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 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!

More Video!

I guess I'm getting better. At least this time I got the video onto the website without a hitch. (I was still at the office until 2AM though.) It's another football "Rally Cast," and a lot of the action shots are shaky, at best. Still, I definitely see some improvement over last time, and that's all I can ask for, right? Anyway, here's the link, and please, let me know what you think! That's what the comments area is for!!

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070921/VIDEO03/309210010
(Note: I don't know if app.com is still having compatibility issues, but your best bet for seeing the video is on a MAC using FIREFOX. Good luck!)