Gridiron gang

We are well underway into football season and every Friday brings us to peter B. Kyne field for the game of the week. I usually shoot the sophomore game and the occasional youth football game on the weekends. The trick to shooting football is to shoot with as long a focal length lens as you can, get as close to the action as you can and shoot with as wide-open aperture as you can. The trick is to isolate the action against a pleasingly out of focus background. When the action is just right and your timing is good the picture tells the story of the gridiron battles.

Detail shot

It is pretty hard to give a sense of speed in a picture when someone is standing still. That was my predicament when I was assigned to photograph Norman Way and his Pitts S1-S biplane he raced to a second place finish at the Reno National Championship air races.

There are only so many ways to photograph the pilot and his planes but I think the best shot was detail picture of his instrument panel. Taped in the middle was a hand written note by his daughter telling him to what do on the race course. I really think that picture more than any other tells the story.

Technological terrors

I walked in the editor’s office and was shocked to discover she had become one of Them. Attached to her ear like some alien wildlife tag was a Bluetooth earpiece for her iPhone.

It’s funny how new technologies keep creeping into the workplace. My Mac Book Pro sports a Bluetooth wireless mouse, digital cameras have options to allow for Wi-Fi downloading and even the latest iPod has options for web browsing while you sip your coffee at Starbucks.

I don’t have an iPod touch, I still download my pictures with a memory card reader and I don’t want to look like I am receiving signals from the alien mothership while I walk around downtown Tracy. Now if they ever invent a wireless coffee maker that allows me to pour my coffee while I am still in bed I’ll be all over that.

Eyeball to eyeball

This is for all those people out there that think I only take evil pictures of cats.

Bunker buster

Now when I think about a bunker buster usually an image of a GBU-28 5,000 pound bomb hurtling toward a cement bunker comes to mind. But actually it is closer to a sand wedge whacking away at a Titleist golf ball. There’s nothing like a bunker shot to spruce up a sports page.

Boxed in

Yeah I’m not sure what’s going in there either.

Running along

I have shot a lot of races this year and somewhere along the way they all start to look the same. I tried to get a little artsy with this marathon race and the low angle and backlighting make for artistic stride.

Newsreel

You know this idea sounds familiar, I just can't remember where I have seen it before...

All the news that's fit to print

Sunset winds

I went out looking for the harvest moon with a fellow photographer today around the windmills in the Altamont Pass. A thin cloud layer disappointed us but gave some nice sunset views.

Smoke gets in your eyes

On assignment to a new hookah bar opening in Tracy I was offered the opportunity to puff on a peach flavored pipe. Now my only vice is coffee so I declined but was able to snap a few photos of the reporter as she tried the pipe for the story. The sacrifices we make in the name of journalism.

Never a dull day

After a couple of days sitting in a jury room at the county courthouse I was starting to get cabin fever. Sure I snatched a couple of assignments in the evening after my jury duty but I was out of the loop, in a rut and worst of all, not shooting enough.

Back to the paper today I was reminded never a dull day, no two days are the same. The morning found me at a prayer service at sunrise at Tracy High School as they joined in the national event.

Later in the morning I walked the mean streets of Deuel Vocational Institution’s lifer wing for a story on a race integration program.

Finish it off in the afternoon with a cute photo of kids playing in the park and it makes for a well-rounded day. Any day shooting is better than being stuck in a jury waiting room. I can’t imagine what the rest of the week will bring.

A different view

Change is good and it always helps to look for a different view of the same subject. It helps to give the reader a change of view from the same old assignments day to day.

Shooting a volleyball game at Tracy High I looked to change things up. I got the usual shot at the net but was looking for a unique angle. I climbed the bleachers and shot the net looking down from as high a vantage point as I could. I like the perspective and it made for a clean background.

Not all the action takes place on the court. A rowdy cheering section made their way into the gym and a tight shot of them in action was a different look at the game, on and off the court.

In the line of fire

You would think that standing near youngsters with a squirt gun would be more risky that photographing someone throwing a football but guess again. Shooting a school carnival I was comfortably out of water gun range shooting with my 300 mm lens for a pleasantly soft background and dry camera.

Shooting the football game that voice inside my head urged me to try something different, something stupid and shoot from behind the opening they were throwing at with a wide-angle lens. Great idea, the ball just missed my camera by inches.

Truth in advertising

I swear I have had this conversation before.