Drive through window...

Stereotypes often are built on truth. And as soon as I heard the call come over the scanner that a car had run into the front of a store, I immediately knew it was an old person driving. This has actually happened more often than you would think. Usually, however, it is the library that they are treating as a drive through window. I think it's happened to either the library or the post office 3 or 4 times in the last couple of years. This time it was a department store and I was right about the age, it was an 84-year-old woman who put the new hole in the store. When I got there I made a few quick photos. While I was waiting for the reporter to get information about the accident I noticed the store manager picking up a few items of clothing. I think she only picked up 3 or 4 garments before walking away. This made the best photo, showing her working while the car was half-way in the store.

Monster Truck Madness and Horse Tryouts...

One of the things I love the most about my job is the variety of the assignments I shoot. Now, sure I love shooting football games and know I'm going to do that pretty much every Friday in the Fall. But during the week, things vary pretty often. Tuesday was the perfect example. I had to shoot tryouts for Hardin-Simmons University's six white horse team. Then after that, it was over to the Abilene Speedway to shoot monster trucks. It's tough to get much further apart on the spectrum than those.

HOLY F%&K Did that just happen?!?

Saturday, I went down to Austin for the biggest football game in the state. Texas was playing Texas Tech in a rematch of what was an awesome game last year with Tech winning on the last play of the game and effectively killing Texas' chances of playing for a national championship. The main reason, however, why I was covering the game is because both teams' quarterbacks, Taylor Potts from Texas Tech and Colt McCoy from Texas are both from Abilene. Actually, McCoy is from Tuscola, which is a "suburb" of Abilene.

The fun for me started while I was walking from the parking deck to the stadium. As I was walking I kept hearing this clicking noise, I figured it was just my cameras knocking together, then I heard this loud glass thud underneath me feet, much like that of dropping a heavy glass. Because, well, it was heavy glass! The front element of my 70-200mm lens just just fallen out! After dropping a few "F" bombs , I calmed down enough to notice, miraculously, there were no scratches on the glass! It had landed on its side. So, I screwed it back in, and other than a nice fingerprint on the inside of the glass and a few more, which I later was able to wipe down, on the front. It looked good. It even focused better. Since the damn thing had probably been coming unscrewed the last week or so! So, now that the excitement was over I was able to get in the stadium, no matter what happened after that probably wasn't going to be quite as traumatic.

I generally like to get to college football games about 3 hours before the game starts. Yes mom, there is something I actually try to get to on time, and I generally make it around that time! That way you stay a little ahead of traffic, and if it is bad, I don't feel rushed. As well as it gives me time to pick up my credentials find where I'm supposed to park, find the photo workroom, set up etc. Not to mention it gives me time to take care of other problems such as, when your lens falls apart while walking into the stadium! And with all of that I was still able to make it to the field with plenty of time to spare.

The first half of the game was about as awful as it could be. Neither team was moving the ball and the only scoring were two field goals and a punt return for a touchdown by Texas which I was on the wrong side of the field for. I made a couple of decent photos, but there just wasn't a whole lot happening as far as action or big plays went.

The second half of the game was a hell of a lot better. There were a lot of big hits, as well as some nice offensive plays. I was still on the wrong side of the field for my fair share of plays, but there was enough that I got that I wasn't totally disgusted with my shooting. One thing about memorial stadium that I don't get a lot of when shooting high school games is nice light.

The stadium lights were bright enough, in combination with my D3 allowing to crank up the ISO a little, to allow me to use not only my 1.4x teleconverter, but also the 2x. That way I could camp out in the end zone and not have to move. It helped me make a decent shot of a touchdown from the other end of the field (above).

Shooting these night games are nice, especially in Austin, because the weather gets cooler. Event though it was still hot as hell, and the humidity sucked. I can only imagine how much worse it would be for an afternoon game! But, the problem you run into is these 7pm game on national TV seem to drag on forever, especially near the end. The commercial breaks seem to take longer and I'm looking at my watch after every play hoping that I'll be able to get back to the photo room and edit and transmit my photos before deadline. Luckily with this game being so big, we were able to push back deadlines and my photos didn't have to be in until 11:45.

The drawback to that is I had to make a decision beforehand to shoot a to a horizontal hole. It turned out ok. However, I did originally have a vertical shot I was planning to send. But, I'm actually pretty I glad I sent the one I did to be used as the main photo (top). Not only was it a local kid, but I think it also sort of summed up the game with the defense being the key to the game. Although I think everyone, including me, thought the offenses were going to shine.

Taking the show on the road...

Friday night I got to go out of town to shoot Albany High School, the number-1 ranked Class A team in the state play Eastland. I've always enjoyed shooting in Albany. For a small school, Albany has really great light, probably because the lights are practically on top of the field. And, despite Albany winning rather easily 62-27, it was a really entertaining game to shoot. Albany has a big strong offensive line and executes plays great. Eastland is a passing team with a good quarterback. The problem was that Albany just pounded them. And when Eastland started to look good, they were down too much and couldn't come back.

Forgetting what it's like to win...

In April McMurry University hired Hal Mumme as their coach. Over the last 10 years McMurry's football program has been nothing short of pathetic over the last few years. McMurry was on a 14-game losing streak coming into this weekend's game. The good news for them is they were playing Austin College, one of the worst Division III schools in the country. And, with the team's new system and high profile head coach this was supposed to be the game that finally broke the streak, and they were even going to do it on their home turf.

Well, no one bothered to tell Austin College they were supposed to lose. McMurry's offense actually looked pretty good. Better than they have in a long time. They scored. Something I hadn't seen them do in a long time. The problem was, the McMurry defense couldn't do anything to keep Austin College's defense off the field. That was a problem. The new high-octane offense spent most of the game on the sidelines. In fact, I think the whole third quarter McMurry only ran three plays. Here's where the problem came. Ironically since the defense spent so much time on the field, I actually got some really nice defense photos. But, I think the two photos that summed up the game the best were the touchdown pass slipping through the players' hands and the look on Mumme's face as he watched the game from the sidelines in the fourth quarter. I have a feeling he's going to have that look on his face a lot this year.

Raining on my parade...

I'm still not a fan of most of the parades we have in Abilene since not many people come to most of them, and quite frankly they are all pretty much the same and most of the "floats" are just people riding in cars advertising what ever car dealership giving them the car to drive in the parade. The West Texas Fair & Rodeo parade still has plenty of that, but it also has a lot of bands, some actual floats, riders on horseback and most important... a decent-sized crowd.
Since it is unofficially monsoon season here and I've bitched about the rain for the last three weeks what is one more post to bitch about the rain? Actually it wasn't raining when the parade actually started. Which, I guess, was good because it didn't scare the people away. The crowd was still good. The rain did start towards the end of the parade. Which is when everybody started to break out the umbrellas. That was a good thing since most of what I had shot so far wasn't all that fantastic. And, despite all the rain that I had shot in, I didn't really have an umbrella shots. So, I figured today was the day to shoot it.

Up too early after a late night...

I've never been much of a morning person. So, there is nothing more miserable than after working till 3am on a Friday night covering football and going back to the office and building a slideshow gallery after the game to have to shoot an assignment at 8am. I think I was working on about 3 hours of sleep for this one, but it turned out a lot better than I expected. Cross country is a sport we seldom covered in the past. My personal feeling is it should be called conditioning, or more appropriately torture.
One good thing about this, was that I did find what I didn't see the night before at the football game, mud. The course had a stream running through it, that normally wouldn't be there, but since it rained there was quite a bit of runoff water running into the lake that wouldn't normally be there. I only had time to shoot two of the races before going to another assignment. When I found the spot during the first race, the group had already spread out and were on the last lap. The best shot I got from it was three guys going through the creek. So, for the high school boys race I waited there at the start of the race. The creek was only about 500 yards from the start and the lane was pretty narrow so it made the group look big. I liked it the best and the ropes made a nice line. The only thing that would have made a better shot would have been someone slipping in the mud. There were a few close calls but, sadly, no dice.