Busy Day Evening Edition...

So, after finishing up at volleyball I needed to hop in my car and quickly make the 90 mile trip back to Abilene to shoot Wylie's final regular season football game of the season. They were playing Sweetwater in a game that probably wasn't going to be close so showing up last wasn't going to work. I ended up getting to the game about 15 minutes before kickoff which gave me just enough time to fight through the traffic and drop my computer off in the press box and be on the field for kickoff.

The game wasn't that bad, but it was obvious early on that Sweetwater was over matched. Wylie is just damn good this year. In the first half though Sweetwater had a good game plan and was keeping things from getting totally out of hand. But, in the second half the Bulldogs blew things wide open and left no doubt who was the district champions.

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.

A Baseball Game and Softball Boredom...

On Friday, two of my assignments were the crosstown baseball game here in town and a softball game in Sweetwater between Brownwood and Sweetwater, with the winner taking the district 5-3A title.

The first game, the crosstown game, went pretty quick and I was able to stay for most of the game. The problem was the parts I was there for weren't nearly as exciting as I'd have liked them to be. I got a few decent shots, but while I was there just didn't have a whole lot of action going on. The one shot I really did like of the cooper player diving to pull in a ball, I couldn't use since Abilene High ended up winning the game. Oh well, that's part of the problem with baseball, when the pitchers throw too well, the photos tend to take a backseat, along with the offense.

For the softball game in Sweetwater, Brownwood took control of things early and the game was never close. The Lady Lions ended up winning the game, and while there was a lot more offense and action than the baseball game earlier, I ended up getting kind of bored towards the end of the game. Maybe it was because I'd shot 13 innings of baseball/softball that day, maybe it was the total number of games I'd shot over the last few weeks. Either way, when boredom sets in I tend to try and have a little fun with things. On Friday, my cure for boredom was playing around a little with slow shutter speeds and the pitcher. At first I was just dragging the shutter a little to her the motion of her arm, but I didn't like that all that much. I kept leaving it open a little longer and following the pitcher's motion. I got close with the photo, I ended up shooting the top shot at 1/2 a second and at f/22. I'm not totally thrilled with the shot, but I think it's a good start, I wish I could have popped a little flash to bring out her face just a little bit and more importantly the spin of the ball. Oh well, it got me through the game, maybe next time.

Praying for Hailey...

A couple of weeks ago, 13-year-old Hailey Dunn went missing in Colorado City, about 70 miles west of here. When it was originally reported we didn't do a whole lot on the story. The local police in Colorado City were treating her case as a runaway. However, after a week, it was looking a little different and started picking up national headlines. We had a reporter and photographer staying in Colorado City the whole week. By Sunday, we had a photog working things in that area, but there was another prayer service in Sweetwater that I had to go shoot. I was told it was going to be a candle light vigil, however, it was happening at 5pm, when there's still light out. It turned out to be a prayer service. That was fine, but I had to figure out how I was going to shoot it. All of the people participating ended up holding hands in a giant circle in the parking lot of the church. It made it kind of nice the sun was going down and I just followed the light around. At the end, they had a balloon release, by that time the sun had almost set, so I figured I'd work out the silhouettes, since that's about all the light I had left. It worked out pretty nicely considering how somber the situation was.

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.

State Track Day 2, Sweet Irony!!

Sometimes it feels like I spend almost as much time arguing with/getting yelled at by officials as I do actually doing my job. It never fails, every year at the state track meet there is at least one bitter old man who wants to feel important so he makes it a point to yell at the media every chance he can get. Now, let me say I think the Texas state track meet may be one of the best run track meets in the country and it's an event I look forward to shooting every year, however, these bitter old officials can be done without!

This year's state track meet was no different. Despite the UIL officials telling all these guys every year NOT to harass the media, there is at least one guy who feels the need to "enforce the rules" the way he sees fit. So, when I was shooting the Class 3A triple jump, the little bit of sweet irony of a kid running down the runway to the pit and seeing a buffoon walking across the runway at just that time first made me do a double-take, then I had to check my camera to make sure that what I thought just happened really did! Then, just to triple check, I checked with the photog next to me to see if he saw it too. After all that we kind of got a laugh at the irony of the situation. The kid looked confused, the coach was a little more pissed, and rightfully so! If any member of the media did something so stupid we would get thrown out of the meet, no questions asked! Of course since this is an official it's just swept under the rug and the kid gets a redo. I'd like to know what would have happened had he screwed up a whole race!

Regional Track Day 2...

Day 2 of the Class 3A & 5A Regional track meets was on Tuesday and I was a little more ready for this one. I got up early (and stayed late) to get there to shoot the field events and then get the running events afterwards. In 5A most of the kids running were eliminated in the prelims, in 3A though, there were a ton still running. So it was me spending all day in the sun (and getting a nice tan line on my forehead from my hat). Overall I liked what I shot a lot better than the previous day, however, the hurdles shot from the prelims was my fave of the meet.