Final Day Revue

For the last day of the revue I took the 400 up into the balcony and it did not work well at all it did not get much at all I got one shot that was nowhere near as good as the day before.So I decided to go back to the sideline where I could get some stuff but it was a challenge this time I got some different but still cool stuff. In all the Revue was awesome and fun to do, but by the end it starts to get hard because it is a lot of games in not very much time. If I have the chance to shoot it again I will do it again.

5th day of The Revue

Ironic! That is all I have to say about this day at the Revue. After a day off (I have a post coming about that) from the Revue I was back with a new plan I took the 400 mm with me. I had wanted to shoot with the 400 but Lennie had brought the lens to me from the paper and I was glad he did that and I did not want to make him bring the 400 but with the day off I picked it up myself. My plan for the 400 was to go into the stands on the side and get above the play and shoot down on it. Well it was tough the play was too fast to fallow, and the side I was on was not getting much action. So I switch sides and then I could not see the play develop because the camera blocked it well I went back to the first side and just continued to try and get something. Then the Spurs were losing so bad that the Mav’s were not playing strong defense. With less than a minute Keith Langford got off a huge dunk. The kind I was waiting for.
Now why is this Ironic? This is now my favorite picture I have taken. There are a lot of pictures I have taken that I like but a few stick out above the rest. I don’t know how many times I’ve said this but again basketball is not my favorite sport. I don’t know why for sure but I’m just not much of a fan. The shot that always stood out before this one was also a basketball shot. I took this in high school. The camera was a film camera I had to advance myself and a lens I had to focus myself. I entered it in an art contest at Salt Lake Community College (after some encouragement from Tom Szalay the photo teacher) and got an award of merit. Later the yearbook was looking for some more photos and so it was the center picture of the 2004 West High yearbook. Even though I have tones more pictures that are probably better I liked this because of the praise it got and the camera I used it get it. It always reminds me that I don’t have to rely on auto focus or a motor drive I just have to see things coming.

Why would I be so good at shooting a sport I don’t really care for? It’s Ironic.

Day 4 @ The Revue

So it’s another day at the Rocky Mountain Revue, and today I had to try something new as I had told myself the day before. The other day I was looking at where the TV cameras were and that gave me my idea for the day. There was a TV camera on the floor at center court I thought what kind of shots would I get from there? After a little thought I was thinking that is not the best place to be and talking with Lennie about it we thought all you would get is them bringing the ball up the floor then they would have their back to me. Well I decided I would not sit at mid court but I would sit on the side down by the key. I would take a wide angel so I could get the play right in front of me and it worked out well. I got shot of this pass as the Bulls player tried to intercept it.

The only problem was I was not getting any thing for the story so I moved for the second half to make sure I got some useable shots. When I was shooting the second game, of the Spurs vs. 76ers, from the side but I did not get any plays to the side I was sitting on. So I had no shots and had to move so I could get something. I ended up getting a good dunk, and a cool pass.

Now it was time for the Jazz game vs. Kevin Durant, ok not many people were there for the Jazz ether it was a one man show. For the first time during the revue the area was packed. It had brought out all the Sonics fans and longhorn fans to see their star player. To be honest I did not think he would of as played as long as he did, but he played most the game but I was not that impressed with him but I’m not that into basketball so maybe he was better than I thought. Over hearing the writers and some fans they did not seem as impressed ether. Even with his not so impressive game it was cool to see him hear for the revue. He is by far the biggest national star I’ve got to shoot, so far.

Revue Day 3

After a nice day off (Kinda) I was back at the Revue I was excited about shooting this days games. During the games on Saturday I noticed a balcony on the west side of the court and thought that would be a good place to shoot. I saw Lennie up there during the Jazz game and he reaffirmed my thoughts of that being a good place to shoot so I wanted to get up there myself. For the first two games I did shoot from there and got some good stuff from both games.

That was fun so I thought I need to try something different each day I’m here because this is a great chance to experiment a little.

For the Jazz game I was done experimenting for the day and went back to the floor. During the first quarter of the game Tony came over and told me he wanted to do a story about the referees because they were new trying to make the NBA just like the players. So I started to watch the refs run all over the floor. I’ve got tons of ref pictures over the few months I’ve been shooting basketball, granted they were their all shots of their ass but I do have pictures of them. When I was trying to shot the ref I was getting nothing at all this was the best and I did not like it much.

So in the second half I got an idea! To do this I needed my lens that was in my bag so I ran over and grabbed it and went back to my spot on the floor did some practice shots then the first time I tried to get the ref I got exactly what I wanted.

There was a second ref but he moved a lot more when he was running so it did not turn out as well. Tony also mentioned that he was going to write about the new dancers so I had to get some shots of them, this job can be a bitch!;) I thought their hair would be on my side but most the time it just got in my way and ruined my shots.

Revue Day 2

With Mt. Olympus Kicking my ass on Friday and having to work after that I decided it would be too much to shoot day one of the Rocky Mountain Revue. So on Saturday after shooting the last day of the softball tournament for Sports Imaging I went and shot the two games at the Rocky Mountain Revue.

It was a big adjustment that I had to make from shooting the 8 and 10 year old softball, to NBA summer basketball. After the first half I was back in form and got some sweet stuff.

The Hawks were fun to shoot because I don’t fallow basketball but I’ve even heard of some of the guys playing with the Hawks like Shelden Williams, Al Horford and Acie Law and in this first game Shelden had a big game and so this picture went great with the story.

This was my favorite shot from day on it was looking like a sure dunk that was before West busted ass to get back and foul Tucker.

After that the Jazz took the floor against the 76ers and I got some ok stuff from that game nothing to great.

With so many games I’ve gotten behind on the post but the Revue has been so fun to shoot and I’ve done a lot of different things I want to separate my posts, that will take more time but I think I have to do it so next time I will write about day 3 at the Revue.

Olympian

On Friday the 13th I had to choose between two jobs, the first a tournament for Sports Imaging that I have done a ton of and I could almost take the pictures in my sleep I’ve done so many. The second job a hike up Mt. Olympus for the Chronicle. Well I found someone to replace me at Sports Imaging so I did the hike to do something new and give myself a challenge. So woke up at 4:30 in the morning got my water, food and camera ready. I would then meet up with Tony, the sports editor who was writing the story. We started on the trail at about 6:15 just as the sun started to light the few clouds in the morning sky.

Right off the bat the trail started to climb fast and I was thinking how bad is this going to get? It leveled out a bit and I started to think what kind of a picture do I need to get? I’ve never taken hiking pictures before and I’m not into hiking much so I’ve not seen much ether. Well a little ways up I got an idea of shooting feet walking up. So when one group passed us I tried to get some of their feet as they passed by but my angle was bad and shutter was to slow. Doing the hike with Tony I guessed his feet were most likely the feet I had the best chance to get but that did not look good. If I stopped to take a picture then he would stop but I wanted it to be natural to so I was not about to tell him what I was trying to do. Then we stopped to drink and someone passed us as we sat on a rock at the side of the trail and this was the perfect place to get a shoot of some ones feet the next guy came buy and I missed it my timing was bad and it looked awkward he was followed by another guy with hiking boots and a stick exactly what I needed. I got the shot and could now focus on getting the next shot.
After getting the only shot that had come to my mind I was just shooting to try and get some ideas and see how things looked with the morning light. That got me this shot of the valley floor with the shrinking shadow of Mt. Olympus covering the east side of the valley still. I’ve taken some early morning golf classes at the U and one of my favorite things about the class was to watch the sun creep across the valley. It is even better from the side of Mt. Olympus.

After passing the creek the climb got steep again and we had trees lining the trail so as we got into thicker trees I put the camera away to keep it protected and to speed my climb. I was not getting many shots any way the trees blocked too much of the view.

We reached the saddle and had a break and tried to decide if we had enough to make the last push to the top. After the break we were feeling good so we left our backpacks water and food and started up. I left the extra lens with the backpack and only took a 28 to 105mm so that I had a little variation with not much weight.

We started up and right away it got steep it was no longer like hiking, it was more like rock climbing. Then it got harder because we did not know it at the time but we had lost the trail so we were a few yards west of the trail and were on some big rocks. As I lifted myself up past a tree I could hear the sound I did not want to hear camera equipment falling down the rocks I reached for the camera it was still on my shoulder. So I look and the lens cap had fallen down and was on a rock below. I thought about going after it and tony offered to but I just wanted to keep going up.

Just after the loss of my lens cap it looked like we were stuck the rocks were too steep but Tony went around and found the trail again marked by a pink ribbon and we made it to the top. The View was amazing I wished I had a wider angle I had an 18mm in my bag but I wanted a fish eye to get as much of the valley as I could. You could see from the lake all the way to the prison that keeps Utah County at a safe distance. At the top there was another climber we talked to for a bit and also a mailbox.

The climber told us it had some notes from others that made the trip. So we read them and left our own.

We also snapped a few pics of ourselves then started the lllooooooooooooooooooooong climb down the mountain.

The climb down the rocks was slow as we tried not to fall but we took our time and got back down to our food and water safely. After another little break we got back on the trail and it was a bitch going down my legs were so tired I came close to snapping my ankle multiple time because it was hard to lift them over the rocks. The sun was out now and it was not as shady as a matter of fact the trees were so small they gave us very little shade. The only positive thing about the sun was it had brought out the butterflies which were cool but not worth the heat of the sun. The worst point was when we were about a mile away from our cars still a wall a HOT wind meet us and it never cooled off again that heat was a killer.

I got to my car and drove to get a Power Ade and some water. Then I had to go to the tournament for 5 hours because my replacement had afternoon plans. Going to that tournament sucked I wanted to die but I made it through and when I got home I had the best shower EVER!!!

In all it was fun and I liked shooting hiking maybe I will do it again someday or maybe not.

What is more patriotic then Soccer?

I wish I had posted earlier but I have had some other shit I have had to do but ,Last week for the 4th I got to celebrate by working at the Real Salt Lake Game this game I decided it was time to try something new so instead of shooting from the field I shot from underneath the score board at the south of Rice-Eccles Stadium. My thinking was that this angle will give me about the same shots as the field does at only a higher angle so this should produce a cleaner background. I got the better background.

I got a lot of better headers, well I would of if I had not had bad timing I got one really good one and the rest were just ok I thought.

This is the one I like the most.

This one is just funny.

This one was also a fun picture the Real player got thrown to the ground by the Toronto player and when he got up he received a yellow card! I don’t understand soccer sometimes!In addition to the Real game they had a firework show that I tried to get some shots but I did not know where the fireworks were being launched from so I did not have the best position so next time I have a plan for better firework pictures.

After the fire work show I hurried out of the stadium to get to the office because for the first time in a while I had a tight deadline. When I was walking up 5th south I saw a fire on the northwest side of the Eccles tennis center, My mistake was that I stayed on the street trying to get shot of the crowd reaction and by the time I went around back the fire fighters were stopping me and the fire was almost out. I know I could of got through to the fire if I was more persistent but I was still carrying the 400 on my back so I was getting very tired and did not insist on getting through I took what little I and went to the office.