Early Morning Wake up Calls, it's Football Time...

I'm still trying to catch up... Football practice recently got started which for me means mug shot tour. Shooting mugs shot of all the 11-man football players in the area. As a way of keeping my sanity I try to squeeze in shooting practice for an end of the week photo column and slideshow. This isn't always the easiest thing to do given that I'm already on a pretty tight schedule. So, most of the schools I'm shooting I only get about 10-15 minutes to get my shots before moving on to the next school.

This year was a lot harder than normal. Last year the UIL, state state's governing body for high school sports changed the rules for two-a-day practices. Instead of the way it had been done, now schools can't have a two-a-day practice until the fifth overall practice and they can't have 2 two-a-day's in a row. Not only did it cut down on the actual practice time for the players and trying to get them into playing shape. But, it also cut down on the time I had to not only shoot practice but to get mug shots. Because of less times the teams had to practice most of the schools I went to who were normally in the middle of their break were either in the middle of practice (luckily most were kind enough to work in mug shots during a water break or take a few minutes from practice to shoot mugs) or were already finished. One school was done and players were about to leave and the coach had to stop them from leaving. Luckily, only one school had to be rescheduled and only one was missed. That's about par for the way things happen every year. I even was able to make a few decent frames and work some nice early morning light.

Crop Dustin...

This was one of those stories I've been wanting to shoot for a couple years, but haven't been able to find someone to shoot. I tried contacting a crop duster about 5 or 6 years ago but at the time his plane was out of commission, and other times they didn't have anything to work on. This time for my photo column I figured someone with an interesting job would be great for Labor Day weekend. It made for a really cool story and I learned a lot about the business and potential problems faced. The biggest problem was getting up at 5:30 to make an hour-long drive to Haskell to meet the pilot at the airport at 7am. As I've said many times before... I'm NOT a morning person. But I'm glad I did it, my only regret being that I didn't have more time. He only made one flight and the field he was spraying was far enough away that I wouldn't get there in time to shoot him spraying before he was done. But otherwise, it was really cool. You can read the story I wrote here.

It's That Football Time of Year Again...

The weather this summer has been pretty mild, however, football practice started on August 2. That's pretty much a surefire way for the temperatures to shoot over 100. On the first day the thermometer, according to one of the banks I passed, topped out at 107! And, of course, I was spending everyday out shooting football mugs and squeezing in practice photos, web videos, and shooting football tab cover shots (more on that later).

This has become a yearly thing. The first four days of preseason practice is spent driving all over the area shooting mug shots of every 11-man football player in the area. Not a whole lot of fun. Luckily I get to shoot some practice photos in between mugs. That's the fun part. If not for that it's would be an insanely boring and long week.

Helicopter Swine Eradication...

These are photos I shot last week for a story about feral hog eradication. These guys are doing it a little different, they are shooting them from helicopters. Now before anyone decides that this is inhumane, I'll say this, feral hogs in west Texas are a major nuisance, they destroy crops and can do serious damage to cars if they get hit. Not to mention they are mean as hell. These aren't the Arnold Ziffle, pigs from Green Acres they're shooting. These are mean hogs that will kill you and eat you given the chance. Not to mention a pack of 5 or 10 can literally ruin a couple of acres of crops in one night.

So, I went out early one morning and wasn't able to get a whole lot done. About half way through I got called back to the office because there were a number of afternoon assignments that needed to get done and no one to do them. That actually worked out well. Being out there Monday was more like a circus than anything. There was a film crew there doing a documentary about the project as well as a Lubbock TV station doing a story, plus us and a guy who was coming up to take all the hogs killed that day to process them to feed the hungry. Tuesday was a lot more laid back, it was just me with the film crew, who were a lot of fun to hang out with, and the helicopter crews. I was able to get some better stuff too since some of the fields they were shooting hogs in were close enough to the road that I could get some shots of the hogs being shot from the helicopters, albeit with a really long lens. I was using my 400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter and I still had to crop into the photos. Then again I'd rather shoot it with a long lens since there are bullets and mean pigs flying and running around!

Actual hunting of hogs is legal, and there are no limits on the number that are allowed to be shot. However, hunting them from helicopters is illegal. The way these guys get around it is a number of farmers in Haskell County have banded together to pay to have the hogs eradicated. They keep a record of all of the hogs shot and where. It's really pretty incredible to see how good a shot these guys are being able to shoot a pig running around and changing directions quickly while shooting from a moving helicopter. And while I had to get up before the sun came up two days in a row it was really worth it to be able to experience this.

The beginning of Fall...

Well, at least sort of. Fall is football season, my favorite time of the year. Sadly the start of the cool weather part of Fall is still a few weeks away. But hot weather won't delay the start of football. The first Monday in August is the official start of football season around here. It is when the majority of football teams are allowed to have their first practices of the year. It also means I'm about to be busy as hell for the next two weeks putting together our annual football section.

This year's section is 8 pages smaller than last year's... only 144 pages! Many of the photos are file photos from the previous season which requires me to go through thousands of photos from last year. But the other part of it is mug shots. We shoot mug shots of every 11-man football player we cover. There are a few reasons for this. Often it is the only time we get out to cover a lot of these schools. It also gives us the chance to go to every school and talk to the coaches. We do a video interview of the coach and a player for the web and, if we have time, shoot some practice photos. At the end of the first week I put together a photo page to go with

This year I logged a little over 1,800 miles of driving going to all of these schools over a two-week period. I'm not even going to take a guess at how many gallons of sweat I had pour out of me. By the end of the week a lot of the kids talk about how much they are tired of hitting each other and ready for the real games to start. I know how they feel, after the first week, I'm tired of shooting practices and ready for the actual games. The problem is I usually still have another week of shooting practice then then scrimmages after that... just like them.