Summertime Football...

This year's FCA all-star football game kind of snuck up on me. I guess I used to it being a week later, but with the first Saturday of June showing up so early in relation to Memorial Day. but, outside of just making for a long day shooting a baseball game in the morning, then this at night coupled with a drowning at the lake that night made for a really long day.

One thing I hate about these games is the lack of intensity. Sure the players play the game hard, that's really the only way they know how to play. But the play-calling tends to be kind of vanilla, since the kids are learning an offense in less than a week, plus trying to develop chemistry and timing all at the same time. Then, there is the whole playing without getting injured thing. All that makes for a game without much scoring, which is exactly how the first half went. I spent most of the first half just trying to find something decent of both teams. I got a couple I liked, but I think my favorite was the tight sideline shot of the sweaty player, it pretty much summed up the weather... hot.

Spending the Day with the FCA...

The assignment I had following the Garage Band Woodstock was the annual FCA football game. However, before that, was the FCA basketball game. I've never been a huge fan of these types of games, mostly because, while I think it's really cool the kids get to be honored for all their hard work during their high school careers, the action is never all that great. Yet, every couple of years, they seem to prove me wrong. This just happened to be one of those years.

Now, just because of my perception of the game no having great potential, that doesn't mean I'm going to slack off in how I shoot it. Doing that just ensures bad photos.

The girls basketball game wasn't a great game, the South team won, like it has every year the game has been played. And it wasn't all that close. Luckily, there were plenty of area players on both teams. The players off the North team at least did have a few moments that they shined, when they were able to break the South's press, which made for some decent enough photos.

In the football game I got there a couple minutes after it started by the time I got into the stadium and fought the crowd. The halftime usually lasts forever, so it's always my goal in this game to get something nice before the half, after that if I get something nice I can either trade it out or have it for the slideshow. In the first drive of the game I got the shot of the receiver reaching for the ball. After that it was just making sure I got enough for the slideshow and making sure I didn't miss anything by falling asleep. The shot of the kid losing his helmet I got in the second half and made a nice photo for the jump page. Well, this year was the exception to the rule, hopefully the start of a streak.