Bowl Week

Here we are at the end of 2008 and the new year is right around the corner. Devoted sports fans refer to this magical time of the year as Bowl Week. Over my three years as a daily shooter I have covered my share of football, but the style of pigskin I'm used to covering is preps with a little bit of NFL thrown in. 

Last weekend, I had the privilege to photograph my first college bowl game ... the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte. The ACC was represented by North Carolina and the Big East sent West Virginia. 

It was a foggy, overcast day and I had on my Mountaineer ball cap (Appalachian State, not those impostors from WVU). The first quarter was a shoot-out and I was happy to be in position to grab a frame of a one-handed touchdown catch by West Virginia.

After three consecutive touchdown throws, I knew the place to be was down field from the Offense. Late in the game North Carolina was driving to regain the lead, so I headed toward the WVU end zone to wait. I had a funny feeling that I should shoot wide, but that lens was on my D100, which is in no way capable of keeping up with fast-paced sports action like my D2h. Still, something told me to shoot wide, so I pre-focused on the orange pylon in the end zone. Some how my gut feeling was right, because the next thing I know, UNC quarterback T.J. Yates is scrambling my way and dives right for the pylon I'm pre-focused on. The D100 gives me only a few frames a second, but this is what I walked away with.

West Virginia took a 31-30 lead late in the game and North Carolina was starting to drive. It looked to me at the time like it might come down to a field goal, so I was on the side of the WVU end zone near the UNC bench hoping to catch the kick and reaction from the kicker as he turned to his teammates in victory or defeat. For those of you who saw this game on ESPN, you know I was in the wrong spot as Yates was intercepted on the other side of the field to end the game. 

I was happy with my take though and hope I get plenty of other opportunities to shoot college football in the future. 

Cover Jinx?

I've always heard of the cover jinx on athletes, be it the eerily coincidental string of injuries suffered by NFL players after they appear on the cover on the Madden video game box, or the supposed SI cover jinx. But those all happen after publication right? (At least the ones we know about)
Last week I made went out to make a photo of a promising young quarterback and his new head coach for the cover of our prep football tab. The story was focusing on the quarterback, so I made him prominent in the photo and then designed the cover around that. I had a simple design in mind and was happy with how it came out.
Two days later, I get a call from the office telling me our talented young cover model had blown out his knee in a scrimmage and was out for the season. Probably not the best idea to keep him on our cover. The other problem is this happened on a Saturday and our tab was going to print on Monday, leaving no time to come up with another feature. I pulled several photos from football season last year and designed a generic cover to go out instead.

Grounded

This week I was supposed to get a media flight on the Liberty Belle, a World War II B-17 bomber, as it made a stop in Concord. Monday morning I got a call from the plane's PR guy telling me ground fog where the plane was kept it from taking off in time to make it for our flight. The rescheduled time was set for Friday (a day before the public flights) and I show up with my reporter ready to go. As soon as we get there, we find out the engine is not working, so no media flight ... all we get to do is go out and see it sitting there on the runway. Ben, my reporter, climbs up in the cockpit and I made this frame of him (we might as well have some fun right?)

it's been a while ...

Legion baseball ended over the weekend ... this image is from a couple of weeks ago when I had some nice light to play with ... a stark difference from last week where every legion game was cancelled or started at 8:45, meaning no sunlight and no photos for me and my D2h ... 1600 ISO at 1/60th of a second at second base is rough to shoot in (don't ask me how bad it was at home plate) ... I am happy when I have the sun working on my side. I can't with until we upgrade and get D300s (with a slightly better high ISO rating)

In memory ...

Uga VI died this weekend ... this photo is from the only UGA game I've covered so far, the 2006 Georgia/Florida game in Jacksonville.

spent some time at the farmers market ...

A vigil after a double murder

flag day ...

Audio Slideshow: Piedmont Dance Theatre

minor league baseball ...

A few from the Kannapolis Intimidators Monday night ... they


couldn't seem to hold on to the ball

Legion baseball ...

Here is one I liked from Legion baseball Saturday night. Now that high school sports are over, my summer is going to be consumed by legion ball and minor league baseball. Hopefully by the end of the summer, I might actually be able to shoot baseball.

Race Fans ...

I worked on this story over the weekend during the Sprint All Star Race ... really nice people

some people amaze me ...

Here's a picture I made a few days ago when I spent some time with the Duncan family in Concord. Eddie Duncan is a retired (because of injury) cop and he and his wife have adopted seven children (six of which are special needs) and have opened their home to almost 40 foster children over the years. This picture is of Eddie with his adopted-daughters Mikayla and Sarah spending time with each other before supper. I just couldn't help from smiling for the rest of the day, they are amazing people.

softball on a slow week ...

portraits...

My roommate (and co-worker) sat in as a test subject for a portrait series I'm working on. The series won't publish until July, so this is all I will show for now. 

North Carolina primary...

rain delay ...

waiting on baseball to start Saturday night

more track ...

I would enjoy this sport more if I was given a roster with numbers on it and all the kids wore those numbers. But instead they run their event and scatter, half the time not even in the lane that matches the score sheet or not running in the same order on the score sheet. It is fun to shoot though.

cheers

James

and now the pole vault ...

As I mentioned last time, I am brand new at shooting track and field events and was a little disappointed when I learned they did not have a pole vault at the track meet I shot last week. It turns out there is only one high school in the county that can run a pole vault event and only four high schools with athletes in the event ... so they have their own day before the rest of the track meet.

I did a quick soundslides slideshow for the event as well

first time at track ...

Today was a first for me, as I've never had the chance to shoot a high school track meet before. I've seen plenty of track images out there (some good, some really bad) but I've not made any myself, so I was pretty excited to finally get out there (I was also really disappointed when I asked the coach when the pole vault would happen and he said they would not have that event today). 

I shot several series of hurdles and the 100 meter dash before I realized the record keeping was so bad and I could only salvage the names for one of my photos. I finally made may way over to the high jump and started shooting away

as all these 6 foot tall kids were jumping over a 4 foot beam. I doubt I could do it myself, but they made it look easy, which I suppose it is to an

yone in any kind of shape. Then this little guy comes walking up ... I'm a bad judge at height, but I would say he was about 5'5" or so ... and he is clearly out performing the other student athletes.

Being a first-time track shooter and a sucker for 

clean backgrounds, I forgot about all

 the other messy background events and focused on this kid (his name was Josh Black). I knew the 

paper would only run one, but I was just playing at this point. 

The coaches keep raising the bar, and slowly all the other kids start dropping out. Finally they get the bar to 5'10" and Josh can still clear it. This may be pretty standard for the high jump, but I was impressed. 

Josh's downfall came with the bar at 6 feet high. He tried three times, and cleared it except for his feet, which kept catching the bar. 

So there's my first adventures in track and field. It was a beautiful day (the first really warm one here in a while) and I'm going to bug sports tomorrow to assign the next event, whenever it is. 

spring soccer ...

I spent the final 40 minutes of sunlight today shooting girls soccer at one of the local high schools. The last soccer game I shot, I spent a few minutes shooting from an open window in the press box, but didn't get anything I liked, so I tried it again today and had better luck. 

always get names...

I'm not trying to make an excuse here, but it was raining and I made this photo passing by without thinking I might like it later on.

I was at the Outdoor Heritage Days, an equestrian show jumping event out in the middle of no where, trying to put together a Sunday package/audio slideshow. As I was walking to the barn to find the organizer of the event (and dry off) I saw this little girl petting a horse and made the quick photo, not really thinking about it at the time. When I saw the photo while editing, I immediately regretted not taking the extra five seconds to go get the girl's name.

Lesson learned

close one

Here's a baseball image from the weekend. It's not really a story-telling image from the game, but it is nice to get one of these every now and then.

home run

Baseball is a sport I'm not very good a shooting, probably because I've not shot much of it yet (that will change this Spring), but I did walk away with a shot I'm half-way happy with tonight. Unfortunately, only one of these high school kids seems happy his teammate just hit a home run. I was hoping for more when I saw #12 hit the home run. I followed him around the bases with my camera, but no fist pumps or Sosa leaps. It must be nice when hiting a home run becomes routine.

Welcome...

Welcome to my blog. 

For the past few years, I've been reading many other photo blogs out there and always enjoy seeing the work of my friends, colleagues and people I admire who have no idea who I am. While I have no illusions of matching some of the folks out there, I figured a few more people might be able to see my work if I put it out there.

So here it goes, welcome to pixelated banter ...

My first image is a weather feature I shot the other day.

Cheers!

James