McDonnell Douglas MD-90 (N909DA)

One of the last photos of Delta's N909DA (MD-90-30) while it was still in active revenue service (**), this very early AM "break of dawn" click captured it at Vr speed as it became airborne and began its first flight of a new business day.
I had expected this to pivot skyward much earlier so I had positioned about a third of the way down Runway 23, but the farther away down the runway this one went, the more difficult it was to maintain a steady panning motion with it and the more certain I was that by the time it finally did begin to rotate I'd end up with zilch. By the time I saw the nose gear come off the concrete it was quite far from me and awfully dark in my viewfinder. However, since I had gotten up in the darkness in order to be at the airport when the first hint of dawn appeared in the sky, I had already invested enough time that I was not going to give up and discontinue snapping the shutter. And I got lucky -- my panning was steady, my slower shutter still caught the Dog crisply, and I got what turned out to be my last-ever photo of a Delta Mad Dog in rotation toward the sky. If I had it to do all over again, I dang sure would!!
** Just over three months after this shot was snapped, N909DA was wfu and went into storage at MMQT.