Along the Apache Trail, Arizona, January 2005

When I think of "space," if the heavens and cosmos don't come to mind, if there's something here on Earth that I picture, it's the West. The West is space. Open space. Much of it is owned by the federal government, which isn't always a good thing these days, but there's just so much room out there. Growing up on the East Coast, having never been west of Pennsylvania until I was 14, knowing only New Jersey, New York and New England until I went to college, I've always been fascinated with the open space out beyond the Mississippi. I still am. I'll never tire of taking my camera out into the arid air of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and their neighbors.

Ryan Howard, Scranton-Wilkes Barre Red Barons, April 2005

Sports photos are the reason I took up photography as a hobby. I wanted to capture the images that you find on baseball cards or in the pages of Sports Illustrated. There have been many trial-and-error efforts, but I have managed to score some outstanding images. This is easily one of the best, capturing a split-second of an action that, in itself, is gone in an instant. For this "action" challenge, I had to restrain myself from posting more than just two.