Eli's Lousy Day

Vikings 41, Giants 17. What more is there to say? Eli Manning was picked off four times, three of which were returned for touchdowns. And I was in the wrong place for all of them. Why? I'm glad you asked...

When shooting a game alone, I always try to position myself on the Giants' offensive side of the ball. This way, when (if) the Giants score, they'll generally be coming right at me. Sounds like a good enough plan, but when there's a big interception, there's really nothing I can do. I can only watch helplessly as the play goes away from me, like this one, the first interception by Darren Sharper (42) that resulted in a TD.



I suppose after the second pick-six I could've switched sides and attempted to show the Giants' (and particularly Eli's) ineptitude, but I opted to try for something positive, and got burned. Besides, what's that old adage? Had I moved to the other side, the Giants would finally have started to play well, and I'd have missed that too. Like I said, I was shooting alone and it's a big field. Sometimes the plays come at me, and sometimes they don't. Not really much I can do about it.

So, failing to get any of the big Vikings plays, I basically stayed attached to Eli for the entire fourth quarter, looking for reaction shots more than action shots. I came away with a collection of images that perfectly described Eli's day, so even though I didn't have the big plays, I did end up with some pretty good story-telling shots. Here they are. Enjoy.

Giving Thanks

This photo was taken on Thanksgiving, 11/22/07. Evan's playing with Poppy (Staci's father) after Thanksgiving dinner.


It's moments like these that I'm most thankful for. I make my living capturing other people's moments, but nothing means as much to me as the time I spend with my own family. Staci, Evan, Mocha, I love you!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Contest Time? Already??

So my boss is now asking for clips from 2007 for contest time. Our paper enters only one contest, but does so every year. The rest of the contests are at the photographers' discretion. Anyway, this one contest has a rule (as do some, but by no means most) that the images must have appeared in the paper. (Online galleries do not count.) So I've been going through my files looking for clips, and just about anything I'd consider for contest time, well, never ran. Here are nine images (some of which you've seen here before) that I'd love to enter, but can't. I know contests basically mean nothing, but it would've been nice to at least have that opportunity.

My Week in Sports

Some high school sports action from the past week. Enjoy!

Below is some state semifinal soccer in a dense fog (from Tuesday). I absolutely love it when the weather plays a role in my sports photography... fog, rain, snow, whatever. When I can get a "now there's something you don't see every day" kind of response, it always makes shooting more fun, albeit a bit uncomfortable.



Next, (from today, Saturday) a fumble on the opening kickoff that pretty much set the tone in an otherwise boring 39-7 game. At least the team I was there to follow (the green team in the photo) was on the winning end...



My team also won my second game of the afternoon, a state championship girls soccer game that went into sudden-death (which the NJSIAA refers to as "sudden victory," what a load of hooey) double-overtime before finally being decided, roughly five minutes before it would have ended in a tie. I think ties are stupid, so I'm glad someone (and even more glad that it was the team I was there to cover) won. The girl prominent in the photo also happens to have scored both of the team's goals, too.



You can also check out a Friday night football video I did, here. I think I'm getting the hang of it, but I'd still much rather shoot stills if given the choice.

Alas, speaking of things I'd much rather do, I won't be shooting the high school football state championship games this year, as the powers that be are sending me to Orlando (yes, that Orlando) to shoot the 40-some-odd local Pop Warner cheer teams that will be competing in the national competition at Disney during the same weekend. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Really. Can you tell?

Vacation Pictures

Out on the town in Santa Barbara.

Evan playing peek-a-boo with the camera!

In Alan's backyard.

In Alan's front hallway.

A kiss for mommy.

On the beach in Santa Barbara.

Feeding a giraffe at the zoo!

My brother, Alan, at Longboards in Santa Barbara.

Evan plays with bowling balls at Zodo's in Goleta.

Saw this street scene while shopping in Santa Barbara.

On the beach again, Santa Barbara.

...and now, back to reality.

Long Trip Home

So our vacation ended with a bang (no, not literally) thanks to Virgin America. I'm really too tired to blog right now, and head back to work tomorrow, so I'll save the story for another day, once I've hopefully caught up to my jet lag. Let's just say that any time we end up out on the tarmac at JFK at sunrise on a 35 degree morning ... well, it's not a good thing. Got two pretty pictures though...

Still on Vacation!

Vacation!

Santa Barbara, CA. Evan chases the birds on the beach!

Vacation Can't Come Soon Enough!

So this morning I get a call from the PAD (I'm still not even sure what this stands for, Photo Assignment Desk maybe? Photo Assignment Director? Whatever, it's the person who schedules all of the day's assignments) telling me that my 2:00 sports portrait and 7:00 high school play have been reassigned to other photographers because I would be doing video of the very same high school play.

The play is controversial, and has been for some time. When the school's drama club took their plans for the play to their principal, they were shot down immediately, on the grounds that the play was too racy. They, and the community, made a big first amendment stink (and rightly so), and so their play finally opened tonight.

It's not like we haven't had months of notice on this... I can't figure out why the photo department only found out this morning at around 10am that we'd need to shoot a video of this. That meant going there on the night of the play and interviewing cast and crew and faculty advisers, something that would have been much better accomplished in the days leading up to opening night. But here I was, showing up backstage an hour and a half before curtain and the director gave me himself and three of his student thespians to interview. Very accommodating.

I had to leave at intermission so that the video could be finished by midnight... Deadlines and all... My problem, and I didn't realize this until I'd started editing, is that none of the actors I'd interviewed had any sort of significant role in the first half of the play! So now I'm stuck with interviews of kids I have no "action" shots of.

This is how it ended up:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071101/VIDEO01/71101066

Tomorrow's my last day of work before heading out on a much needed vacation. We're going to visit my brother, and it couldn't have come at a better time. I was already anticipating a let-down following Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and the Breeders' Cup, but to add video on top of it, well, that's really just adding insult to injury. Like I said, this vacation couldn't have come at a better time.

Be back soon. Be good while I'm gone!