State Track, Day 2...

After what seemed like a brief nap after four total hours of rain delays the day before it was time for day two of state track and this was supposed to be the long day. In the past Class 5A was all by themselves for the Saturday night meet in Austin. This year though after splitting Class 1A into two divisions they added the 3A meet with the 5A. The problem with this is it used to be that we usually only had one or two races to shoot on Saturday night and I was usually done fairly early on Saturday to make up foe the 12-15 hour day before. Not this year.

We had to get there early on Saturday for the field events, plus the 1A Div. I and 2A running events in the afternoon session. Once again it was an afternoon of a lot of shooting and not much time to edit. At least this time I had more time to edit photos and I had all my 1A and 2A photos sent before the 3A/5A session started. It also gave me time to edit a lot of the slideshow photos from earlier, giving me less work to do on the other end.

The bulk of the really good athletes for us are in Class 1A and 2A. So many of the races I was shooting in the evening session weren't going to change a whole lot of what needed to make the newspaper. Also, there weren't near as many people to cover. I even had a few breaks with as much as 30 minutes between the races I needed to shoot. I made sure to take full advantage of this running to the tent to edit and send photos when needed. Saturday seemed to go by a lot smoother. Maybe because of the weather delays the night before screwing things up. Either way, I ended up having more photos, mostly because of more athletes and more events, but things seemed to go a heck of a lot smoother.

State Track Day 1...

Like a lot of the UIL events this year things got changed around this year for state track too. Class 1A got split into two different divisions. Division I was doing some of their field events on the first day but the running events were being run on Saturday. Division II, which was had a ton of teams that we cover was all being run on Friday, all the field events as well as the running in the evening session. This not only made for a really long day, but also, very little time to sit down and edit photos between events. Since I had someone in almost every one of the Div. II events. To add to that there was a 2 hour delay in the morning to open things because of a thunderstorm.

The delay put all of the field events on a rolling schedule which meant I didn't have any time to run to the tent to edit. So, I spent most of my dinner break editing photos instead of eating (not that it would hurt me to miss a meal or 6). By the time the running events started I was still a little behind with no photos sent. Part of this is I didn't want something put on the page in case I got something I liked better or it fit with the story being written. In the back of my head I was thinking to myself that a rain delay wouldn't be the worst thing to happen. However, I didn't want the two hour rain delay that we eventually got.

The second rain delay really threw things off. The one good thing that did come out of it was I was able to get pretty caught up with a lot of the photos I already had. Plus I was able to send a bunch of photos with the possibility of getting more. After the rain delay I would shoot a few events and if I wasn't trying to edit in camera I was running up and editing between the 1A events I was shooting (the Class 4A meet was going on too and we have no 4A schools that we cover), or I was shooting an event from the top of the stands in the tent as my photos were moving or downloading a card. It wasn't the ideal situation and made for a damn long day, but it had to be done. It's a good thing I enjoy shooting track... and it's happening again, so I got to go back to the hotel for a nap before starting over again.

Track Warmup...

The Oliver Jackson twilight meet used to be a pretty big track meet. It used to bring in quite a few good track programs all trying to get their athletes some good times in some of the last meets before nationals. So, there were usually some really good races and event with everyone going all out to make a last attempt to qualify for the national meets. Just a few years ago there used to be full races and prelims in the afternoon, before some really good finals races in the evening. Now, though, some of the races hardly fill half the lanes on the track.

I had to shoot one of the ACU hammer throwers for a feature we were doing about him. Then just a few standalone shots for the next day's newspaper. The good thing about this meet is with so few people there I can shoot from just about anywhere on the track without catching a whole lot of guff about being in folks' ways or bothering anyone else. I also used it as a last-minute warmup for myself before heading to Austin for the state high school meet. So, despite a lack of participants in the meet I ended up getting a few nice images as well as a good warmup for the upcoming weekend.

Regional Track, Day 2...

The second day of regional track started early. I had to shoot a couple of the early field events before the running started in the afternoon. The good part about this was I'd be able to edit all the field event photos before the running got started, less to do after the meet ended. And since I had a 150 mile drive home afterwards everything I could do to save time was a good thing.

Normally there is a little bit of emotion at the end of some of the races, but the people who are expected to win their races aren't much for celebration. Either they were expecting to win anyway or have been to state already, etc. So, the few times there are nice celebrations at the end of races I make sure not to miss the shot. When it's a local kid doing the celebration I get pretty excited, mostly because I have the chance to make a nice image. So, when the Abilene High kid in the 800m made up a lot of ground after getting boxed in and moved from 7th place to 2nd in the last 300 meters there was a great celebration after he qualified for state for the first time.

Regional Track, Day 1...

I covered the Region I-3A and 5A track meets in Lubbock for the last couple of years now. It's a lot different from the state track meet in a lot of different ways. The biggest is there are both prelims and finals races over two days, at state, it's just finals. So, the first days is pretty nuts and bolts. There isn't a whole lot of emotions, mostly because even if you win your prelim race you still have to come back tomorrow and race again to make it to state. It often is time spent trying to figure out ways to make nice photos and stay creative. The one nice thing that I did have added over the last few track meets I shot, were field events. So, that was a nice change.

Another difference from past years is both the 3A and 5A meets were being combined instead of afternoon and evening sessions. This made things a lot easier for the deadlines since by the late session I was usually trying to edit from the earlier session and the late session both at the same time and send photos all at once. It made for a late night followed by an early morning. This time, though, I was finished and had everything sent by 9pm. In years past the late session was just getting finished at that time and made it for only a 12 hour day instead of 16. That helped a lot the next day.

District Track...

It's never been a secret how much I've enjoyed shooting track. The last few year, though the only meets I've been able to shoot have been the regional and state meets. And, while those are usually the best ones photo-wise, it's always nice to get a little practice in beforehand. So, I got sent down to shoot the District 2-5A meet in San Angelo. I've only been tot he Angelo State track a few times, but have always liked it. The track is sunken into the ground so there are some nice high angles to shoot from.

I only shot the last day of the meet which was just the running finals, all the field events had finished the day before. They also had the whole JV meet at the same time of the varsity finals. At first it seemed like it was just dragging the meet out longer. But, there towards the end it made for some nice time to be able to download and edit my photos, so hopefully I wouldn't be there all night. So, between 2 heats of the JV boys and girls 1,600m runs and mile relays, I was able to get most of my photos edited and cropped and toned. So, at the end I only had two races to edit and then caption photos and send. It made life a lot easier, though the track meet ending an hour earlier may have done all the same things.

Pint Sized Tracksters...

My first weekend back from vacation I got assigned to shoot the Texas Amateur Athletic Federation Region 8 track meet being held here in Abilene. It's kind of fun sometimes to see the kids on their ways up to becoming good or great athletes. It's also kind of fun to see the slightly unrefined way of doing things kids at this level are as opposed to even the high school levels. Such as leaping over the hurdles instead of gliding just over the top of them. Or, the 8 & under relay teams that haven't quite gotten down the running pass. It was a lot of fun to shoot and a nice change from shooting high level athletes for once, but still seeing the kids giving everything they've got.