Busy Day, Morning Edition...

Last Friday was a busy day. It started out with me going to Snyder to cover Wylie's volleyball team playing Springtown in the semifinals of the region I-3A tournament. This was going to be one of their toughest tests of the playoffs so far. Springtown had some big hitters up front and had dropped down from Class 4A where they were a pretty good program. Plus, Wylie had been ranked #1 in Class 3A all season so, they had they've had a target on their back all season.

The match started out with Wylie jumping out to a quick lead and they ended up winning the first game pretty easily. The next two game Springtown played a lot better but Wylie's biggest strength during their last three years has been the lack of mistakes they've made and the great setting and passing they have. That was the difference between them and Springtown was the superior setting, putting the ball right where it needed to be and fooling the big blockers up front.

The Coliseum in Snyder is a really great place to shoot volleyball in comparison to some of these dark gyms I've been shooting in for most of the season. For one, it has really nice light, a big improvement over most high school gyms. The other thing I like is the stands are really high, looking down on the court. This makes for clean backgrounds and a fresh look on things from what I've shot most of the year. Another thing I really like about shooting in there is the east side of the court is draped from floor to ceiling with a black curtain. It make for just perfect black backgrounds. It's not often I can shoot a whole volleyball match, or any event, and be able to totally control my backgrounds. It's a nice change.

On a Foggy, Rainy Night...

If you live in Texas you can probably skip this paragraph... Rain is rare here, and on football weekends I sometimes wonder if Texans and God have a deal that in return for this awful drought, the few time it will actually rain will not be on Friday nights. It's been at least four years since I've shot Friday night football in the rain (there was one game two years ago that go cancelled because of lightning, but I never actually got rained on.

So, when I saw the forecast of 80% chance of rain on Friday night, I was hoping for the 20% to happen at least for a couple hours until the game ended, after that... by all means, please, rain cats and dogs! I didn't get my wish, but at least it didn't rain that hard during the game. I was shooting Cisco playing Holliday in Springtown. On paper, this game was going to be as tough as last week when Cisco upset the defending state champs from Idalou. Obviously, last week, paper was wrong. This week though, it was spot on.

Holliday came out pretty aggressive trying to set the tone of the game. Going for it on fourth down and failing on their first drive. Then Cisco took over and pounded the ball down their throat and a long touchdown run for the first touchdown. That was as close as things got the whole game. Cisco owned this game and showed no signs of a hangover from their big win the week before. Holliday was clearly overmatched and Cisco played the game strictly business. And the rain, luckily, never came down really hard, just kind of drizzling the whole game, plus it was really foggy, which actually worked things out really well, giving me this surreal looking light, coupled with really good stadium lights, that made for a few decent photos, plus the long runs made it easier to read Cisco's option attack that I had so many problems with the week before.