Draft Night

Last night I got to shoot the boring side of sports. The games are fun and I love to do that but I figure if I want to shoot as much sports as I can the NBA draft is something I needed to try and shoot and I got that chance last night. It was about as exciting as I had expected I got shots of people watching TV always fun! When I went into it I planned on getting shots of all the Jazz people at the table talking shit like that and I did that. What I did not get was Larry H. Miller he did not show until just before the Jazz made their pick and left Right after every picture I got had him putting his hand over his face the only face shot I got was this one of him blowing his nose.The best pictures proved to be the ones of the fans I had hoped for crowed shots after seeing the excitement that was the front office. Luckily in the front row was 4 experienced draft goers according to the other photographers told me they were there last year and watching them they did know how make a good picture they were making signs like in this picture.
This is one of my favorites I don’t know if it will show up on here but you can read the sign in his glasses it says “Sloan is the man”They were not only good to the print guys the TV guys also got video of them. They are true pros!One drawback to shooting the draft was I had to miss the Sports Imaging shoot. What made it sad was it was the début of Brian’s mullet. This all came about when Brian came back from his Mormon mission the first thing Brian said to his brother Cody was “I hate your hair.” Well Cody got back from his mission on Wednesday. To prepare for Cody’s return Brian has spent months growing his hair to set Cody up for the same greeting. Well with Cody back it was time to cut the hair but first Brian went with the always classy mullet. Well at the shoot someone got a test shot of the mullet and here it is in all its glory.I had to have lunch with Brian today so I could get a good look at it myself it is awesome!

GOOOAL!!! GOOOAL!!!

On Saturday after unwinding with a friendly game of disk golf with my good friend of 20 years Derek I got to go shoot Real Salt Lake soccer. This time they actually scored a goal and it was a more exciting game with 3 goals!!! To top off the day I got some good shots!

My best shots came when Eskandarian cut in from the sideline to get a shot off and I don’t know soccer but I think this should have been a foul when he got pulled down by another player, ether way it made some cool shots. I have to give Eskandarian credit for getting up without the medical staff coming out. Some players have to have them come out every time they fall it gets old, but Eskandarian did it the right way. This one makes me mad that it had to happen so early in the game because the background was so bright if they could of made this play later in the game it would be really cool looking picture.

Class overcrowding...Not so much

The assignment was simple get a picture of an overcrowded communication class for a story and Lennie told me when a class that had 59 of 60 seats filled so it should have been simple but as we all know even if the enrolment is full that does not mean the actual class room is full and man was that true in this class. Just look at this shot.

Well I’m in a lot of comm class and I know that a lot of them are way to full so I did not feel that bad about finding an angle that made this room look full. I found it on the right side of the room where as I got down I could highlight a single empty chair this was just what I needed.

Then before leaving I noticed a guy sitting on the floor in the back of the room, this made my day! To make it better there was a woman in the seat in front of him so I could put a full seat on the right side of the frame an Nikolai working on his laptop on the left. Not a bad shot I think after being scared I would get nothing when the class started.

This was just a test shot I took before the class started that I liked a lot so I just had to put it on here as well.

A Good Week, Spoiled

I have been lazy I have slacked on writing new post for the blog, except for the snowbird one. For the last month I have had stuff to write about I just have not. Now I’m going to make a better effort to make posts so I will write about last week. I had a lot to write about last week alone so I will do one post to cover it all and get all caught up.

On Monday I got to take pictures of the Utes football camp. Each kid got to have their picture taken with Utes Coach Kyle Whittingham it was the fastest I have ever shot we had an hour to take about 300 pictures but the faster the better so I took 289 pictures in about 15 minutes my arm was cramping like crazy. In the end it was really fun and got me excited about the next foot ball season.



Next I took an assignment from the paper to shoot the memorial of Charles Dwayne Wilson a professor in the collage of social work at The U. It was my first time shooting a memorial it was hard because I did not want to disrupt the proceedings but I’ve never had such a loud shutter but I liked what I got it showed the sadness in the room that day.





When I took in the pictures from the memorial I took a photo illustration to that I was proud of. One of the buildings at The U is totally green friendly so it illustrate this I took a picture of the building and then made a leaf cut out to place the building in side of it. I think it looked good but when I saw it in the paper they had added a logo of the agency that over sees the emissions of the building and I think I looked great, Thanks!

Last one was the Real Salt Lake game I got some good stuff but to get to the game was a pain I left the monopod at the Sports Imaging office so before the game I had to go back out there to get that. Once in the press box I realized the monopod was again in the car! So I got to run back a second time to get it what a pain in my ass. I got some good shots.
I even spotted Trent up in the stands. This was how exciting the game was until the second half when the teams almost came to blows on multiple occasions then in extra time when FC Dallas scored to beat Real for the second time this season. The Dallas goalie got a final laugh as the fans keep ridding him all game about how bad he was and he was going to give up so many goals it was funny until he got the trump card, SOREBORD!

This was a good week up to Friday normally Friday is a good day but in the morning I got out of bed to a phone call from my brother asking me to come to 27th west and 35th south because he had been in an accident coming home from work. So I went and he told me the ambulance was there. The accident was worse than I thought. It turns out that he got hit when making a left hand turn but what made it bad was Trav did not have his seat belt on so he hit the windshield with his head which knocked him out and according to witnesses he drove in a doughnut in the intersection after being knocked out before he stopped. We spent the day at the doctors checking out his bloody head, his swollen wrist, and bruised knees. In the end Trav is ok his head is ok his knees are only bruised and his wrist was broken. He was lucky next time he drives he should just be smart and put on a seat belt.

Tenth Time, Long Time

Last Friday I got to go shoot the summer kick off at Snowbird but the weather did not work out for the event with 10 inches of snow the day before but the event went on with only the alpine slide being closed. To start the event I got free valet parking maybe I’m a bit of a dork but that was exciting for me it was the first time I’ve ever got valet my car.

Well after talking to the PR person about the event I got to shooting to start I got a sweet shot of a zip line rider with my first shot but my location did not make it easy to get names I could not use it.

So I moved on to the trampoline where I found 6 year old Dustin he had a few good facial expressions and was slow enough I could get a lot of shots during each flip.

My best shots were o the bull it is self explanatory look at the pictures.

My favorite was Max he is the 6 year old boy in red. The shot I liked best was the one with the huge bull head with max smiling in just over the head it looks so cool I think.
After a bite to eat I thought I should head up the tram and get a few scenic shots of the snow they worked out ok I guess but it is not my strong point.

When I entered the tram building I ran into one of the new writers Jessica and her friend (I forgot her name, sorry). Listening to Jessica talk about snowboarding was so cool she was so into it I learned a lot about the sport maybe someday I will actually try it myself. Jessica is the one on the left.