High Jump - Too easy to shoot!

I have shot a few high school track meets (and two of the three were COLD and rainy!) and with trying to run all around the track trying to get pictures of as many of the athletes as possible, I never made it to the far side of the stadium where the high jump was held. (A track meet REALLY needs more than one photographer. Too much is happening at the same time - races around the track as well as separate little areas for long jump, triple jump, pole vault, discus, shot put and high jump. Crazy!)



Anyway, high jump is the easiest thing to shoot and I can't believe I missed out on it before. You can stand behind the mat and move to a diagonal line from the direction the high jumper is running. Focus on the center of the high jump bar (raise your aperture a bit to give you a little more play in your depth of field), set your exposure so that the sky behind the jumper doesn't blow out the pic (assuming that you have sky behind the jumper), then wait till the jumper is over the bar and shoot! Too easy!