Monkey Business!!

Well today was Halloween, so we took Evan trick-or-treating for the first time. He had a blast, though I think he preferred handing out the candy to everyone who came by in search of some once we got back home.





Happy Halloween!

A Nice Surprise!

I woke up this morning and made my usual morning web stops: app.com, weather.com, a couple of blogs that I read regularly, and then sportsshooter.com... and much to my surprise, my Breeders' Cup gallery was being featured, right on sportsshooter's masthead!





Man do I love my job!

Breeders' Cup (Day 2)

Mud! Mud mixed with horse poop! And I was lying in it! Woo!

First though, yesterday I promised a photo of the tunnel leading to the photo workroom, so here it is...




Like I said, we're in the basement, out of sight from the rest of the world. I should have grabbed a shot of the press room the writers were in. Aside from the catering, they had a direct window to the paddock area... So, for a different angle, I took a shot from there...



Walk ten feet out of the writers' press room in the other direction, and you've got a perfect view of the track. This photo (taken from right outside the writers' press room) shows a line of photographers waiting for the "walkback" photo, which is literally when the winning horse walks back along the track and into the winner's circle. Notice where they're all standing. And I wore sneakers yesterday!!



Here are bunch more photos. (Hey, it's late and I'm tired. If you want or need more of an explanation than that, e-mail me or leave a comment here!)








And finally some shots from the final race of the day, the $5,000,000 Breeders' Cup Classic - Powered by Dodge!







Hope you've enjoyed seeing the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. That's all for now. Goodnight.

Breeders' Cup (Day 1)

Day one of Breeders' Cup weekend at Monmouth Park was a wet one. Not just rain, but mud, too. To photograph the turf races, the photographers have to walk across the dirt track (mud track) to the rail of the turf track. I was unprepared. My new sneakers are probably toast. But man was it fun! (On my way home I stopped at an Eastern Mountain Sports (Right on Route 35 in Eatontown, directly on my way home! Well done!) and picked up waterproof boots and pants covers... watch tomorrow be 70 degrees and sunny. The forecast does call for more wind and rain, though.) So here are some images.

(The first image is the start of the last race. It was so dark by post-time (I was shooting 1/500 at f2.8 at ISO 1000) so I figured at the start of the race I'd take the slower shutter speed to an extreme and see what happened. It actually ended up being my favorite shot from the entire day.)










The next image is of the photo dungeon, or workroom, they have us set up in. It's funny, the press box for the writers is a large, beautiful, catered affair, all the way at the top of the grandstand, and we photographers are hidden away in the basement (I'll take some shots of the path we have to take to get there tomorrow) and given box lunches. I kid you not. Box lunches. And when I put my bag down (as much a cliche as this sounds, I swear I'm not making it up) a roach scurried out from beneath it... Needless to say, I dined with our writers. :)




On our way out the rain got even harder, so I grabbed another shot just for fun.





Weather.com says more of the same for tomorrow. At least tomorrow I'll be prepared.

Have I Forgotten How to Count?

What a bizarre night.

Three still comes after two, which still comes after one, right? OK, just checking... I'll get back to that later, but let me start at the beginning.

Tonight Bon Jovi opened the Prudential Center in Newark. It's the first event ever held there. (This is what the Center, nicknamed "The Rock," looks like.)







So my orders are pretty straightforward. Red carpet at 5, The opening band, My Chemical Romance, at 7:15 and Bon Jovi at 8:30. Easy enough.

First of all, being on the red carpet at 5 meant missing the grand opening ceremony of the Prudential Center. Our coverage was being coordinated by our entertainment department, not our news department, so I didn't even know there was a grand opening ceremony. It was a kind of big deal, too, because there was speculation that Governor Corzine wasn't welcome at the ceremony, which obviously wasn't true, since he participated in the festivities.

So there I am on the red carpet, and the list of celebrities is less than impressive. Forget A-list, these guys barely make D-list. Newark Mayor Cory Booker? He's a red carpet celebrity? Aida Turturro? That's the best "Soprano" they could muster up? I don't even know who the third person is, but the paparazzi told me she's on Law and Order. --shrug--





Then out of nowhere, a car blew up in the parking lot. No, really!






It's not an area my paper covers at all (let's face it, I was there only for Bon Jovi) so I grabbed a few shots for myself and went back, just in time to be escorted into the arena for the My Chemical Romance performance.









Came out of that with some good stuff, sent it from the media workroom along with some of the red carpet stuff, and called my editor to check in. Turns out no one told her to expect anything from the red carpet. (Translation: I was wasting my time there.)

Then we were escorted back in for the main act, Bon Jovi. Before Bon Jovi took the stage, though, I ended up getting my shots of Corzine, who was sitting smack in the middle of the fifth row. Nothing great, but at least I got him in case we needed it. He appears to be checking out the lay of the land inside his state's newest arena.







But back to the matter at hand. We were told we'd get to shoot the first three songs. The first song was "Lost Highway," the title of his world tour and a song I'd never heard before. Then he went into "You Give Love a Bad Name." Finally, something of a vintage I'm more familiar with. Then he launched into a monologue, "I'm the Jersey Devil and this is my new house." Then... well, then I don't know what he played next, because the photographers were escorted out during his monologue. The monologue that followed his second song. We were assured we would be shooting the first three songs, but as he played the first few chords of the third song, we found ourselves being herded up and chased out the tunnel into the bowels of the arena. Here's what I got during the two songs...

















As I type this, FOX 5 News is showing the ribbon cutting ceremony that I missed for the useless red carpet garbage.

Anyway, I got what I needed as far as photos, but all around the night just kept getting weirder and weirder as it went on.

Tomorrow: Breeders' Cup. Take care!

Monmouth Park

Monmouth Park opened today, to get two days of racing in before hosting the Breeders' Cup. I guess they want a couple of test runs before they're in the national spotlight. Anyway, it was a rainy, gloomy day today, and not many fans showed up. This is what it looked like. Enjoy.

(The first image was shot from the backstretch, to show the grandstand in the background. Admittedly, it will look much better on Friday and Saturday when there are actually people in the stands....)

Getting Ready

Today was the Post Position Draw Press Conference for the Breeders' Cup World Championship at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, NJ. Here are a few of the trainers following the press conference, talking with the media about their draws.

Todd Pletcher

Greg Gilchrist

Following the press conference, our reporters scurried about the track to find local-angle, feature-type stories to bring the whole national thing home to our Monmouth and Ocean county readers. One of our four reporters found this man, Monmouth Park's "Color Man," who's in charge of all of the jockeys' silks for all races at Monmouth. He is, indeed, a colorful character, as his nickname, "Louie the Color Man," implies.




The next few days for me will be very long, very exciting, and hopefully very rewarding. Tomorrow, Monmouth Park opens for non-Breeders' Cup races, to make sure everything is running smoothly for Friday's and Saturday's festivities. I've got a press conference in the morning, then a few hours to just roam around making pretty feature-type images of horse racing at the "new" Monmouth Park.

Thursday night I'm shooting Bon Jovi as he opens the new arena in Newark. Three songs and out, standard fare.

Then Friday and Saturday I'll be back to all Breeders' Cup coverage. Should be fun. Should wear me out. Good thing I'll be on vacation with my family in two weeks. I'm gonna need it.