresting on canvas moments he calls sacred and quicksilver. “I’m lost in worship of what lies before me,” says Fitzpatrick. “To me, those are the most magical of life’s moments; brief passages that let you know in an instant what a blessing it is to be human.”

Indeed it is a blessing — a glory in life and light and land, for the passing of all things comes soon enough: With marvelous speed a child blooms into adulthood, and elders’ hands that comforted and guided for so long are too soon absent.

This dawn vista is no less ephemeral.

As night becomes day and spring comes late to the higher elevations, the dark mountains imperceptibly warm to reveal impressions of redbud and dogwood among the bare hardwoods. And so another night — another season — pass in the comfortable bird song rhythm of the southern Appalachians.

–Sam Dean