Back on the Gridiron

It's been a few weeks since I shot football. Since then, the days have gotten shorter and the game is played completely under the lights. It's much harder to shoot action on poorly lit fields.

Anyhow, here's one I liked from pre-game.

Watsu

Today I had the opportunity to photograph Watsu, which is a type of massage done in a heated pool. It's for an upcoming Sun story on emerging alternative massage therapies.

Kerry: Interrupted

I'm standing at the back of the University Auditorium. My left hand is wrapped over the top of my 400, and I'm kind of staring at the ground. John Kerry has been talking for almost 90 minutes, the last 30 of which he has occasionally stopped in order for the audience to pose a new question.
At one point in the "town hall forum," I was really listening to the senator. That doesn't happen often. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a member of the Accent security team motion for a Univeristy Police officer.

When Gen. Petraeus spoke on Capitol Hill last week, I was disgusted that several protestors disrupted the meeting. "It's happening again," I thought.

I didn't think much of the security guard's summons until I saw several other officers try to remove a student who was stationed at a microphone, center-right in the auditorium. "Better get down there," I thought.

The next 10 minutes are somewhat blurry. However, I remember the student asking Kerry a series of long-winded questions. Then he scuffled with police, who almost Tasered him at the center of the auditorium.

Officers "escorted" the student to the back of the auditorium, where he continued to aggressively resist. I wasn't able to get close to the group at that point, so I went to an elevated point of the lobby to photograph the man's evintual exit from the auditorium. I heard him scream, and I knew he had been Tased.

He was taken to an Auditorium office for several minutes until a police cruiser arrived to take the arrested student to jail. I shot the quazi-perp walk. Surprisingly, the arrested student stated and spelled his name for news photographers documenting the scene.
And to think, I was waiting for Kerry to finish so I could get a stereotypical waving shot.

Week Two Regressions

In coachspeak, a football team makes the most progress between weeks one and two. That mantra does not necessarily apply in sports photography. I was really happy with my photos from the Florida vs. WKU game.

This week, I tried shooting with a 600mm lens instead of a 400mm. I had mixed results. I shot from field level in the first quarter and from the first level of the south endzone in the second quarter. At halftime, the light had dropped too much to use the f/4 lens.
The plan was for T-U staffer Rick Wilson to shoot the first half and then edit. I would take his 400mm f/2.8 and shoot the second half. Instead, I stayed in and edited as well.
Rick and I talked a lot about sports editing and shot selection. While I'm getting nice action shots, I need to focus more on getting the key play (several of which I captured nicely). Once it comes time to edit, the key play goes first - just like when editing high school sports on deadline. It's an easy correlation to make, I just hadn't done so...

And from this point on, unless it's a very late game, I won't stop shooting at halftime - even if the score is 49-7.

Prep Football: Game Two

It's week two of high school football. Tonight I was at Citizens' Field in Gainesville for the Buchholz-Columbia County game. I wish every game was played in nice light...

Evening Golfing

A beautiful golf course and nice evening light are a great photographic combination. It was hard to pick just one picture to run as the local centerpiece for tomorrow's paper. Ultimately, the copy desk and I chose this one. It says golf without focusing on action, and it's pretty enough to work on the front.

Volleyball Sportrait

I tried a few different locations and poses before settling on this shot. It's in a back entrance/storage area of the gym. Normally I try to stay away from gels, but I think it helped in this case.

Meet Leah Leventhal, a senior outside hitter at Santa Fe High School. She'll be featured in The Sun's A to Z on Friday.

Game One in the Swamp

Here are some of the images I submitted for publication in the Florida Times-Union from the Florida-Western Kentucky game. I was disappointed it was called with 8 minutes remaining due to lightning, but there's always next week.