Jerry T. Lai

I'm Baaaaaack!

2010-07-16T19:27:00.001-07:00

Hello again.... so after nearly a year off of the blog, I'm back! A lot has happened in the past year: I was offered a job with the Chicago Blackhawks. I turned down a job with the Blackhawks. I was offered a promotion with US Presswire. I accepted the promotion with US Presswire. I went to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. I edited yet another Final Four, Super Bowl, BCS Championship, and not one, but TWO MLB All-Star Games. The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. I will not be receiving a very expensive and gaudy championship ring...

I really do wish I kept up with this blog, and I regret not doing a daily Olympic blog like I did for the 2008 Beijing Games, but I had to take a break for personal reasons. Oh well. So here's the highlight package from the past year....

So in most of my travels, I go as an on-site photo editor. One of the responsibilities as the photo editor is to help push photos from our photographers to our clients as quickly as possible. But before all that happens, the editor has to run up to the highest point in the stadium and get the overall of the venue. This is what it looked like at the 2009 MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis.

Fast forward to February, and we arrive at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Like the Beijing Olympics, I had the pleasure of being able to go to the games as a photographer, as opposed to solely a photo editor. For the Vancouver games, I was based in Whistler, and mostly shot alpine and nordic skiing. My favorite events to shoot by far was the alpine skiing and chasing USA's top medal hopeful Lindsey Vonn. She started off the games with a gold in the downhill, but crashed out in pretty much every race after that. Basically an alpine skiing version of Ricky Bobby. Wooooooo! First or last, baby!

After the Olympics were over, it was time for playoff hockey. The Chicago Blackhawks had a great run through the playoffs and won the ultimate prize - the Stanley Cup. I went into the playoffs with mixed emotions... I was obviously happy for my home town team, but am somewhat annoyed that I lost out on the opportunity to own a Stanley Cup championship ring. Oh well, in the long run, I am probably better off where I am now anyways.

So in the Stanley Cup Finals, I once again played the editor while on the road. But I did manage to come away with a shot of the Stanley Cup clinching goal. The reason I was able to shoot Kane's goal was because in the last five minutes of the game (regardless of score), the NHL requires a photographer to be in position at the ice level entrance to shoot any potential victory ceremony. Obviously we didn't want to leave a premium ice position open, so the solution is just to have the editor (me) replace the photographer. I had no idea (along with everyone else in the arena) that Kane's shot went in, until I looked in the back of my camera. Who needs instant replay?

So that's the past year in a nutshell. For the next month or so, it'll just be Cubs and White Sox until NFL training camp and the new football season begins!

Lifelock.400

2009-07-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I last posted here, and I apologize. I have a few events that I have covered recently and I will catch up with them in the next couple of days. But first up from earlier this month is the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway, the Lifelock.com 400.

As far as photo coverage for a NASCAR race weekend goes, they are all the same. In the days leading up to the actual race day, there are qualifying and practice rounds. While you can get shots of the cars going round and round in circles during these sessions, the time is better spent getting shots of the drivers either in or around their cars.

Nothing amazing, but we all have to do this, because come race day, the drivers aren't as accessible. All right, the boring qualification/practice days out of the way, we arrive at race day. The annoying thing about doing a NASCAR race is how ridiculously early you have to get there for it. Not because there's anything that really goes on, but just to beat the traffic. As you can imagine, traffic becomes a real pain in the ass when you try to jam 200,000 people into a venue in which there is only one highway exit. Better sit at the track than at traffic, and while you're there, you might as well look for some sort of pre-race feature to send off. Here I have a shot of the crew of Mark Martin pushing his car out to the track:

Eventually, I killed off all the time and it was time for the race. I started off by wandering around the grid looking for a nice shot of drivers with their families. Here's a shot of three-time champion Jimmie Johnson with wife Chandra during the national anthem. I got down and shot from a low angle so that instead of having the stands as a background, all I get is blue sky.

Now, I'm not really much of a NASCAR shooter, and I don't pretend to know a lot about the sport. But what I have always been told is that the Chicago race is a "boring" race. In other words, there are usually no big crashes, let alone any crashes. So knowing this, I knew I would be able to wander around and go look for some more artsy stuff instead. Around 8:30pm, the sun was starting to get really low in the sky, and was creating a cool effect as it set behind the main grandstand. I knew I had to take advantage of it so I shot some of it from a photo position near the track for a few minutes and got the leaders going around.

Then hurried and ran up the stairs of the grandstand for an overall view.

After transmitting, I positioned myself for the finish line and shot the winner crossing the finish line. I will admit, I kind of screwed it up and chopped the flag stand out of it, so you can't really tell that it is the last lap, but you'll have to trust me on this.

Again from my racing buddies, I knew Martin is not one to show much emotion when he wins, so I quickly ran over to victory lane to get in position to shoot the presentation. I was surprised that he even gave a fist pump when he climbed out of the car (albeit a pretty weak one), and showed a decent amount of excitement when popping the champagne.

So that's it for NASCAR in Chicagoland. Strange as it is, I did the very next NASCAR race two weeks later in Indianapolis. I'll have a post soon!

BNP Paribas Open

2009-04-12T20:10:00.001-07:00

For picture editors, March is arguably the busiest time in the entire sports calendar year because of the conference basketball tournaments and March Madness. It's pretty well documented that I'm not a huge fan of shooting (or even watching) basketball, so I will move onto something else that I worked on last month: tennis!

Of all the events that I get to attend, I think my annual favorite is the Indian Wells Masters (officially, the BNP Paribas Open, formerly the Pacific Life Open). How can that be? It's a random tennis tournament in the desert that's not even a major! Well, first off, the media accommodations are fantastic, the weather is great (in the two weeks combined I've been there, it was sunny every day except for one), and the crowd is knowledgable and friendly. But the real reason? Because the action is always good and the light is fantastic.

You might think tennis is an extremely easy sport to photograph, because you simply follow a player as the ball bounces from one end to another. In that respects, you are correct. But as in every sport, what will separate the average photographer from the good and the great, is attention to detail. To elaborate (as quoted from a fellow photographer I highly respect)... this means attention to backgrounds, good composition, and taking advantage of good light.

But let's start out with the average.... Follow the bouncing ball!

You follow the bouncing ball long enough, and eventually you might get lucky and get something a bit different....

So now that the ordinary stuff is out of the way (to satisfy the conservative clients), it's time to push things creatively....

The weather in Indian Wells in March is pretty much 85 degrees and sunny every day. The light beats down hard on the players all day long, and depending on the time of day, you can really work some creative angles based on the way the shadows are cast onto the court by the players or the stadium itself.

That said, early in the day (matches typically start at 11am), the light is actually quite difficult to work with. When shooting with the sun, players are very front lit and the images look very "contrasty." Shooting back lit leads to a bit more consistent colors, but washes them out a bit so they can look flat. However, there was one spot in the photo well that I discovered you can stand in where there is a completely clean background and if you underexpose the shot a bit, you can get a pretty neat rim lighting effect on the serves:

But later in the day is where you can really start to get wild. As the sun begins to make its way across the sky, the shadows gradually get longer and longer. The easiest way to utilize this natural prop was simply go into the upper deck and shoot it in such a way as to utilize the long shadows:

Shooting from the opposite direction yields a different yet equally interesting effect:

From that photo above, you can see that the stadium court late in the day begins casting a huge shadow over the entire playing surface. If you are patient enough, players may run into it in such a way that only portions of the athlete are lit, but the rest of them are in shadow. The effect is quite dramatic:

So that's basically what I did for a full week. Shoot the conservative stuff early in the matches, and start working the light and shadows as the day progressed. Tennis could be an extraordinarily boring game to photograph, but by taking advantage of the environment, there was always compelling photos to be had. That is why I enjoyed doing this event last year, again this year, and hopefully again next year!

The Great American Race

2009-02-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

It seems like this winter I have spent more time in Florida than I have back home in Chicago. However, instead of bouncing between Tampa and Miami as I have been doing, I was off to World Center of Racing, the Daytona International Speedway for the 51st running of the Daytona 500.

Being someone who grew up in the north, I could care less for NASCAR or any form of auto racing for that matter. My vision of NASCAR has always been an extremely stereotypical one: a bunch of drunk southerners sitting in trailer parks with Confederate flags flying, drinking beer, and watching the cars go around in circles. And don't get me wrong.... driving into Daytona for the first time, there was plenty of that.

However, the first thing that stood out to me when I arrived other than the ridiculously high percentage of "red necks" was that the place was massive. Daytona International Speedway features a 2.5 mile tri-oval course, and packs in over 170,000 fans not including the trailer camp on the infield. World Center of Racing indeed....

Anyways, I'm going to skip a whole week's worth of hype, and jump into the actual race. The Daytona 500 is often called the Super Bowl of racing, and as such, it attracts some of the biggest stars in the country.

We used five photographers to cover this race.... it seems like a lot, but in order to cover 2.5 miles of track, you need many sets of eyes and cameras. So we had one photographer on the roof (to act as a safety and see the whole track). The other four of us were scattered throughout: one in the pit, one at turn three, one at turn four, and one at turn one/two (that was me!).

Daytona is known for having many many crashes... often collecting a good percentage of the field. Every year, there seems to be one significant crash known by fans and drivers as "The Big One." As we were working as a team, I was required to stay inside turns one and two and cover the race from that section of the track. Needless to say, I was hoping to be "lucky" enough to be lucky enough to have the Big One develop in front of me. The closest thing I got to an accident was when Jeff Burton hit the wall up in turn two and lost his bumper (the Big One this year happened in just before turn three):

So without any major incidents in my area all day, I had to bust out all of my photography tricks to turn prevent all my pictures from being boring (yet required) car picture after car picture.

One easy way to break up the ordinary was to simply drop the shutter speed down to around 1/80 and using a technique called panning. In this case, I would "pan" the camera as I shoot so that the background gets motion blurred, yet the subject I am following stays sharp. I did this for some of the more important drivers or race leaders. In this example, Kyle Busch:

That's not the only slow shutter trick to pull off in racing. As another one I used pretty frequently to mix up the take was to drop the shutter speed, but not use any panning. In this case, the background stayed sharp, but the cars going around the track just leave a trail of color:

Another thing to do was just to try to use different elements in front of me to frame the cars in unique ways. Here I used the gap in the safety barrier in front of me to add some lines to the frame:

And one last trick I busted out for this race was adding a star filter to my lens. Typically when you look at or photograph stadium lighting, it's just a big blob of white (like in some previous images above). However when you throw on a star filter, the lights look like, well, stars.... if you feel like you've seen this type of gimmick before, it's because you have. TV uses it all the time when they do their stadium shots...

For those of you who followed the race, you will know that this race was called after 152 out of 200 scheduled laps due to rain. Therefore, the race leader at the time Matt Kenseth was declared winner. I was kind of bummed about that. Even though it was nice the race ended earlier than it would have had they run it, it also meant I lost the opportunity to shoot some cool burn out or victory lap as a celebration. Oh well, rain didn't mean they couldn't do a made for TV victory celebration shot.

A big dilemma for photographers in shooting celebrations is this: do you shoot it tight, or do you shoot it loose and artsy? There is not time to shoot it one way, change cameras, and shoot it the other way because the moment would be over. Well, I had a solution, and it required that I bust out yet another camera trick: the shooting two-hand held cameras at the same time trick.

In one hand, I used my 70-200mm to get the standard celebration shot:

But in my other hand, I used my 16-35mm to get the wide version shot (note the use of the star filter again). Needless to say, looking through two cameras at the same time is impossible, so the wide angle version was actually shot blind as I looked through the other camera to frame the 70-200 properly. In the business, we call it a "Hail Mary."

An unexpected bonus of this wide angle shot was that I was able to get a third version of victory lane with some creative cropping:

This was actually my very first time shooting two hand-helds at the same time. I'm sure I looked extremely stupid holding two cameras at the same time, and it sure made my arms sore, but the I think the results speak for themselves, and will definitely be something I will do in all future victory lanes. I can probably even apply it to other fields of photography.... perhaps even in weddings like when the bride and groom durign the recessional? I got a wedding coming up this weekend, so I guess we'll see :-)

US Figure Skating Championship

2009-01-24T23:56:00.001-08:00

On Friday, one of our photographers had to back out of a fairly large assignment at the last minute for a family emergency. Needless to say, it left me and the primary assigning editor scrambling for a replacement. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anybody in reasonable driving range, so of course, as pretty much the only person on staff who also shoots, I ended up being sent to this assignment. So, the day before I was scheduled to go down to Tampa for the Super Bowl, I packed up my bags early and made a pit stop in Cleveland for the 2009 US Figure Skating Championship.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise that this was my first time covering a figure skating event. And this will probably be the case with many other winter Olympic sports, as we draw nearer to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. That said, I wasn't really worried about it. My boss pretty much summed it up: "It's like swimming" in the sense that if it moves, shoot it!

Well, not so fast. As I've preached many times before, it's one thing to just photograph something that moves around and get it in focus. It's a whole another thing to do so with clean backgrounds. Of course, the easiest way to do this at a skating event is to just go up into the concourse, and use the nice white sheet of ice as your background:

It was pretty easy to just follow the competitors around from up there, and I was happy with those results. Nothing terribly original, but it is exactly the kind of images that a client looking for figure skating images would be looking for.

That said, I got a little bored just sitting up in my perch in the upper levels, as all the pictures started to look the same. It's not like tennis where even though the sport itself is repetitive, changing your position on the court yields a different image because of the way the sun is shining, or the way the lines on the court get positioned. Here you are indoors and on a sheet of ice, so no matter which way you face it will look exactly the same! So, I decided backgrounds be dammed, I'm going to shoot from downstairs. Look at how ugly it is (I didn't use this shot, it's just an example)!

The only way to combat that is patience, and a long lens. So I pulled out the 400 (which is what I used to shoot with from the concourse), and shot everything super tight. I also waited for the skaters to drift into a spot on the wall that was clean of all ads, and a spot where there were no fans seated.

Needless to say, this drops the photo output pretty significantly, so for the last few individual skaters (and the most important ones for that matter), I went back to my perch up top because I wanted to be sure I got something of them to file.

From that vantage point, I got kind of lucky and got a nice moment after the final competitor and eventual champion Alissa Czisny received some gifts and a hug from who I would assume are friends or relatives.

But when it came to the real awards ceremony, I got the ol' Beijing treatment, where only "pool" photographers got to shoot front and center (aka Getty, AP, Sports Illustrated, etc). So all I could really get were partially obstructed views of the medal/awards ceremony (thank you TV camera man for always standing in the way).

Not amazing, but it's a shot we need to have. Unfortunately, this will probably always be a problem for our organization, unless we start to strike some deals and make some noise in the industry. I know we have some things in the works, so hopefully we get to that point by the time the 2010 Vancouver Games come around!

"Sneaking" Out to Shoot

2009-01-21T12:47:00.001-08:00

Well, I waited three months before finally posting again.... so you're thinking this probably should be the most amazing post I have ever written! Well, if you're judging that by game magnitude and importance, then yes it would be right up there. Since I last posted, I have been to some of the biggest events in the sporting world, including the Winter Classic, the BCS Championship Game, and the AFC Championship Game.

But photo wise, not so much. Why? Well, even though I feel like I can shoot with the best of them, my value is greater to the company as an on-site editor pushing other photographers' pictures out (I will be doing the same thing at the Super Bowl in a few weeks, and I will explain that process more in that future post). So even though people tell me that they are jealous that I get to go to all these events, I always counter by saying that it's not that glamorous.... because as an editor, I will spend about 90% of the time in some basement work room. Any shots I get to shoot are just a bonus.

Typically when I am editing a game, the one thing that I will get to shoot pre-game features. I personally do not feel like there is much value in these photos like these, other than they are kinda cute-sie photos that we get out on the wire so that a gallery of images exist on the website. In doing so, our clients will know very early that we are at and will be actively transmitting from the game.

Other than that, when I am at a game primarily as an editor, I will shoot early in the game (because I have no pictures to edit at the start of the game, so I might as well make some of my own). Depending on venue and sport, I might have access to the field, or I might not. Obviously for a hockey game, space is limited because there are only a finite number of photo holes. So I have to go around and look for something different. At the Winter Classic (I was actually snubbed as a shooter for this one becasue the deal was for me to never be assigned as an editor if it's my hometown team playing... oh well), I went upstairs and shot the opening face off loose:

At the AFC championship game, I was allowed onto the field to shoot, so I did so as I normally would... at least for a few minutes:

I actually got a few photos from the AFC championship game that I was happy with, including cherry picking part of the trophy celebration:

But typically, when I am at a game primarily as an editor, I won't get to shoot long enough to get anything really spectacular. On top of that, I do not want to place myself next to one of my company's photographers, because it's silly to get a shot identical to another photographer. So I am usually left with odd shooting positions. For example, in the BCS championship game, I got a couple of decent shots, but they are from areas of the field that I don't usually like to shoot from. With the Gators driving for a touchdown, I positioned myself at about the 15 yard line. Typically, if a team is in scoring range, I will plant myself in the corner of the end zone so I can get the team crossing the goal line for a score. However, we already had a photographer there, so I was looking for a "reverse" or "profiled" angle of the play. Nothing spectacular, but these are two pictures of the Gators running the speed option that you don't typically see....

So that's just a small sample of what I have been doing recently. I shoot a lot of regular season stuff still, but when it comes to the big events, I move back into my game manager/editor role and only get to cherry pick some action here and there. Next week, I play editor again as I head down to Tampa for the Super Bowl. So check back soon to see how an editor works at a big game!

American League Championship

2008-10-20T02:10:00.000-07:00

It seems like every year, there is a surprise team that comes out of nowhere to make a deep run into the playoffs. Last year, the Colorado Rockies surprised the baseball world by making the World Series. The year before, the Detroit Tigers made a huge turnaround to make the World Series. This year's surprise team? The Tampa Bay Rays.

While most of the time, I like to root for the underdog (if my team is out of it), I quickly grew to hate shooting in Tampa. The stadium (Tropicana Field) is old, the fans barely knew anything about baseball, and they have this ridiculous tradition there of ringing cowbells to make lots of noise. So, needless to say, I found myself rooting heavily for the Red Sox. Game 1 (and part of Game 2) got my hopes up, as the Red Sox came out and showed us why they were last year's World Series champions: solid pitching, solid defense, and just solid overall fundamentals.

The rest of the way... not so much.... all though you really have to credit the Rays for their great pitching, solid defense, and well, solid overall fundamentals.

For the most part, I was very satisfied with how I covered this year's ALCS. There wasn't any play out in the field that I missed (provided I was not blocked by waving fans, umpires, etc). However, that was until I saw replays on TV and images on other agency sites. It was at this point I realized that I botched the initial jubilation photo (the reaction picture immediately following the final out). I was told by my boss that I was hired full time was because I supposedly have "good photojournalistic instincts." In this case, I think these "instincts" caused me to over analyze the situation and miss a pretty cool jubilation photo. Hmmmm, maybe this is why I am technically a photo editor......

In the decisive Game 7, the Rays had a rookie on the mound to close out the game. While he is very highly regarded, I felt like he was not necessarily the person who I should focus my attention should the Rays hold on to win. Another player, outfielder B.J. Upton had been on a tear the entire series, and I thought that he would generate a lot of buzz leading into the World Series as a potential ALCS most valuable player candidate. So I made a mental note to myself to do the following: shoot the pitcher reacting as soon as the out is recorded, then quickly go find Upton.

Unfortunately, in doing so, I missed this.... which is the play that ended the game. It was a fielders choice with the force out at second base. In almost every situation, this would have been an easy photo to get (ok, even in this situation, it was an easy photo to get). But I had beat it so deep into my head that I would shoot the pitcher, then go shoot Upton, that I completely missed the play. Although some of the stuff on the field and in the locker room is decent...

...I will be kicking myself for a long time for missing that photo. Well, all will be forgotten in about a week if I can make up for it with a good jube shot at the World Series! With as many shooters as their are, I am making a vow to myself to just follow the play instead of locking on who I think will be MVP.

It's Gonna Happen

2008-09-23T09:19:00.001-07:00

For the second year in a row, the Chicago Cubs are National League central division champions. And unlike last year where the clinched it on the road, they did it at home this year so they could party down won the field in front of the fans!

Even though the Cubs clinched the division crown on Saturday, the more exciting game was the one that happened last Thursday against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Cubs made a few miscues early in the game which led to them falling into a 6-2 hole going into the ninth inning....

Then things got exciting. With two outs in the ninth, the Cubs strung together some hits to cut the deficit to three. Up to the plate came catcher Geovany Soto, who promptly hit a three-run home run on the first pitch tie the game.

First baseman Derrek Lee followed a few innings later and hit a game-winning RBI for an improbably 7-6 Cubs win.

The clincher on Saturday was not really all an exciting game. It was a close game, but as far as action photos, it wasn't that exciting because there were not really any plays at the bases and most of the runs came on homers. But man, what a party!

I knew the players would eventually come out onto the field after clinching victory to celebrate with fans, but I didn't expect them to do pretty much the entire celebration out on the field. Normally the players will go into the clubhouse and spray each other down with beer and champagne and then just come back out to wave to the crowd and shake hands, etc. And of course, locker room access was limited so almost nobody was prepared for being right in the middle of the champagne shower. But instead, they pretty much just ran into the clubhouse, grabbed the boxes and boxes of alcohol and started busting all that open out on the field and spraying each other as well as the fans (and media people in the scrum). Luckily our gear is "weather sealed." Still had to wipe my stuff down after I got back home so it wasn't all sticky and gross from all that champagne though. Hey, I guess now I know that in the playoffs to bring some plastic baggies to cover my stuff if they clinch series wins at home!

Football in the Rain

2008-09-13T22:28:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Chicago saw a record downpour of over seven inches of rain that lead to major flooding in basements and streets all across the city. But that doesn't stop football from being played!

As I made the slow drive up to Evanston for the Northwestern game, I was strangely excited for this one. I have shot football in a near blizzard, but never in a near monsoon! Most people hate the rain, but I feel that it is tolerable to shoot in as long as you are prepared for it... and knowing that it should make for some pretty interesting photos! I knew it was going to be pouring all day, so I had towels, rain coat, second change of clothes, and all my camera rain covers ready to go.

It was my first football game of the year, so I felt a little bit rusty, but I think I turned out a decent take from the game. I was a bit disappointed that the rain wasn't as visible in the photos as I had envisioned, (even less so in this low-res blog), but with the game being played at noon, it was just too bright out to offern enough contrast to make the rain stand out. Not really much to say about football.... just action, action, action. Enjoy!

Peak Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy 300

2008-09-11T07:59:00.001-07:00

What a mouthful! Yes, that was the full name of the race I shot over the weekend... which was the very first motor sports event I have ever covered. But no way was I going to be allowed to use that as an excuse for crappy pictures, because the race, which was held at the Chicagoland Speedway, was going to be the one that decided the 2008 IndyCar Series championship! It was strange do have my first race be a championship deciding race, but I wasn't the only one. Both AP and Reuters sent folks who had never shot racing before either. Why so many first timers for such a big race? Probably because everybody else was covering the first week of NFL football.

Anyways, shooting racing is actually a multi-day event. There are several sessions over the course of the weekend: practices, qualifying, and the actual race. And then there's usually more than one race (for example, this weekend there was an IndyCar Series race, an ARCA race, and an Indy Lights race... don't ask me what any of those mean). Shooting practices and qualifying was kind of ridiculous, as it's just shooting drivers as they get in and out of cars, getting ready to run time trials on the track. Pretty much, all it is good for is shooting features and headshots for the actual race, which is usually held the next day (or so I'm told).

So now we get to the actual race. So racing is a lot like every other sport. It is an easy sport to shoot, but a difficult one to shoot well. Anybody can shoot cars going round and round in circles and of course, the finish line shot, but of course, all that gets boring after a while.

There are a couple ways to spice things up. First, you have to hope for crashes and exploding engines. I got this one car as it went down the track on fire, but missed the moment of impact because I didn't realize the car was in danger of losing control. I had always thought shooting crashes would be easy because you can see the cars wobble, but that's not really the case. Racing veterans often wear headsets that broadcast the communications between the drivers and the crews so they know what's going on in a race. I know for next time to wear a radio so that I can hear the communications chatter so I know who is in trouble and wear so I can better react to who is about to hit a wall or burst into flames.

The second way to spice things up (and this is starting to sound real old coming off of all my Olympics posts), is of course to go out there and look for something different. Work different angles, use signage, or look for some pretty light or patterns. All in all, I think I did a decent job of covering the race... considering that it was my first time out to the track.

At the end of the day, Helio Castroneves edged out Scott Dixon to win the race, but Dixon got the last laugh, as he was able to clinch the 2008 IndyCar Series championship and celebrated in style.... I mean look... there were 100 dollar bills mixed into the confetti! Fake or not, I've never seen that before!

Beijing Olympics: By the Numbers

2008-09-02T03:33:00.000-07:00

To officially wrap up my posts about my Beijing Olympic experience, I've got a little "By the Numbers" post for you all:

- Days in Beijing: 20
- Images shot: 23,126+
- Images filed: 1,136+
- Avg hours of sleep/night: 6
- Cab fares paid: 22
- Gigs worth of free memory received: 12
- Press pins exchanged: 4
- USA gold medals shot: 16
- Phelps gold medals shot: 6
- Energy Bars eaten: 33
- Times I ate at Main Press Center (MPC): 24
- Peking ducks eaten: 5
- McDonald's meals eaten: 5
- Times offered to be featured on TODAY show: 1
- Times actually featured on TODAY show: 0
- George W. Bush sightings: 2

I've got to explain some of these numbers for you. There is a plus sign after number of images shot and filed for two reasons, because the number of images shot is probably quite a bit higher than the 23,126 I wrote. I tallied that number by simply counting the number of original files on my portable harddrive. However, this does not take into account the number of pictures I deleted in the camera while at the events, nor does it take into the account that I mistakenly deleted all of my images from Day 7 before backing them up (don't worry, I still was able to retrieve edited files from our website).

And YES, I was actually asked to be on NBC's TODAY Show. So the day Phelps won his 7th gold medal (the 100 butterfly), I was sitting in a photo position that happened to be right in front of Matt Lauer. He thought it was just so fascinating that after big events, photographers would pull out their computers and immediately start filing images. I explained to him that now that Phelps' race is over, it is now my race... my race to get pictures out before the other agencies like AP, Getty, Reuters, etc. Especially since a 10am race in China meant that it was 10pm in the States... getting close to newspaper deadlines!!! So in getting my pictures out as fast as possible, it would be more likely that my pictures get used. I guess they were looking for new story ideas, instead of the boring athlete or parent interviews, so he offered to stick a camera crew with me to follow me around and do a feature. So none of this happened in the end... I suspect that the producers all nixed the idea because there was only one day of swimming left when I met Lauer, and that simply was not enough time to throw this together. If only I met him in Day 3 or 4, I think this might have actually worked out!!!

Well, even without a TODAY show appearance, this was hands down one of the best experiences I have ever had in my entire life. Although the hours were long and the eating/showering schedule was not exactly ideal, there hasn't been a day in the past week or so that I have not wished that I was still out there and the games are still going on. It will be hard to image any future Olympic Games ever matching not only the achievements of these games (Phelps and Bolt and everyone else just smashing world records), but also the production that the Chinese put on. Many veteran journalists agree that the facilities, volunteers, and just overall operations was the best out of any Olympics they had been to.

In any case, it has been mentioned in passing to me that I need to get ready for the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010. I think the things I learned and experienced in covering my first Olympics in Beijing will no doubt me prepare me for what lies ahead in Canada. Although I know there will be new challenges (sitting in the cold and snow as ski racers blast down a mountain at 70 mph!), and that it will be truly impossible to compare experiences, I am already very much looking forward to this potential great opportunity.

Beijing Olympics: Day 12-Closing

2008-09-01T11:18:00.001-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah, I know this is over a week overdue... I will be honest... things got really busy, and because I'm not being paid to do a blog like many newspaper photographers are, I chose sleep over updating this page. And then I went on vacation where I had extremely limited access. But for the sake of closure, here is what happened from Day 12 to the Closing Ceremonies....

So as the Olympics begin winding down, obviously, almost every day of competition is a medal game or a medal round. And with USA doing so well in so many sports, we spent our last few days frantically traveling around from venue to venue, trying to cover as many of our athletes as possible.

My schedule worked out so that I shot the two gold medal beach volley ball matches. When you think about it, it's kind of silly that beach volleyball is played in Beijing. For one thing, there is not really any large body of water (that I know of) in Beijing, and therefore, no beaches. So the Chaoyang Beach Volleyball Ground is pretty much a big pit of sand in the middle of the city that happens to have bleachers and press tribunes surrounding it.

Anyways, back to the actual sport... the first gold medal game feautred beach volleyball legends Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor against a Chinese pair. Walsh and May-Traenor carry some ridiculous winning streak (it's over 100 international matches), so obviously they were going to win. I quickly realized that this was a venue that would not have very good backgrounds. Too many speakers, cameras, and tents from ground level, and therefore the best images as far as clean action goes, would be from up top. Nothing overly special, but I think these two at least illustrate how the match was going for Walsh and May-Treanor.

Although the action from up top was decent, I made the decision that I would go back down to "beach" level and shoot their reaction after they won the match, crappy backdrop be damned. I felt that the reaction photos would be nicer from down low, because I could get closer to them and get a tighter frame. Another reason why I came downstairs was because of the venue's set up. There are only photo positions in the stands on one side of the venue, so if the winners won on the "far" side from me, their entire celebration would get blocked and ruined by the net (as you can see from the above photos, it would not look so pretty to see people celebrating BEHIND a net). Well, they made that nice react, but in my opinion, the background completely ruins it for me.

I think a nicer frame was this one of Walsh, after winning some random point late in the match as the rain is falling all around her.

Another one I liked was one of the pair on the medal stand listening to the national anthem as the silver and bronze medal Chinese pairs look oh so sad!

The next day, I was back out to Chaoyang to shoot the men's beach volleyball gold medal match. What a much nicer day. After yesterday's crappy background jubilation shot, I decided I would do the exact opposite strategy from the previous day... and that was start down low, and then move up higher in the match-clinching sets to shoot some action and react.

I was a bit worried about the winning point being on the side opposite from me, and therefore the net would become a problem, but that ended up being a moot point, because the USA team of Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser clinched the match on the side closest to me from up high. It made a nice frame, as both Americans jumped in the air and the two Brazilians started walking off of the court.

Are these guys happy that they won silver, or that they lost gold? No really, I have no idea!

Also going on the same day that the beach volleyball golds were going on was women's soccer and also softball (and also water polo I think). I was kind of bummed I did not get to cover them, and was instead sent out to do synchronized swimming (one of our contract sports, so we had to go), and also taekwondo. I told myself when going to my venues, I should just feel lucky to be here. Besides, I got to photograph Michael Phelps history, so anything else is just gravy.

Well, I guess I should have an open mind, because synchro was pretty neat (and also extremely easy to photograph... just go up higher and wait for cool patterns to develop).

Taekwondo was just as neat. It's just people trying to punch and kick each other in the head. I mean, how can you go wrong? So obviously, the point of taekwondo was to score more points than the opponent, but I could not understand the scoring system (people would fall down and sometimes they would be given a point, sometimes they would lose a point, or there would be no change in points). In any case, it made for nice action, and also some great jube.

The last two major medal events I covered was the two basketball gold-medal games. Both of course, featured heavily favored USA teams. The women came into their game and dominated Australia. The problem with these dominating victories, is that they don't really give great reaction photos... and the best I had to show for this victory was of some of the players jumping up and down on the bench right after the final buzzer sounded.

My last sports assignment in Beijing was the men's gold medal basketball game. Basketball has become so international these days, as the NBA has been extremely successful in creating markets outside of the USA. Therefore, media coverage for this game was expected to be crazy. In order to guarantee a spot on the floor to photograph this game, I arrived for this game at around 10am for a 2pm start. The bronze medal game was actually scheduled ahead of it at noon, so I mean, I'm sitting in the seat.... I might as well shoot something, right?

Surprisingly, the men's gold medal against Spain was a close one. Like the women, every game has been a laugher of a blow out. However, Spain played a really aggressive, physical game against the Americans, and there were tons of diving around for loose balls and hard contact with and away from the ball.

In the end, the latest edition of the Dream Team pulled away, and celebrated their gold.

Not a bad way to finish off my first Olympic Games. It has only been a week or so since the games are wrapped... but I miss Beijing and the Olympics already. Wo Ai Beijing!

Beijing Olympics: Day 10-11

2008-08-20T03:17:00.001-07:00

Part of the charm of coming to the Olympics has been being able to photograph a lot of "minor" sports. While I did continue to go out and shoot some more water polo and gymnastics, the past two days felt more like home to me, as I shot a couple of men's basketball games as well as some soccer.

I've written before in the past, that I don't particularly like covering basketball because I don't think the action is all that great, and there is usually little or no room for creativity and there are rarely any good backgrounds at any basketball venue. However, I was actually pretty excited to go cover the first game on my schedule, which was USA vs Germany. Although I wouldn't say they are quite as formidable as the original Dream Teams of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and company, the latest edition of team USA is pretty solid with Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Dwyane Wade.

Needless to say, team USA has been crazy dominant. It was pretty much just like watching the Harlem globetrotters play, as it seemed like every other time they were down on offense, it would finish with a dunk. Although in that particular game, I wouldn't say any of the dunk photos were that spectacular, I'm thinking if one were to shoot every men's team USA game, you could have a portfolio full of dunks by the time the Olympics is over.

As mentioned above, I also covered a little bit of soccer by going out to shoot the Brazil-Argentina semifinal soccer game. Just like basketball, the sport is pretty familiar to me as back home, I've covered enough international friendlies at Soldier Field, as well as a handful of Chicago Fire games.

Even though it was nice to finally get out and shoot some familiar sports for a change, I think I most enjoyed shooting the gymnastics apparatus finals, particularly the balance beam program. For the most part, the backgrounds at the venue are not that great, but there is a big blue wall above where the athletes enter that would make for a good backdrop assuming you could position yourself such that the athletes end up jumping in front of it. For a while, I couldn't really figure out a good place to pull it off, but me and some European photographer found an area in the barrier surrounding the field of play that could open up and asked the photo marshalls if it was ok for us to shoot there. They seemed a bit hesitant, but in the end let us shoot there.

Some nice pretty stuff.... so not surprisingly, it wasn't soon after we started shooting there that a ton of other photographers started lining up in that little opening to shoot through as well!

As there are only 5 more days in the Olympic Games, we are getting to the point where a lot of the team sports are drawing closer to their gold medal matches, and the USA is alive and well in lots of them (basketball, softball, baseball, beach volleyball). So expect a lot of gold medal celebration photos in the next few days!

Beijing Olympics: Day 9

2008-08-18T01:43:00.000-07:00

He did it. Eight gold medals in a single Olympic games. I will admit, Michael Phelps' eighth was a bit anticlimactic, because it was a medley relay and Phelps did not swim the freestyle anchor and it was pretty clear that the team was going to hang on to win. Therefore, although there was pretty decent jubilation, although nothing compared to yesterday's from the 100m butterfly finals.

Although I don't think the initial jubilation is a particularly special image, I think my pre-game plan as to where to sit ended up working out giving the situation. I knew that Phelps would be out of the pool when the Americans finished the race, because he wasn't swimming the anchor, so I had to try to find a spot in the photo positions that would offer the best line of sight to the start/finish line. I had debated for a while whether to shoot it from pool level at the start/finish line, pool level from the turn side of the pool, or to shoot it elevated about midway down the pool. I quickly ruled out the turn side of the pool, because there are a lot of little flags that hang over the pool (it warns the backstrokers that they only have a few meters left before hitting the wall), and it was very likely that they, as well as any of the other random things that hang over the pool, would obstruct my view of the celebration. And while the pool level start/finish line position offers a pretty unobstructed view, I eventually decided against it because I was afraid that it might be too much of a profile view of the celebration. I felt there would be a pretty high chance that a teammate might jump out in front of Phelps and ruin the picture. Therefore, I felt that for this particular event, it would be slightly elevated in the first row of the stands, because not only was it somewhat less likely a teammate would block my shot of Phelps, but I was much less likely to get blocked by the little flags that hang over the pool (the ones that warn the backstrokers that they only have a few meters left until they hit a wall). If I was at pool level for the celebration, I felt like I would run the risk of having those flags, or any of the other random ropes that hang over the pool cut right through the image of Phelps celebrating with his teammates.

All that said, I thought the victory lap around the pool with his teammates holding up large American flags in front of them was a lot more interesting than the act of winning the relay.

I will say that in a week and a half full of special moments, this one is certainly one I will never forget, and I feel fortunate and honored to be able to participate in such a historic moment in all of sport.

After the event finished and I transmitted all my pictures, it was time to head over to the tennis center and catch the tail end of the womens single finals between two Russians, Elena Dementieva and Dinara Safina. They played a long, three-set match but Dementieva eventually came through in the end to take the gold. It was actually a Russian medal sweep, as Vera Zvonareva won the bronze.

I was hoping in my time up there, I would be able to stick around for the medal ceremony as well as the men's singles final featuring Rafael Nadal, but I could not because I had to get over to diving, which is one of the USA teams we are contracted to shoot for.

I think I've said it before, but the diving venue is not set up very well for photographs. The options are to go really really high up into the stands, so you can just get blue water as a background, or to shoot really low and do some artistic panned movement shots. For variety's sake, I started low than moved high for the rest of the competition. Since I posted stuff from high last time I did diving, I'll show some a panned shot this time...

Although the work days have all been very long, time has been flying by quickly. Only one week left to go!

Beijing Olympics: Day 8

2008-08-16T18:01:00.000-07:00

Men's 100m butterfly. Take your mark....

So much for subdued jubilation! Michael Phelps tied Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympic Games.... barely. He edged out the second place finisher by a mere one-hundreth of a second (I still have yet to see a replay.... NBC.com video is blocked in China), and needless to say, upon seeing the result on the scoreboard, he just went bonkers.

Now in a previous post, I mentioned that in swimming, for these close races I normally watch the big board before I spin around to shoot the jubilation because of the delay in time it takes for the swimmers to realize they had won. In this case, I made an exception and just followed Phelps down the final stretch. Because the race was going to be a record-tying one if he had won, he would have been the story no matter who had won so I stayed on him to capture his initial reaction regardless of the situation. After his big water splashing jubilation (which was actually very lucky.... the water could have just as easily blocked his face and completely ruined the frames), teammate Ian Crocker swam over to congratulate him.

But that wasn't it as far as good swimming jubilation was concerned. The men's 50m freestyle winner made some big splashes in his victory as well...

And later in the day, USA water polo goalie Merrill Moses spiked the ball into the water after their victory over an undefeated Croatia team....

I finished off Day 8 with some fencing as the USA's team foil squad made a bunch of upsets earlier in the day to make the gold medal game. I did the usual stuff, including the slow shutter stuff, but I decided to mix things up a bit and shoot some fencing tighter.

USA ended up getting crushed in the gold medal game by Russia, and let me tell you something... do the Russians ever know how to party down after a victory. All four members of the team took a few laps around the arena waving Russian stuffed animals and flags, and then jumped into the stands where they were tossed in the air by their fans a few times. Good stuff.

In Day 9, Phelps goes for gold medal number eight in the 4x100 medley relay, which will break Spitz's record.

Beijing Olympics: Day 6-7

2008-08-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have not done a whole lot of new or overly interesting events the past few days. As Michael Phelps draws closer and closer to winning eight gold medals in a single Olympics, I have been spending more and more time at the pool. While each medal is obviously a tremendous accomplishment, Phelps is not really very emotional or wild in his celebrations. Usually it has just been a simple fist pump or a raised arm. I guess that's a true professional: act like you've done it before.

Other competitors however, have not been as muted in their victory celebrations.

Since I have been at swimming so long, I am really running out of ideas on things I can do (especially in a venue and a sport that really limits creativity to begin with). I moved positions so I would be closer to the starting blocks on Day 7, just to see if I could shoot something different of the start, and also started messing around some when I saw the Olympic mascots dancing on the pool deck.

Day 8 is shaping up into what should be a pretty eventful and busy day. Of course, I will be starting off at the pool, as Phelps goes for gold medal number seven, tying Mark Spitz's record for most golds in a single Olympic Games. Then it's off to some water polo, and then finally some track cycling, weight lifting, or both depending on events and who's competing.

Beijing Olympics: Day 5

2008-08-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Day 5 ended up being one of the busiest days I have had since I got here. I started the day off with some wrestling to shoot the two Americans in the Greco-Roman style events. I have shot Greco-Roman wrestling once before, and thought it was kinda interesting. It's not WWF wrestling, but the fact that competitors will sometimes pick each other up and slam them to the mat sure reminds me of it! I didn't get any shots of that happening, because I wasn't at the wrestling gymnasium long enough.... the Americans lost their first two matches and were thus elminiated from competition! Anyways, for this event, I quickly realized that the background from ground level was pretty bad, with judges and stairs, and fans in the way, so I went up so I could get a good view of the many colors of the mat.

So I was at the wrestling gym for about 10 minutes and called in to see what to do, since we didn't expect the Americans to lose so fast! I suggested I go double up our photographer at the women's gymnastics team finals and shoot from high, so off to the National Indoor Stadium I went. I thought shooting from high up would help clean up the images for gymnastics, but it did not really except for a small portion of the floor exercise.

The problem was that in the gym, the ushers and officials would not let us go high enough in the arena to clean things up. As a result, I did not really shoot that much there. I pretty much just followed the action around on the different events until I either saw a competitor tumble into an area with nice signage/clean background, or if they fell - which is exactly what American captain Alicia Sacramone did on the beam (and again on the floor), which effectively cost the USA the team gold. That's got to be an awful feeling....

Once that was over, I finally made it up to the Olympic Green Tennis Center and shoot what has become one of my favorite sports. I think I've said before, I don't quite know why.... it's just as repetitive as many other sports, if not even more so. I think I just like how there are nice "lines" in tennis, and just enough variety in the pictures you can get from it depending on where you sit or what players are doing. Like many other venues, it was pretty apparent that it would be difficult to move around, so it was best to just pick a spot and stay there. Of course, since it was my first shoot at the tennis center, I went up high for most of my time there in order to get a good view of all the Beijing and Olympics signage.

I finished off the long day with two basketball games... nothing that special... just your standard basketball action.

Onto Day 6 and beyond...

Beijing Olympics: Day 4

2008-08-12T08:46:00.001-07:00

I will admit.... for as much crap as I have given regarding how boring and repetitive shooting swimming at the Water Cube has been the past few days... it has started to grow on me. Then again, three American gold medals in one morning session had probably had something to do with it!

I learned from my very first day of swimming here that shooting the jubilation is not as easy as simply following the leader, because in most races (basically any race Michael Phelps isn't in), is decided by a few tenths of a second. So in these cases, I rely on the big board. As the competitors go down the final length of the pool, I will take a look up at the scoreboard, because the finish order is displayed the moment the first swimmer touches the wall. Once that #1 shows up by the swimmer's name and lane number, I immediately swing my sights onto them and fire away. I'm not ever too worried that I will miss the jube this way, because that the swimmer will won't typically celebrate the moment they hit the finish line. Their initial reaction to the race is usually slightly delayed because the heats are so close, they have to look up, find, and read the results on the scoreboard as well.

After that, it's on to the medal stand....

Northwestern represent! Matt Grevers won silver in the 100m backstroke!

In the evening, I made it out to the men's individual sabre semifinals and gold/bronze medal matches. Like water polo and field hockey yesterday, this shoot was a completely different experience from any previous fencing shoots I have ever had. For one, the light was FANTASTIC. They dim the lights in the crowd, and spotlight the competitors so all you see is black and white. It really makes for some very clean, and very dramatic images.

I was very lucky to have the gold medal winner turn and celebrate in my direction after he won the final match.... this shot instantly became one of my favorite jubilation shots that I have ever shot.

Onto day five... got some wrestling, tennis, and basketball on the schedule of events!

Beijing Olympics: Day 3

2008-08-12T01:01:00.000-07:00

Today, I shot two sports that I have only ever shot once before, and never before on a professional level. They were field hockey and water polo. Oddly enough, field hockey was one of the first sports that I had ever shot, as it was one of my first sports assignments I was ever given when I shot for the Daily Northwestern. And water polo I had only shot once before for a prep sports company in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Needless to say, the level of play was much better. The passing was far cleaner, and thus, scrambles for loose balls were far more infrequent. But the biggest difference of all... especially in water polo, is that they are MUCH harder hitting and violent.

You can see it in field hockey, but it's not as apparent in water polo.... supposedly there is a lot of grabbing, scratching, and kicking that goes on under water as players fight for positioning in front of the net. Some photographers there were trying to rank the sports in terms of physicality and violence, and this is what they came up with: water polo/handball (tie), wrestling, boxing. Yeah... boxing is only the third most violent and physical sport.... crazy, huh? Maybe I will try to shoot part of a future game in one of those underwater viewing holes to see what exactly goes on. In any case, because I was above water, so like any other sport here at the Olympics, the name of the game is not only to shoot the action, but to try to clean up your backgrounds or include Olympic signage.

Tomorrow, I am back to the Water Cube for some swimming finals as Phelps goes for gold medal number three, as well as some more water polo and diving.

Beijing Olympics: Days 1-2

2008-08-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

One well respected photographer once said that as far as the amount of work is concerned, it is like covering two Super Bowls per day for 16 straight days. He wasn't kidding. After getting to bed at about 4am following the opening ceremonies, I was back at it around 10am to cover my first Olympic event: women's handball. Pretty random, right?

I have never shot, let alone seen handball in my life, but it was relatively easy to pick up. I still have no idea what the rules are, but it's basically another one of those "soccer-style" games where there are goals on each end and the object is to get the ball in it. Basically what I gathered from the games is that you cannot simply run with the ball, you have to dribble it like in basketball. Also, you cannot obstruct people as they try to pass or shoot, or you may get called for a "suspension" and your team is short-handed for two minutes like in hockey. In any case, the sport makes for some pretty neat action photos.

Although I started off my Olympics with handball, I have spent pretty much the rest of my working time in the National Aquatics Center. Kind of like tennis, swimming can become an extremely repetitive sport to shoot, and in order to keep things fresh, you need to move around and shoot it differently throughout the day. Unfortunately, this is the Olympics... and access is extremely limited. All the best spots (called "pool" positions here, even though pictures are not shared) are given to the big agencies. On top of that, there are who knows how many photographers covering each event so you can't really move around to new positions, because if you did, there'd probably be some German or Chinese guy sitting in your former seat when you came back. So the trick for me has been to try to frame two athletes in an image or to use Olympic signage (this will be an extremely common theme).

Luckily, day two of swimming saw some finals, so at least there would be pretty good celebration photos and also shots of people receiving their medals on the podium and getting all emotional as they stand on the medal stand. Well, at least I thought it would be. The emotion was pretty good, but the backgrounds are pretty busy... but still good moments. The medals ceremonies are set up pretty nicely for swimming, but the problem is that you cannot go up close to the podium to shoot the ceremony because those spots are reserved for "pool" and also for TV. But again, still some nice moments....

As a consolation prize, the athletes are escorted around the venue and are asked to stop periodically by officials to pose for us with their medals. So a shot of America's golden boy, Michael Phelps....

After that morning session of swimming, I was able to grab a quick lunch before heading back to the NAC for some synchronized diving. The photographer set up was not all that great, as the backgrounds were kind of busy and you couldn't really shoot it in such a way to show the Olympic rings, so my solution was to just climb up as high as I was allowed into the stands and shoot down towards the diving pool to clean up the image.

I capped off day 2 with some more swimming, but I'll hold off showing some images, because quite frankly, it's just more of the same. Tomorrow, it's on to water polo and I think some field hockey or tennis!

Beijing Olympics: Opening Ceremonies

2008-08-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

According to the emcees, 4 billion people around the world were watching. While that may be a bit of funny math by the Chinese, there is no doubt that 8pm on 8/8/08 will go down as a night to remember as Beijing opened up its doors to the world and officially launched the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (2008 Summer Olympics in real words).

The buzz surrounding the event was that this would probably be one of the more memorable and spectacular opening ceremonies that the world has ever seen, and the Chinese sure did not disappoint.

We had three shooters at the ceremonies (well, actually four if you count one guy outside shooting fireworks)... we had one in the upper deck, one in the front row, and one kind of in the middle. I was the one in the front row. From the front row, you could get a good close view of some of the dancers, but it was impossible to get a overall view of what was happening on stage. So I couldn't see any of the patterns that were developing during the show, just the performers on the edges of the stage. Maybe for the closing ceremonies, we will switch it around and I will go up higher so I can get a better view of what is going on down on stage.

What the front section was really good for, however, was for when the athletes did their march into the stadium. I was able to get a pretty clear shot of many of the athletes as they entered... assuming they even bothered showing (ahem... Michael Phelps and USA women's gymnastics team).

My spot also gave me a pretty good angle on the final stages of the torch relay, as well as the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.

So that was the opening ceremonies in a small nutshell. Tomorrow, the games begin!

Lollapalooza Kickoff Show

2008-08-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Lollapalooza is back in Chicago, but this will be the first time I have ever covered it in any capacity. Yesterday night, I was sent out to the Apple Store to shoot this year's kickoff show featuring Black Kids, Foals, and the Kills. Heard of any of them? No? Well, not even my entertainment assignment editor had heard of them, but apparently all these people have!

The two ladies who were at the front of the line said they had been waiting for the 7pm show since 11 in the morning!

The first band up was Black Kids. I find it very ironic that the band actually has more white people in it than black people. But maybe that's the point. I dunno. However, out of the three bands that played, I liked their music the best.

The second band was a band from England, called the Foals. They had a very strange set up, as far as bands are concerned. Usually, all the band members are lined up on stage, facing out towards the crowd, however for the Foals, they were all lined up facing each other. The problem with that, was that you could never get a shot of all five band members facing the same direction (and thus, not see everybody's face) unless a couple people happen to spin around at the same time. Yeah, I don't think that ever happened...

The last band... if you can call it a band - there are only two people in it... was the Kills. I think the guitarist (who is dating Kate Moss... who was not present btw) is English, but the vocalist is American. I liked the vocalist's expressions and how her hair would fall and frame her face, and tried to go in tight with some shots.

So that was my latest experience with entertainment and concert photography. I'm sure there will be more in the future. Anyways, this is my last post before my trip to Beijing. I hope to be updating from the Olympics pretty regularly (assuming the Great Firewall of China doesn't block me), so check back soon!

Midsummer Classic

2008-07-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

This past week, I made my first-ever trip to New York City to help cover the 79th annual MLB All-Star Game. I am glad I was able to make this trip, because this is the last season that games will be played in Yankee Stadium, which is often called the "Cathedral of Baseball" (although as a Chicagoan, I would argue that Wrigley Field is the real cathedral of baseball). I'm not sure if they are knocking down the stadium after the season, but they will be playing in this building next year, which will also be called Yankee Stadium:

Anyways, in my ever-evolving role with the company, I was not there to do a lot of shooting. Instead, I was there to on-site edit. I have been doing this a lot recently, as I have traveled to edit at the Final Four, the NHL All-Star game, the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, the BCS Championship, and probably some other big events I am leaving out. It's not a glorious position, but it is an essential one in order for us to compete with the big dogs. So basically, I sit in the basement or under the stands of of these venues, take the memory cards from our photographers and edit their photos and transmit them to our website in real time.

It sounds kind of ridiculous to have someone on-site to do all of this, but in the age of 15 minute (or less) news cycles, transmitting speed is the number one priority and having a fast, efficient editor who pays attention to the game is not a luxury... it is a necessity!

All that said, I was able to shoot a few photos. Not anything of the actual games, but just your standard "editor photos." So editor photos end up being the shots that photographers aren't able to get to (because they are stuck in their photo boxes and leaving them will cost them too much time and make them miss too much game action), or aren't as interested in (feature type stuff from BP).

Would I rather be shooting the actual games? Well sure, I was a photographer first, an editor second. But regardless of how well I think I can shoot, I realize that my new role with the company - especially in this day and age - is more important than what I can do individually as a photographer.

Chicago in Chicago

2008-07-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, I shot the legendary rock band Chicago as they made a stop in Chicago for a free public concert at Northerly Island. They were in town performing live on CBS' "The Early Show" as part of CBS' Summer Concert Tour?

'The Early Show?' Isn't that, like, really early? Yes it is. The show airs from 8-10 am central time, but they were telling all fans and media to show up at 6am so that everyone could be in place. I actually have never been up to the Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island (in fact, I didn't even know it existed) so I really didn't know what to expect: how big, how many people, what the view is like (although being on the lake, I figured it'd be really scenic).

Even though the concert was free, the turnout was not all that great. Having a concert that early on a work day will do that to the crowd. However, the fans who did show up were very loud and vocal, and the band obviously appreciated their turnout and helped entertain them in the two hours before they went live on national TV.

8am finally rolled around, and the band started working through some of their greatest hits. I started off down right next to the stage so that I could get some shots of the band members performing.

Because I had no idea how long the band was going to perform for, after I got a few shots, I ran up to the top of the bleachers to do some overall shots of the band performing with the city in the background. It was not an easy shot to do, because there were not nearly enough people to fill the 7,500 person venue. So tried to frame my shots in such a way that I was not showing too many empty bleachers, but it was kind of futile. Oh well, it was a perfect morning weather wise, so at least the blue skies made for pretty photos.

The concert itself was a bit frustrating. Because the Early Show is a news show, and not an entertainment show, the band only really played their songs in 1-2 minute intervals.... as intros into commercials and fade outs to commercials. You could tell the crowd was getting a bit frustrated at not being able to hear entire songs. So I think to make up for it, near the end of the show, they marched through the audience as they performed, and finished their march by climbing onto the Early Show stage!

After that, they played one or two more songs, thanked their fans, and everybody went on their way to start their days (or if they were like me, went back to sleep).

I'm Baaaaaaack :-)

2008-07-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

Many apologies for the 3+ months in between posts. I haven't been updating this blog, not because I've been lazy (well, not entirely), but because of what I'm calling "political reasons." It's a long story that I'm not going to try to explain publicly, but let's just say that I have worked through them.

Also, many apologies for the change in URL. I had to change the URL to take the blog offline without deleting my previous content, but for some reason, I could not get Blogger to give me my old URL back. So update your RSS feeds!

Anyways, I will have a brand new entry up shortly, and future entries will be pretty regular as they were before.

Enjoy!

Pacific Life Open

2008-03-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the pleasure of making the trip out to Indian Wells, California to cover the Pacific Life Open. The Pacific Life Open is the largest tennis tournament in the world outside of the four majors (Wimbledon, US, Australian, and French), drawing over 300,000 fans to the southern California desert every year. And why not? As an ATP (men's tennis) master's series event, and a WTA (women's tennis) Tier I event, all the biggest names in tennis like Roger Federer or Maria Sharapova converge on this beautiful desert resort area.

But Jerry, you never cover tennis... why were you down there? Well, a couple reasons. First off, building up the company library of tennis images. Especially with the Olympics coming up, getting shots of international stars is very important. So because tennis is not covered very often, one of my primary goals was to shoot the early rounds like crazy. Second reason for doing there kind of relates to the first reason. I am currently scheduled to go cover the Olympics this summer in Beijing, so this also served as a "practice round," of sorts.

Now, tennis can be a very easy sport to shoot. In fact, just about anybody can do it. Give a monkey a camera, and it would be able to crank out image after image that looks like this:

What makes a good tennis shooter, is the same as what makes a good golf shooter. Move around and make something different! Because seriously, it's not that hard to get a picture of somebody hitting a ball back and forth. So some ideas of how to "make something different...." Set the scene....

Use the lines on the tennis court to add some context to the images as well as to clean up those backgrounds....

Use the shafts of light and shadows during the different times of days to make for some dramatic images....

And of course...EMOTION!

Madhouse on Madison

2008-03-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been almost two months since I have added an entry to this blog... that is way too long. It's not because I haven't shot anything interesting... because I have been out to a bunch of events since I last posted something here. I was down in Atlanta for the NHL All Star Game (mostly as an editor though), the 150th Chicago auto show, and even a public appearance by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

But the subject of this post is going to be about the resurrection of the Chicago Blackhawks. No, they are not currently in playoff position (although they are close). Led by two sensational rookies Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, as well as new management, the fans have been coming back to the United Center. I think I read in the paper the other day that the United Center has been sold out six times this year. I don't think the Hawks have had six sell-outs total this decade. It's clear that the players have noticed, as a tradition of saluting the fans after victory has been born...

As I mentioned above, part of the reason why the fans are coming back is because of new management. The first step was to start putting home games back on television. The second step was to welcome back long-estranged legends and hall of famers Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita by naming them club ambassadors in a public ceremony before a home game last Wednesday.

But anyways, onto some game action! As I've mentioned in the past, hockey is arguably my favorite sport to shoot. The action is fast and hard hitting, so the pictures (when you nail them), are some of the best sports photos you will make. However, it is for those reasons that it is incredibly difficult to shoot. That said, I hate to sound cocky, but I think I have really come into my own this season and have developed into a great ice-level hockey shooter (because anybody can follow the action and shoot from the concourse). Now that I am an editor as well, I see so many hockey 'action' pictures where there is no puck. A lot of "skating up the ice" or "battles for position in front of the net" garbage pictures. Seriously, why shoot and submit that? They are boring, and quite frankly, any old fan in the stands could do that. After shooting enough games, you should realize that the best action always ends up in two places... in the corners after teams dump the puck and try to chase it down....

Or in front of the goal as they try to scramble for the puck and push it in the goal...

And because goals are so hard to come by, the reactions of the players after scoring them is usually very nice. I love this next shot because this essentially sums up every sports contest... where there is a face of victory... there is also a face of defeat...

Lambeau in the Snow!

2008-01-13T20:21:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday, I had the honor of stepping out onto the hallowed ground that is Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, for the very first time. Lambeau Field, aka the Frozen Tundra, is arguably one of the most iconic stadiums in all of American sports... right up there with Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium.

The occasion this time around was the NFC divisional playoffs between the Green Bay Packers and the visiting Seattle Seahawks. I honestly thought the Seahawks would make this a close game and pull out a victory over the favored Packers, and at the start, it looked like it would, as they recovered two early fumbles and converted them into a 14-0 lead just 5 minutes into the game.

Sadly for the Seahawks, that was about it for them, as the Packers piled on 42 of the last 48 points of the game behind their legendary quarterback Brett Favre (3 TD passes), their largely unknown running back Ryan Grant (201 yards rushing, 3 TD runs), and their suffocating defense.

Now, as you can tell from the pictures above, it was snowing a decent amount up there. Like I said a year ago when I was writing about the NFC championship game, I love shooting football in the snow. The white droplets everywhere in the frame adds a very unique and beautiful element to all the images. However, like all good things, it is only good in moderation! In the third quarter, you couldn't call the weather simply "snow" anymore. I mean, it was hard enough that it required a tractor to plow the field in between plays so that players could see the yard markers! Yeah, that would be a "snowstorm."

The biggest problem with the snow was not that it was wet and made for a slippery and dirty field to work on, but was that it really killed autofocus performance. Cameras are so sensitive these days, that the white snowflakes can trick the camera into focusing in front of the subject. For the most part, the snow wasn't heavy enough to affect us too badly. Except in the third quarter when we pretty much had a white out (the Seattle receiver pictured below dropped a wide-open ball in the end zone... I don't blame him... try to find the ball in the frame... it's there, I swear!).

Despite the challenges that the snow gave us in the second half, it was great to be out there. With the Giants taking out Dallas today, it means Green Bay will be hosting the NFC Championship game. Forcasted game time temperature: 4 degrees.

East Coast Deadline

2008-01-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everybody! Well, one week down in 2008, fifty-one more to go. The first week of my new year was filled with lots of basketball... and all on east coast deadline. What that means is that I was shooting a night game that involved a visiting team from the eastern time zone.

Newspapers have deadlines as to when images and stories must be submitted so that a layout can be created in time for the morning editions to go to print. There are typically several deadlines, but for simplicity's sake, I'll just say that there is an early deadline, and a late deadline. The deadlines vary for various newspapers, but early deadline is probably around 9:30-10pm for most papers. This is so that a the paper can be designed, printed, and shipped to subscribers and newsboxes in suburbs further out in a paper's distribution area. Then there is a late or final deadline, probably somewhere between 10:30-11:30pm, for areas more that are closer to the printing/shipping facility.

The most difficult thing for photojournalists (in Chicago at least) is when there is an 8pm game involving an east-coast team (meaning the game is starting at 9pm in their time zone). This means that the game starts pretty close to early deadlines. Normally, we will shoot a half of a game before going in to transmit images. But when there is a late start and an east coast early deadline, we are forced to transmit pictures after only about 10 minutes of game action. Obviously, the most annoying thing that comes out of this is the potential for missing some big play. The other problem is that so early in the game, it's usually pretty tough to see any story lines develop, so instead of filling the most story-telling images, we're just sending pictures of what we hope will be pertinent to the story later... or whatever looks cool.

So the two basketball games I shot this past week were both 8pm CDT starts, but both involved teams from Pennsylvania: Penn State and Villanova.

I kind of got lucky in the Northwestern-Penn State game. After about 10 minutes of action, I went to file some images. Hard to tell what the story of the game is going to be after such a short time, so what I did was I filed a couple images of Penn State's high scorers, and also a photo of Northwestern looking bad (because you know they're probably going to lose).

As it turns out, those two Penn State players ended up being the high scorers in the game, and NU lost. So all there was left to do after the game was over was to just send a few extra bs action shots, and call it a night.

The next night I shot the DePaul-Villanova game. Again, after about 10 minutes of action, I went to file some images. At that point, there was really no indication of how the game was going to shape up, so as before, I just filed some images of the current high-scorers and top performers along with some random action shots.

However, unlike the previous night, those images did not end up being the most story-telling images of the game, because another player on both DePaul and Villanova stepped up in the second half and led their respective teams in scoring, so I had to file some of those as soon as the game was over.

On top of that, DePaul pulled off the pretty big upset of a nationally ranked team in Villanova, and I had not sent any pictures of the Blue Demons celebrating or looking all that dominating in my original transmission (how could I have, 10 min into a game is usually too early for players to be going nuts after every basket?). So jubilation photos were also filed for late deadline.

Now, don't get me wrong. I was happy with the overall game take. I managed to get pictures of all the key players and moments in the game, but I still feel kind of annoyed knowing that papers on early deadline will be running a picture that doesn't really have anything to do with the game other than a generic action shot. But that's east coast deadline for ya.....

Tis the Season...

2007-12-24T09:01:00.001-08:00

... for giving and receiving....

Jingle Bells :-)

Boomer Sooner

2007-12-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

It has been a wild and wacky college football season. For those of you who follow NCAA football, you know that it seems like almost every team ranked #1 or #2 has lost at this time of year which has meant weekly shake-ups in the polls:

- 10/6: Stanford 24, #2 USC 23
- 10/13: Kentucky 43, #1 LSU 37
- 10/13: Oregon State 31, #2 Cal 28
- 10/18: Rutgers 30, #2 USF 27
- 11/3: FSU 27, #2 BC 17
- 11/10: Illinois 28, #1 OSU 21
- 11/15: Arizona 34, #2 Oregon 24
- 11/23: Arkansas 50, #1 LSU 48
- 11/24: Mizzou 36, #2 KU 28
- 12/1: Pitt 13, #2 W Virginia 9
- 12/1: Oklahoma 38, #1 Mizzou 17

I was there at Missouri's big loss to Oklahoma on Dec. 1 in the Big XII championship game in San Antonio, TX. If Mizzou had won, they would have guaranteed a bid in the BCS National Championship game. They played the first half of the Big XII championship like everything was on the line (it was), and fought the mighty Sooners to a 17-17 tie at half.

Unfortunately for Missouri Tigers fans, the team laid an egg in the second half by getting completely outplayed on offense and defense en route to getting blown out 38-17. Bye bye national championship dreams. I think the Tigers will be hearing "Boomer Sooner" in their dreams for quite some time.

This game was my first taste of Big XII football. Even though Missouri and Oklahoma fans packed the Alamodome, I'll admit I was a bit disappointed in the atmosphere. I figured since the Big XII is such a traditional powerhouse conference, the fans would be pretty rabid. Especially since the national championship was on the line. Maybe it was the fact that the Alamodome is a neutral site, or maybe my trip to Death Valley and SEC country really is putting all my future college football experiences to shame!

Down On the Bayou

2007-11-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

I meant to post this about a month ago, because these two events happened just over a month ago, but I got kind of busy with the World Series, and then after that, just never bothered to write about it...

Anyways, about a month ago, I went down to Louisiana for a weekend of football. I flew in on a Saturday morning in order to cover a night college game between the LSU Tigers and the Auburn Tigers in Baton Rouge. Then on Sunday afternoon, I covered an NFL game between the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons at the Superdome.

Needless to say, this was the first time I have been down to Louisiana to shoot football. Quite frankly, I'm not sure why I was asked since you'd think there'd be someone else within 900 miles of New Orleans and Baton Rouge who could go and handle these games. I guess everybody local happened to be tied up that particular weekend... or I'm just that good ;-)

Like I said above, the first game I shot was a game between Auburn and LSU in Baton Rouge. From TV, I know that SEC football is life down there, so I was very excited to make a visit to LSU's Tiger Stadium - aka Death Valley. I knew it was going to be a madhouse, so I planned on getting there 4 hours early. So four hours early, and traffic was backed up 10 miles away from Baton Rouge. Crazy. I eventually figured out why as I got closer to campus and the stadium, as thousands of yellow and purple clad LSU fans were just milling all over the place jamming up all the streets and sidewalks. Yup, SEC football is life.

Now, if you didn't check out my link about Tiger Stadium aka Death Valley got its nickname from the fact that it is one of the most hostile and intimating environments for a visiting team. It is super duper loud there, which is helped by the fact that most of their games are at night where the locals have plenty of time to liquor up (as the pre-game traffic jams prove. Seating 92,000 fans, legend has it that after a game-winning TD against Auburn in 1988, the geography department's Richter scale got a detectable reading just from the crowd reaction. In 2003, ESPN recorded a decibel reading of 117 (also against Auburn). Needless to say, this was the loudest (and most exciting) stadium that I have ever been in, and this includes Penn State and Ohio State. I'm sure it helped that the game I shot was a hard-hitting, back-and-forth game, that ended with a game-winning TD with 0:01 remaining in the 4th quarter....

Quite frankly, Death Valley put every other venue I have been to... including large and proud venues like OSU and Penn State... to shame. I will admit, is has been difficult to get geared up for going back to NU games after getting a taste of "Saturday Night in Death Valley." Heck, it made it tough to get super excited about the Saints game the next day. Crazy talk, considering the Superdome can be a rocking venue too. The Saints played a great game and sent the locals home happy with a victory.

So that was my trip to Louisiana and my first taste of SEC football... I cannot wait for the opportunity to go back to Death Valley or any other SEC venue for that matter!

On the Mark [3]

2007-11-21T08:07:00.000-08:00

This past week, I covered two games: a college football game in Champaign, and then a college basketball game in Evanston. Nothing really out of the ordinary (except for Northwestern putting up 95 points in basketball... that was quite unexpected). What was different with these games was that I shot these games with a Canon 1D Mark III, which is Canon's newest DSLR.

So what's so great about it compared to the pair of 1D Mark II cameras that I've been using? The Mark II is 8 megapixels at 8 fps... What more could I need? You're right, I have been happy using the Mark II for a long time, and will continue to be happy using it. So why upgrade? The Mark III does 10 megapixels at 10 fps. That's the fastest frame rate of any DLSR out there on the market. However, in my opinion, the biggest reason to upgrade is the low noise at high ISO. There is a lot of user testimony out there claiming up to two, or even three stops difference in noise between the Mark II and Mark III. I don't know how they are judging the noise, but to me, that's a bit of an exaggeration. By my eyes, it looks like the Mark III is about a full stop better than the Mark II. In other words, a 3200 ISO shot on a Mark III looks like 1600 ISO on a Mark II. Still not bad, since the 1600 ISO on a Mark II has long been considered very usable.

So ironically, I decided to get the Mark III primarily for the wedding side of my business, not the sports side. An additional 2 megapixels or 2 frames per second doesn't really do a whole lot for me since that really isn't adding a whole lot. It's the lack of noise and superior image quality that made the decision for me. I have a wedding in December where I might as well just be shooting in a cave (the ambient light for the ceremony will be 1/30, f/2.8, 1600 ISO - it would be fantastic to be able to push the ISO to get a higher shutter speed). I'm sure there will be future weddings in equally poor light, so I figured I might as well throw down the dough now. And yeah, for an added bonus, it would be great for my sports work, especially all the indoor stuff I do over the winter :-)

Despite the impressive tech specs, professionals have not exactly been jumping all over the Mark III yet. Why not? Well, it would seem like Canon jumped the gun on their new flagship camera and released it too early - before all the bugs were fixed. The big problem was that the autofocus would not work under all conditions. In low light, it was brilliant. However for some reason, when using the camera under bright daylight, the camera would consistently fail to achieve focus. Not good. Canon initially denied any problems but said that they would "investigate." Nearly 6 months after its release, Canon finally admitted a mistake and issued a recall on the 1D Mark III to fix a "sub-mirror" problem. Any subsequent Mark III produced would have a blue sticker on the box indicating that it has one of the new sub-mirrors. The Mark III that I received does indeed have a blue sticker on the box.

So my first game with it was the annual Northwestern vs Fighting Illini football game. This year it was in Champaign, and the conditions were bright and sunny: exactly the conditions where the Mark III has previously failed. I would have to say that the AF on my unit was very good. I had about the same hit percentage of images as I normally would using a Mark II. I will go on and also say that any focus problems I did have were due to user error. Canon completely revamped the menus and button menu on the Mark III, so I was frequently fumbling around trying to figure out how to set things the way I liked. In any case, my Mark III passed its initial test.

The next game I had was the Benedictine vs Northwestern basketball game. Benedictine is a division 3 school, so Northwestern just absolutely spanked them. Final score was 95-63. I don't think I have ever seen NU shoot so well, and score so many points. I have also never shot at higher than 1600 ISO at Welsh-Ryan Arena, so being able to do 1/500, f/2.8, at 2500-3200 ISO was fantastic. Being able to shoot basketball at 1/500 instead of 1/320 makes a huge difference because I am no longer losing so many images to motion blur. Still noisy, but fantastic.

IFL World Grand Prix

2007-11-09T21:38:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, an assignment editor called and left a message on my phone asking if I was available to cover the IFL World Grand Prix. When I got that message, I'll admit, I was a little nervous and hesitant to return the call and say yes. Why? Because I have never shot a racing event before. Not NASCAR, not Indy cars, not even go carts at a local carnival. However, because it was Getty Images calling, I wasn't just going to turn the event down due to lack of racing experience. Afterall, it couldn't possibly be that hard to pick up, right? So I Googled the event to see what I was in for. It turns out the IFL World Grand Prix is not a racing event... it was a mixed martial arts event. So apparently IFL is short for the International Fight League, and for some reason, they were out at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, IL. Hmmmm..... can't say I've shot that before either, although unlike with a potential racing gig, I was not worried about not being able to create solid images from an IFL event. After all, I've shot boxing and wrestling before, so how hard can it really be to go to an arena and photograph a bunch of crazies beating the living crap out of each other?

So after accepting the assignment, a couple of random thoughts popped into my head:

- Why would the IFL want to come to Chicago? And since they are in Chicago, why did they pick a venue in Hoffman Estates? That community is a bit more blue collar than maybe some of the surrounding suburbs like Barrington, but it certainly isn't going to be mistaken for a redneck community. (answer: probably because everywhere else said no)
- Is the IFL real like boxing, or fake like WWF? (answer: real)
- Why does Getty care to even cover this, let alone send three photographers AND an editor to this event? (answer: they have a contract to be the official IFL photographers)
- Do any women actually come and watch something like this? (answer: surprisingly, yes)

Anyways, onto the actual event. Like I said, I've shot boxing and wrestling before, so I'm not new to photographing events that pit two combatants in a ring, or circle, or whatever and have them go beat each other up. However, it was slightly more challenging than a typical boxing match. The big difference is that photographers are not allowed right on the ropes like they are in boxing (too dangerous I guess). Instead, we are set about 2 feet behind the ropes.

The problem with being away from the ropes is that they can sometimes creep into your photo (see above), especially when the action gets close to you.

As far as the actual fights went, it was pretty straight forward. Like I said, it's just two guys absolutely wailing on each other. As far as I could tell, there were not really any rules except for the following:

- 3 rounds, 4 min each.
- No biting or scratching. Only punching, kicking, body slamming, etc.

- If punched or kicked in the crotch, the official stops the match and lets you regroup.

- You win when you knock someone out, force somebody to concede (they tap the mat to concede or "tap out"), or win by decision after the three rounds are up, and the previous two scenarios have not happened.

It was really kinda interesting to see. I can't figure out why anybody would ever be an athlete in the IFL.... my only theory is that it's like a primal thing. As violent as the sport is, I'm sure a lot of the athletes are really nice guys in the real world.... getting in the ring against another human being is just a kind of a way to let the animal inside of you out. Although I suppose playing football, lacrosse, or hockey could probably accomplish the same thing.... and with less brain damage...

Soxtober

2007-11-07T21:50:00.000-08:00

Yeah yeah yeah, I know it's November, and yeah yeah, I know this is pretty much a ripoff of my last post (as well as pretty much every headline in America), but I have been extremely busy recently. But in case you have been out of touch with civilization, the Red Sox won the World Series by sweeping the Colorado Rockies...

And I was there:

Baseball is baseball, but shooting the World Series is a bit of a different animal. Obviously, the biggest change from regular season games, and even the divisional and league championship playoff games, is that there is A LOT more media. I have covered the past two World Series as well, but I feel like there were even more this year than previous years. I guess this is what happens when you have the Red Sox in it, one of the sport's most popular franchises.

The challenge of having so many members of the media there is that space becomes extremely limited. They literally cram us into the photo boxes like sardines, if we're lucky enough to be even assigned a spot in the photo boxes. I happened to shoot from an assigned position in all four games, but there were numerous shooters who didn't get an assigned position and was thus forced to just roam the stadium and hope to find a reasonable spot to shoot from where they wouldn't block the fans' view of the field, and also not get blocked by the fans themselves.

Now, like the past two Fall Classics, I shot the Series for US Presswire. This year was especially challenging because we did not have a dedicated editor on site like many of the other wire services. Generally during these large events, photographers will pass their cards to "runners" who literally run memory cards from the field to editors in the press box or other working areas where the images are then toned, captioned, and uploaded to the respective wires. This year, Mark Rebilas and myself acted as the on-site editors for US Presswire, as well as serving as the primary two photographers.

In a way, it was advantageous for us to be able to upload our own photos. Instead of the time delay of having a runner send our memory cards to an editor, and then have an editor try to figure out what is going on in each photo, we were able to shave off a lot of time by cutting out that middle man and filing them in between innings. In this industry, speed is key. A lot of times, publications - especially web publications - will simply use whatever photos are available first. So as far as in-game action goes, Rebilas and I did pretty well.

However, there were two main disadvantage of us being our own editors. First, our focus was not 100% on shooting the game, whereas just about everybody else who was there was. The second problem was that after the game, we always got our butt's kicked by other agencies because we would always get stuck shooting the celebrations while other companies were already moving photos of the winning team's jubilation.

Oh well, all the challenges aside, shooting the World Series was a great experience as always. I got to meet a lot of top shooters in this industry, as well as cross off another city in America that I have not yet visited. And of course, was able to come out with some nice images :-)

Instead, fellow US Presswire shooter Mark Rebilas and myself acted as the on-site editors as well as photographers. After each game, we managed the work of the other photographers with us, as well as our own work. During the game, much like most photographers during a regular season game, we would edit our images in between innings and then upload them directly to the company's website. Although in a way, it was advantageous in that we were able to get the pictures up directly, it was also inconvenient because while other photographers could focus only on shooting the action, we were constantly scrambling between our editing job and our shooting job.

Feature photos are generally not really all that important during the regular season, but in the postseason, the swarms of fans and media, as well as the World Series signage around the ballpark is a storyline and can be worthwhile to photograph:

Rocktoberfest

2007-10-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

ESPN recently had a poll online asking users what is currently the biggest sports story: a) The Patriots' domination over the NFL, b) College football upsets around the nation, or c) The Colorado Rockies' hot streak.

Users around the country have spoken, and they say that the Colorado Rockies are the biggest story in all of sports right now. This team was left for dead in the playoff race in the middle of September, but have been blazingly hot in the past 30 days, having won a ridiculous 21 games out of their last 22. And because of it, they will be playing in the World Series for the first time in franchise history.

Anyways, I traveled out to Denver this past weekend to cover what local have started to call "Rocktober." It was the first time I have shot baseball since the middle of September, but I did not feel that rusty. Baseball is a pretty easy to sport to shoot as long as you stay alert and always know the situation. If there's a runner on second base and there's a single, there is a potential play at the plate. If there's a runner on first base, always keep tabs on him to make sure he's not stealing, or if there's a hard grounder on the infield, there's probably going to be a double play at second. If the batter can tie or take the lead with one swing, be sure to get a picture of that at-bat. I can go on and on about baseball situations.

However, knowledge of the game cannot save you from the coach's/ump's/player's/camera man's ass. For those of you following this series, you know there wasn't a lot of drama on the bases for the two games in Colorado, so good action was hard to come by. However, I seemed to get extraordinarly bad luck (especially in game 3) where every time there was an important play, or simply just nice looking play in the field, I got blocked:

(coach's ass blocks a key double play for the Rockies)

(player's ass blocks my view of a ball dropped for an error)

(player's ass blocks shot of 1B reaching over fans for a foul pop)

(TV guy blocking home run celebration)

Oh well. Action is important, but you can argue that reaction is more important in the postseason anyways:

Next week, I travel to the World Series... I think I used up all my bad luck with umps and coaches on this trip to Denver, so I expect a straight forward shoot next time out with many great, UN-BLOCKED images :-)

I-L-L.... I-N-I !!!!!

2007-10-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

I got pulled off of the Cubs NLDS choke job and instead made the 140 mile trek down to Champaign, IL to shoot one of the country's biggest college football matchups of the day: the up-and-coming Fighting Illini of Illinois vs the #5 ranked Badgers of Wisconsin.

In the kooky world that is college football this year, every team that has been undefeated and ranked #5 this year has lost, so beware Bucky, beware.

The Badgers always seem to play down to their opposition, and they struggled for consistency throughout the first half despite keeping the score close. Their star tight end Travis Beckum was pretty much the lone bright spot for Wisconsin, as he made several circus catches in traffic like this one:

However, in front of a packed house full of raucous, orange-clad fans, the Fighting Illini's powerful running attack eventually wore down the Badgers defense, as they rolled out 289 yards and three TD's on the ground.

With just about a minute to go, the Badgers had a chance to get the ball back to try to drive for the winning score, but the Illini converted a fourth-and-one to send Memorial Stadium into a frenzy, and giving coach Ron Zook his first signature win in Champaign.

Gross, Man

2007-09-26T13:17:00.001-07:00

Bears fans, you are getting your wish... after a disastrous performance on Sunday Night Football that led to a 34-10 whipping by the Dallas Cowboys, Good Rex, Bad Rex is out, Brian Griese is in.

Quarterbacks in the NFL receive far too much credit for good play, and far too much blame for poor play. A lot of Grossman's struggles this year is because the offensive line hasn't been holding up, the running game by Cedric Benson has been very inconsistent, and the wide receivers are not going after the ball and dropping passes.

Yeah, the Bears played poorly, but let's not forget to give credit where credit is due. The Cowboys also outplayed the Bears. They made the clutch catches and the clutch throws when it mattered. Hmmm, that sounds kind of familiar... That's the Bears last season!

Broken Shutter, Broken Heart

2007-09-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

It finally happened... I blew my first shutter yesterday at the Cubs-Pirates game. For all you photography newbies out there, the shutter controls when light enters the camera and for how long. That click-click sound you hear whenever you take a picture? That is the shutter opening and closing.

As with any other piece of technology, you use it enough, it will wear down and break down. Canon rates the shutters in their 1D Mark II cameras for 200,000 cycles. Other than having Canon count it for you, I don't think there is a way to get an accurate count on how many actuations your camera has gone through, however there are ways to estimate it. The most popular way is to use an EXIF reader (I use the very originally named program called EXIF Reader). It is just a small program that will read and display the camera settings used for each shot such as aperture, shutter speed, flash settings, etc. It also reads the number of actuations, however it is limited in that for some reason, it seems to reset itself around every 65,000-68,000 clicks.

All that said, I plugged my very last image taken and the actuations read 13,402. My best estimation of my shutter actuations on this camera is roughly between 200,000-210,000 actuations (I bought it with about 50,000 actuations, and I have turned the counter over three times), which is just about what Canon rates the 1D Mark II's shutter.

Anyways, this is first frame in which I knew something was up. It was a base hit by the Pirates leadoff hitter. Right when it happened, I heard a strange sounding cracking noise, which I originally thought was maybe his bat cracking.

I knew from past readings about blown shutters that finding white streaks in your images is a big clue that the shutter has gone out. So I took another photo to make sure.

Yup, now there's a black streak along with the white streak, which is the shutter showing up in the frame. Well, off to the repair facility it goes!

500 Home Runs

2007-09-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

I mean to post this last weekend (when it actually happened), but I got so busy that I'm only now finally able to find the time.

On Sunday, September 16, 2007, Chicago White Sox designated hitter Jim Thome joined the 500 home run club by hitting a walk-off home run to defeat the Los Angeles Angels. It was the first time in baseball history that someone's 500th home run was a walk-off job.

Now for the entire week, we had been covering Thome's chase for 500 with two photographers (one shooting from first base, another from third), but I was shooting solo on Sunday. The Bears were playing their first home game that same day, and because the NFL rules all, our resources were stretched pretty thin. Because of this, and I hate to admit it, but part of me kind of dreaded taking on this game. I was hoping that Thome would hit his milestone homer the Friday or Saturday before my assigned day, just so I wouldn't have to deal with the pressure of nailing the moment. Of course, he didn't, and for a long time, it looked like he wasn't going to do it that Sunday either. He was 0 for all his at bats, and the Sox were down by six runs.

However, it was Jim Thome bobblehead doll day, and his picture was printed on all the season tickets. Clearly, if there were ever a perfect day where Thome would club out number 500, it would be today. Against all odds, his Sox teammates made it possible by rallying for 6 runs to tie the game up going into the ninth inning with Thome due up second.

I had joked around during the top half of the inning that the hitter ahead of Thome (Darin Erstad) would ruin a perfect ending to Jim Thome bobblehead doll day by hitting a walk off of his own. He didn't, and big Jim socked it to the Angels, sending US Cellular Field into a frenzy.

13 innings!

2007-09-08T21:04:00.001-07:00

When you take a baseball assignment, you know you're in for a long night, since the games average about 3 hours in time. But on top of that, there is always the "risk" of extra inning games. Yesterday, I shot the longest game in my short photo career: it took the White Sox 13 innings (and about 4.5 hours) to knock off the visiting Minnesota Twins.

As usual, it was a pretty ordinary baseball game. Shoot the pitchers, shoot some action:

But as it turns out. It was anything but ordinary. In fact, it was historic. The two teams entered the ninth inning tied at four. The two teams left the ninth inning tied at ten! In the history of major league baseball, no two teams have ever scored six runs each to keep a game tied and force extra innings. While it was a historic as far as comebacks go, the photos from the ninth inning were anything but. The weird thing about shooting baseball is that just because there is a lot of scoring, doesn't mean there's going to be a lot of action. Especially if there are home runs involved, because all you get is a picture of somebody swinging the bat, or players congratulating each other at home.... pretty boring!

So onto extra innings. Shooting extra innings in baseball is kind of annoying. Because the game can end on one swing, you have to shoot every swing, just to make sure you get the photo of the player who gets the game-winning hit. So you get a ton of super repetitive photos of different batters swinging that will never be used in any publication. To put into perspective of how many extra photos I ended up taking last night, in an average 9-inning MLB game, I end up taking 525 photos (I calculated this out about a month ago because a friend was curious). But in yesterday's 13 inning game, I shot 1,094 photos, 611 of which were taken from the 9th inning and beyond.

On the flip side, chances are pretty good that after the game-winning hit photo, you get a really nice jubilation photo, like this one where Luis Terrero got mobbed by his teammates after scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 13th.

Fight! Fight! Fight! For IOWA!

2007-09-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

Non-sports fans in Chicago probably noticed that there was a lot of people wearing yellow this Saturday. The reason? The Iowa Hawkeyes were in town to take on the Northern Illinois Huskies at the first college football game ever held at Soldier Field.

Now, Hawkeye fans are well known for traveling well, but I was still blown away by their turnout. Although NIU was technically the home team: wearing the colored jerseys, providing the PA announcer, scoreboard graphics, credentials, etc., you might as well have called Chicago "Iowa City East" for the day. Out of an announced crowd of over 60,000, I would have to say at least 50,000 were Hawkeye fans, and of those, at least 45,000 wearing some shade of yellow or black. Now I covered an extensive playoff run by the Bears last season, but it was arguably nuttier and louder at Soldier Field today than it is at a Bears game. So who's got great fans? Yeah.... IOWA.

So in my last post, I mentioned that after two NFL preseason games, I felt the rust was gone and I would be ready for a great regular season: in both the NFL and NCAA. Sure, the action tracking/shooting rust is gone, but it does no good when you have no luck! My job is to tell the story, and a big story line in today's game was Iowa's defense, who limited the Huskies to only 3 points en route to a 16-3 victory. However, I was not able to make a solid photo of any of Iowa's three sacks or three interceptions. I was either on the wrong side of the field, or even more frustrating, someone would run right in front of me (like a referee or another player) and block the play.... grrrrr....

Well, I like to say I got a C- in this game. I still did my best to tell the story, but they aren't necessarily the most compelling images for the story. I hate to make it seem like there is so much luck involved in shooting football just based on where you happen to be shooting from, but when shooting a game solo, there is just so much ground to cover, you can only make your best guess as to where the action is going to go. In retrospect, maybe I should have positioned myself to shoot more of Iowa's defense, but NIU had shown flashes throughout the entire game, so I didn't want to miss a big offensive play for them. Hmmmm, maybe I'm still rusty afterall....

So I may not have gotten a solid sack or solid interception picture, but at least I got a decent frame of the defensive back who got two picks. However, it would have been even better had I gotten a shot where the ball was a bit closer. Oh well...

Another story line was that Iowa introduced a new starting quarterback, and he came out and responded by throwing a touchdown pass. And there was much rejoicing.

Finally, Iowa had two 100 yard rushers, which helped keep the Huskies off the field. Here's one of them, breaking away from the NIU defense:

And of course, your token random action shots to help fill out the day's take:

Preseason Football

2007-08-31T13:02:00.000-07:00

For fans of the game, preseason football is probably one of the biggest scams out there. Teams charge full price for tickets, parking, concessions, etc., but fans get an exhibition game in return, where many star players play very few snaps, or like San Diego's Ladainian Tomlinson, don't play a single snap. Basically, fans are paying full price to see football... but are paying to see second and third string football. And this goes on the first four weeks of every football season. What a crime!

However, in the NFL's defense, there is a very good reason for having these preseason games (besides the whole money thing). First off, teams generally know who their starters are going to be, and what they can do. Often times, teams can only do more harm by playing starters in the preseason as compared to having them sit out the four weeks. They might play poorly for some reason or even worse, get hurt... in a game that doesn't even count!

I'll use the Bears for example. Quarterback Rex Grossman supposedly had an outstanding training camp, but he struggled in the preseason with fumbles and was the subject of lots of criticism. First round draft choice Greg Olsen, who was going to be a big part of the Bears offense got hurt in the final preseason game and is out for 2-4 weeks.

So why is the preseason so long? Well, the main reason is that it does serve as a good way for coaches to evaluate the depth of their team in a glorified practice setting. But the reason I like to give is that it also serves as good practice for photographers! Many of us (including yours truly), have not shot football in nearly nine months, so the preseason marks our first game action of the year. I know the pictures may not necessarily show it, but in my first preseason game, I felt like my timing and my tracking skills were a bit off. So of course, I was tested right off the bat when Grossman decided to chuck it deep to one of his receivers.

After the second preseason game, I felt a lot better... again, the pictures probably don't really show it, but I felt more comfortable out on the field.

Bring on the regular season! DAAAAA BEARS!

Pleasure's Delight

2007-08-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

I am not paparazzi, nor do I want to be labeled as one. I hold them in the same regard as most of the general public do: that they are scum of the earth who need to get a life and leave their poor subjects alone. An article that was published in the Chicago Tribune only strengthened by views on that particular line of work. You can read the article here. To me, it's absolutely ridiculous how these people sit in their cars all day waiting for celebrities to come out, then chase them around town in their cars (with little or no regard to public safety), and then go and try to get photographs of them running errands. As quoted in the Tribune article "We aren't trespassing, we're just trying to get a story."

What story? Angelina Jolie visits toy store in Chicago? That's not a story!

So why this rant right now? Well, I was assigned to go photograph Gwyneth Paltrow at Macy's in Chicago. I don't consider this assignment paparazzi because I didn't have to stake out her house or chase her through the city streets or anything like that. I just got the assignment handed down to me by the AP's assignment editor knowing that she was going to be doing a sponsored, public appearance to sign bottles of her new fragrance.

And even though it controlled environment, it was crowded as hell. Photographers I have never seen before from organizations I have never heard of up the wazoo. All of us regular photojournalists (like the Tribune and Sun Times photogs) as well as regular TV guys just looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Ugh.

I thought it was funny how Paltrow was once quoted as saying she loved Chicago because there are no paparazzi. I think she was in for a shock, because that sure wasn't true because Bradgelina was in town!

Despite the working conditions, it was a pretty simple assignment. See Gwyneth Paltrow, photograph Gwyneth Paltrow. Check, and check:

Punch Out!

2007-08-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Well, here's a new one for me: boxing. On Saturday, August 4, challenger Erik Morales of Mexico took on Chicago native David Diaz for the WBC World Lightweight Championship. Don't ask me what that means, because I have no idea. Is it just me or does every boxing match seem to be some sort of championship bout?

Now, I've been to the Allstate Arena many times to cover DePaul basketball games, so I knew the lighting was going to be pretty crummy: roughly 1/500, f/2.8 at ISO 1000. However, I also knew that my assigned shooting position was from the 200 level seats, which means I would probably need to use a 1.4x teleconverter (which makes me lose a stop of light) otherwise the fighters would be too loose in my frame. So for the fights, I was shooting a touch underexposed at 1/500, f/4.0 at 1600 ISO. Eeesh. Thank goodness I shoot Canon.

Anyways, I thought boxing would be a really easy sport to shoot. I figured it'd be a lot like other individual sports like swimming or track: just focus on the athlete and machine gun away anytime someone flinches. While that is pretty much how one would go about shooting boxing, the problem is that the "hit percentage" of good shots is extremely low. I found boxing to be somewhat similar to baseball or hockey where the photographer tries for the "bat-on-ball" or "puck-on-stick" photo. In boxing, we go for the "fist-on-face" photo. Of course, those plays happen all the time, but actually getting that moment is surprisingly difficult (although there is timing involved, a lot of it is just luck of when you mash the shutter). Although the speed of someone's fist is obviously significantly slower than a speeding baseball or hockey puck, it was still surprisingly difficult to nail one of them "fist-on-face" photos. I think I only ended up with two "fist-on-face" photos the entire fight out of about 500 photos.

Luckily, like baseball and hockey, it's not just about the "fist-on-face" photo. There are other types of action as well, like deflecting or dodging punches:

And of course: VICTORY!

So why was I shooting from the 200 level for the fight? Well, I was there as the second photographer, so the other, more experienced staff photographer (as opposed the less experienced freelance photographer) got to shoot from ringside. I guess it worked out well because that meant a couple of things: 1) no risk of blood, spit, slobber, or miscellaneous bodily fluids from hitting me or my equipment and 2) I didn't have to worry about action shots from the other fights that evening: only worry about jubilation/dejection photos.

Of course, like any other photographer, I shot some action anyways, just to get a feel for the lighting and timing the action even though those probably weren't going to be moved to the wire unless I shot something exceptional in those other bouts. Well, I got something all right! To quote our editor that evening: "Well, we were doing well as far as action goes on those other fights.... and then we found this one!"

Ouch! I can't figure out why anybody would want to be a boxer. Seems pretty ridiculous making a living either beating the crap out of someone or getting the crap kicked out of you. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Bonds and Beyond

2007-07-27T22:35:00.000-07:00

After the Conrad Black trial finally wrapped up, it was back to the diamond for me. Among my first assignments after Lord Black's trial was Barry Bonds' arrival at Wrigley Field for possibly the last time in his career. So even though it was back to sports for me, things hadn't quite returned to normal since Bonds was only 4 home runs away from tying baseball's all-time record. My job the first two games of the series was to cover everything Barry: fans, signs, and if Bonds ever popped out, the man himself. Of course, Bonds was held out of the starting lineup both nights I was there, so all I got to shoot was a whole load of signage:

He did finally make a pinch-hit appearance in the second game. As expected, he was booed viciously by the Wrigley faithful, there were a fair number of San Francisco fans cheering him on as well.

In that particular at bat, Bonds flied out harmlessly to left field which led to a lock of mock cheering by the Cub fans...

But he did hit two bombs against the Cubs a couple of days later in a losing effort. As of this writing, Bonds is now only one home run away from tying Hank Aaron's career home run record.

But, that's not my problem anymore since he's back in San Francisco. Which means for me, it's finally back to "just baseball."

Touchdown???

2007-07-14T18:04:00.001-07:00

Only at Wrigley...

... can a baseball get eaten by the wall.

Black Friday

2007-07-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

I forget who said it, but on Friday, one of my colleagues said "This might be the only day in my life where my day has been better than Conrad Black's."

Another photographer then responded, "Well, today and every other day from now on..."

On Friday, July 13, 2007, Conrad Black was found guilty of obstruction of justice and three counts of mail fraud. The former media mogul is now facing up to 35 years in prison and up to a $1 million fine. This marks the end of a long three-month fraud and racketeering trial against Black.

I didn't really cover a lot of this trial until it's final week. Which isn't entirely a bad thing. Court photography is not exactly the most glamorous thing in the world. When shooting at federal court, we don't actually get to go up into the courtroom to shoot the proceedings (there are artists for that sort of thing). So all we do is photograph the people as they enter and leave the building. It's really quite silly, but that's what the media outlets want. Sounds boring, huh? Well, yeah, it involves quite a lot of sitting around. Check out this photo taken by Dave Chidley, of the Canadian Press:

Now as for photographing people going in and out of the building, it's actually not as easy as you might think. At the Dirksen Federal Court in Chicago, there are only a handful of entry and exit points that one can go in and out of. There are four sets of revolving doors that someone can enter: one from the north, one from the south, and two from the west. The problem is that the federal courthouse is a whole city block long, so the only way to cover all the entrances is to have people stationed at each entrance and alert each other when the person (or persons) of interest pull up. Then everybody sprints towards that entrance and hopes to get a decent picture.

It's a little bit easier to get people leaving court. The entire building is glass, so you can see which exit the subject is headed for. In the case of Lord Black (he has a seat on the British House of Lords), he would always leave from the same place, and get into the same SUV. He did this for almost three months.

Of course, the tricky bastard duped us all on Friday after getting his verdict. As usual, after court was adjourned, his white SUV would roll up to the federal court's front door. But this time, things were different. What I didn't mention above was that there are actually two sets of revolving doors on the east side of the building, that are exit only doors. This time, Black surprised us and went out one of these "back" doors. So why is going out the back door such a surprise? Well, the problem for people going out the back, is that it's a much longer walk to the street, and therefore a much longer distance to walk while hounded by the press. But the Lord cleverly arranged for another driver, in another SUV that nobody had seen the past three months, to pull up really close to the exit. Black was then able to hop in the SUV without too many photo and video guys on him. Only a handful of outlets were stationed at the "back" door and got him walking out. Like I said, that sneaky bastard!

Walk (off) This Way

2007-06-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

The Chicago Cubs are finally playing the way you'd expect a team that spent $300 million in the off season would play: seven consecutive victories, including two in dramatic walk-off fashion. The latest winning streak has helped bring the Cubs back to .500, and back into striking distance in the playoff race. So what triggered this dramatic turnaround? Well, I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but it all began by playing one of the league's punching bags, the Chicago White Sox!

The Cubs finished a three-game sweep of their south side rivals to ignite this winning streak. The fourth victory in the current winning streak is probably second most memorable baseball games I have ever been at (my number one game I have ever been at was Game 2 of the 2005 World Series when Podsednik hit his walk-off). The Cubs fell behind in the first inning 1-0, but they quickly overcame that and built up a pretty sizable 8-3 lead heading into the ninth inning. Nothing to worry about, right? Wrong. The Rockies strung a bunch of hits together, and next thing you knew, it was 8-6, and still nobody out. But that's ok, two runs are still tough to get in just one inning, right? Wrong. A couple of base hits, and then a three-run home run gave the Rockies an improbable 9-8 lead.

At this point, you would think that the Cubs are toast. Can a club recover mentally from completely squandering a 5 run lead int he ninth inning? Usually not, but there was an error that extended the game and bring up superstar Alfonso Soriano, who promply ended the game with a walk-off single. And then there was much rejoicing.

I think that the walk-off took a lot out of the Rockies, as they haven't won a game since then. Ahhh yes, isn't momentum in sports a funny thing?

Anyways, next up for the Cubs is the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, who are in town until Sunday. The Cubs took the series opener today in dramatic, walk-off fashion as well (although I don't think it was as wacky as Monday's walk-off). The Cubs quickly found themselves in a 5-0 deficit in the first inning, but kept clawing back, getting a run back here, a run back there, to make it 5-3 going into the ninth inning. The Cubs wasted no time in stringing a few base hits together to make the score 5-4. With a runner on, enter Aramis Ramirez. First pitch: exit Aramis Ramirez. Game over. Cubs win! Cubs win!

Who said there's no emotion in professional sports?

Fish Fried

2007-06-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen:

- "This is a joke."
- "We have to apologize to the fans who show up and watch this..."
- "I'm tired of watching this day-in and day-out..."

These were quotes from a post-game press conference following another tough loss, this one 7-5 to the Florida Marlins. The fiery press conference clearly didn't inspire his team, as the Sox took an even more wretching loss the very next day 5-4. The White Sox have now lost 19 of their last 24 games. Now that's ineptitude.

"And we're getting paid for that huh? That's a little embarassing. Getting paid to lose series."

Hooray! We love playing the White Sox!

Damn Yankees!

2007-06-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

It has been a difficult season for the New York Yankees, as they find themselves below .500 as we creep closer and closer to the midway point in the season. Superstar Alex Rodriguez has been one of the only bright spots for the Bronx Bombers, and is having a legendary season that is on pace to be one for the ages. He hit a back-breaking grand slam in the 9th inning on Thursday night:

His numbers have been wasted on numerous occasions this season due to bad pitching and porous defense, but the Yankees have started putting it together recently, winning 6 of their last 8 games. It helps when you play four of those games against the punchless Chicago White Sox! The White Sox have the worst batting average in the league, which was exactly what was needed for the Yankees to get their pitching back on track en route to three straight wins.

Being outhustled and outworked in the field didn't help Chicago's cause either!

Some idiot fans decided the Sox weren't providing adequate entertainment and decided to run out onto the field, only to get body slammed by security. (I hope that was worth the jail time and fine, dumbass)

I think that tackle probably impressed the Chicago Bears, who were there watching the game that night after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch!

Casey and Fred, Beth and Ken

2007-06-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

I have been super-duper busy the past two weeks. On top of my usual load of sporting events, I shot two weddings, one each weekend over the last fortnight (sorry, couldn't resist the opportunity to use that word in a sentence).

I shot my very first wedding in the summer of 2005, and have been gradually doing more and more every year. I actually first got into shooting weddings solely for money's sake. And while admittedly it is still a large factor (duh), I have found that I do enjoy covering them. At first glance, you'd probably think weddings are the exact opposite of sports, but when it comes to photographing them, I think they are very similar. Both are all about capturing the peak actions and emotions of the event as they happen, preferrably on a clean and beautiful background. But really, the very core of both fields are the same: you see it, you shoot it. Simple.

That said, I have really come to respect those who shoot weddings full time. A lot of time and energy is spent just shooting one wedding not only because of the long hours the day of, but also all the image editing required on the back end. Because this post is going to be a "double-post" of two weddings, I will save going into what this "back end" involves (at least in my workflow) for a future post.

The first wedding I did was for Casey and Fred over the Memorial Day weekend. Plan A called for an outdoor ceremony in Grant Park's rose garden. Plan B - the weather plan - called for an indoor ceremony at Hotel 71, where the reception was going to be held. Unfortunately, the weather leading up to the weekend had been extremely rainy, so I was kind expecting to be holed up inside for the entire day. However, Casey decided the day before the wedding (which was also a rainy day) to say screw Plan B, and to do it outside in Grant Park rain or shine. It ended up being a great call, because come the big day, it was mid-70's and mostly sunny. You can't argue with the backdrop!

However, it was almost too nice out because there were just too many tourists milling about, especially since it was also a holiday weekend. I had already sent my assistant back for cocktail hour because we were a bit crunched on time, so I had no way to control random park visitors from creeping into my larger group shots (bridal party, etc). Oh well, still a fun shot though...

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly. Just the usual toasts, dancing, etc. Here's a shot of the father-daughter dance:

The second wedding I shot over the past two weeks was down in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. I knew the bride Beth from college: I was actually her RA (residential assistant, now called community assistants) back in the day. Just knowing who she was, I knew this wedding would be a very nice.

There were a couple of really fun, cute kids at this wedding. The one thing I quickly learned throughout my experiences is that if you follow kids long enough (ok, so it usually doesn't take very long!), they will give you a fun picture!

Chicago Sky

2007-06-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

In one of my recent posts, I had mentioned that I was done with shooting basketball until next season. But I was wrong and I ended up shooting a Bulls game. Well, you know what? I was wrong again. I forgot all about the Chicago Sky, a WNBA team that plays at the UIC Pavilion and I ended up shooting their 78-72 victory over the winless Minnesota Lynx last night.

It might not be the most politically correct thing in the world, but every time I think about women's basketball, I think back to the TV show Futurama. In one episode, the characters land on a planet inhabited by giant Amazon women. They eventually come upon a basketball court and the women explained: "We no can dunk, but good fundamentals... more fun to watch anyways." Of course, the main character Fry replies with a loud "HAHAHAHA." Fry was pretty candid, but he's probably right too: women's basketball is a a bit irrelevant, especially in a city that already has five mainstream professional franchises (Bulls, Bears, Blackhawks, Cubs, and Sox).

Now, I don't follow the league (nor any other professional womens' league), but don't get me wrong, women athletes are just as dedicated to their games any other person, and many of them are undoubtedly just as athletically gifted as their male counterparts. As a result, despite the crappy attendance numbers and TV ratings, the games still make for some nice pictures:

Polar Opposites

2007-05-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

Today, I shot two lacrosse games: a Northwestern women's NCAA tourney game, and a Chicago Machine game. I originally was going to take a day off today, but when asked to do these games, I couldn't say no. I really enjoy shooting lacrosse, and I believe that it is difficult not to come away with several nice sports photos when shooting lacrosse.

Now, even though both games I shot today were lacrosse games, the women's and men's versions are two completely different animals. There are power plays, shot clocks, two point shots, and hitting in men's lacrosse, but none of those exist in women's lacrosse.

The other difference between the two games was that on one hand, the Northwestern women's team is an unstoppable juggernaut who have only lost two games in the last three years (60-2)...

whereas the Machine have never... that's right, NEVER.... won a game in franchise history (0-13 since 2006).

It was an absolutely gorgeous day out here in Chicago. Normally, I hate shooting on "gorgeous days" (aka lots of sun!) you either have to shoot backlit and all your colors get washed out, or you have to shoot frontlit and you get a lot of contrast. I'd rather shoot on a cloudy day where all the colors are pretty much neutral, and where I can just set my exposure and call it a day. But the time of year and time of day of this shoot made the sunlight fall on the field perfectly: Shadows and contrasty areas were minimalized on my frontlit side, and the side/backlit side was pretty as well.

No such lighting "issues" for the Machine game, because it was a 7pm start. The sun was well below the stadium bowl by then, and by 8pm, the game was played under stadium lights. When that happens, it's just like a cloudy day: just manually dial in an exposure, fire away, and get lots of cool images of the Machine getting whipped again!

Regularly Scheduled Programming

2007-05-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

What? Two straight non-sports posts? What's going on? OK, that's it, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming :-)

The two Chicago baseball teams aren't doing too hot right now: both the Cubs and the White Sox have been hovering right around the .500 mark. Although both teams have been pitching pretty well, they both are having some issues on offense. The Cubs just can't ever get the clutch hit, and the Sox can't even seem to get hits, period. Everybody pitching against these clubs right now look like Cy Young Award winners!

Luckily, sports fans in Chicago don't really care right now because everybody is so tied up with the Bulls and their playoff run. Unfortunately, the Bulls look like they're about to get swept out of the championship hunt after losing to the Pistons again on Thursday night, so all the basketball frustration will just get re-channeled by the fans onto our poor baseball teams. And when that happens, I'll be there to make more pretty pictures:

The Dalai Lama

2007-05-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

Most people who shoot professionally will say that their first experiences in photography was editorial: shooting news and sports stories for a local paper just after graduation or a college paper while in school. Of course, many of these photographers quickly realize that shooting strictly editorially is a tough way to make a living: the hours can be long, there is constant traveling, and of course, the pay is s**t. So as they grow as professionals trying to make it in a tough market, they expand into other fields where the hours are more controllable and the pay is significantly greater: weddings, advertising, PR, etc.

So why do people continue to shoot editorially? Well for me, it allows me the opportunity to be see so many different people and places, as well as attend and cover events that most people only wish they could be at. For example, the PGA Championships or the Chicago Air Show, the World Series, and most recently, the Dalai Lama! That's right, his Holiness himself, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

This was the first time the Dalai Lama was in Chicago for a public teaching. It was estimated that 11,400 people came out to hear what he had to say.

Now because I was moving all over the place trying to photograph not only his Holiness but the scene created by the thousands of visitors, I actually did not get the chance to hear too much of his teachings. Well, I guess I'll just have to achive enlightenment some other day!!!

Santa Barbara

2007-04-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

I was out in Santa Barbara, California this past weekend to help shoot a wedding with one of my high school friends, Chris Humphreys. Chris is a fantastic wedding photographer who is currently based in southern California, and if you are looking for someone who will never let you down (besides me, of course!), he's the guy! It's kind of strange how in high school, photography was not even on our radar screens but many years later, we have taken our own paths to become what we are now.

Anyways, Chris has come back home to Barrington a couple of times to visit family and has been lucky enough to tag along with me to a couple of Northwestern football games. It was about time to reverse roles, so I headed out to Southern California to meet up with some old friends, and of course, to shoot a wedding with Chris and his wife Katie.

I always joke around with Chris about how much I have, as a lowly sports photographer, made him a better shooter: the back-button auto-focus trick, the recalibration of his lenses so his AF actually worked right, center-point/peripheral point focus accuracy, and custom white balancing. Of course, I couldn't resist trying to pass him some more of my technical advice to help improve his image quality and sharpness such as center vs peripheral AF point accuracy and custom white balancing. I also argued against the focus-recompose technique and to start cropping his photos (or at least use high-sensitivity peripheral AF points to compose), but he wouldn't buy any of it. Then again, his images week-in and week-out prove that he doesn't need any of my tips!

In any case, it was great to tag along with a "real" wedding photographer. In just one day, I learned not only learned countless tips and tricks for shooting weddings, but also was able to take in different ideas and approaches to every situation. I can't wait to put all this new knowledge to use when I shoot my weddings in 2007! Anyways, here is some selects from Santa Barbara (note to Chris: some cropping may be necessary to achieve these results!). Let's start off with the bride getting ready:

I didn't really shoot much of the ceremony because I wasn't the main guy, but here are some stuff from the "formal" portrait sessions and reception:

Lookin' good, huh? Well, it's still nothing compared to the master!

No No-No

2007-04-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

I have shot baseball every day for the last four days, so I finally got a night off. So of course, what happens? Mark Buehrle throws a no-hitter.

I was watching it on TV, and as it got later and later in the game, I was sitting there hoping that one of the Texas Rangers would find a hole and bust up the no-hitter. Yes, I am a selfish photographer. I want it all, WAAAAAAAH!!!!

So I'm checking out the wire service photos from this game on Yahoo!, and I notice this one by a fellow colleague. What I'm wondering is, how the heck did the players get the beer so fast? Is there actually beer in the clubhouse for after the game? That doesn't seem right. I know there's a famous quote out there: "I'm not an athlete, I'm a baseball player!" But seriously, this is the MLB. How did they get the beer so fast? Did someone run down a case from concessions?

Despite not shooting this no-hitter, I have had a very eventful and news-worthy sports week. Sunday was Jackie Robinson Day, Monday featured Alfonso Soriano getting injured, and of course, yesterday was Sammy Sosa's triumphant return to Chicago. If I shot a no-hitter on top of those three events, I seriously might have just quit photography right there, because things could only go downhill from there!

Slammin' Sammy

2007-04-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

Just like old times: a swing, a hop, and a kiss. Trademark Sammy!

Sammy Sosa was back in Chicago for the first time since getting run out of town by the Cubs in 2004. A lot of people in the city don't like Sammy for various reasons: him being a Cub, the suspected steroid use, and of course, the aforementioned ugly breakup with the North Siders in '04. Not surprisingly, he was booed viciously by the crowd every time he came up to the plate. Although I'm guessing these autograph seekers weren't part of the boo-birds!

To me the booing, although somewhat justified, is still kind of sad. Despite all the controversy surrounding Sammy's last few years in Chicago, as a Cub fan and a baseball fan, I will never forget what he did for the Cubs and the MLB in the late 90's and early 00's. All the man did was clobber 545 home runs with the Cubs and is credited as a major reason for saving baseball after the strike in 1994.

Anyways, Sammy made the largely anti-Sosa crowd happy by striking out and flying out in his first two at bats. Maybe the boos were getting to Sosa? Well, maybe not. In the 7th inning, Sosa regrouped and doubled to deep right field. Then in the 8th inning, he dealt the Sox a big blow, by smashing a three-run home run into the right field bleachers making it 8-1 Rangers, sending Sox fans home early.

But the home run was vintage Sammy. It featured a powerful swing:

A hop:

And a kiss:

Da Bulls

2007-04-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

Of course, less than 24 hours after my last post, in which I mentioned how my basketball shooting season is pretty much over, I get a call to go cover a basketball game. A Bulls game no less, which is something I almost never shoot!

For the most part, it was a pretty ordinary basketball game as far as action goes. Well, as ordinary as you can get for a 98-69 ass-whoopin' of the Knicks. In a situation like this, you just have to try to find pictures from the game that show how lopsided the contest was. So I went looking for shots of the Knicks getting outhustled, the ball getting stolen or blocked, and anything else along those lines:

On top of action shots, we want to try to show dejection of the team that received said ass-whoopin.' Basically, any shots of players hanging their heads, throwing their arms up, making faces, etc. For the most part, they're also pretty ordinary, but editors and newspapers demand them because "they tell the story."

Well, with this game down, NOW my basketball shooting season is officially over! Unless of course, I get assigned to cover the last Bulls regular season game on Friday ;-)

Swedish Glass Artists

2007-04-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

Wow, it sure has been a long time since I've updated this, haven't I? To be honest, there hasn't been a whole lot going on. The Big Ten Tournament effectively ended my basketball season (since I don't shoot the NBA), and hockey was pretty much over with. That's not to say I've had nothing to shoot. As far as sports go, I've been shooting plenty of lacrosse: both with the Shamrox and #1 ranked Northwestern Wildcats. I will show some of my images in a future post.

But I've been shooting a bunch of news and feature type stuff the past few weeks. About a week ago, I was given the great honor of covering an exhibition opening at the Rockford Art Museum. Bertil Vallien and Ulrica Hydman-Vallien, a husband-wife team from Sweden, are internationally acclaimed glass artists. However, their HE & SHE exhibition in Rockford is the first time in about 30 years that they have hosted a joint exhibition of this size (10,000 sq ft exhibition!).

Now this particular shoot really is a new type of photography for me. Technically, this assignment was a public relations/corporate assignment. Basically it means I'm shooting right off a "laundry list" of items, including an isolated photograph of a majority of the work, like the glass head you see below.

I love how all of Vallien's work was in a darkened room, with the work a spotlight illuminating each piece. The results were pretty cool looking, but wasn't really that difficult or overly exciting to get. It was also pretty time consuming! How many pieces of work do you think you can stuff in a 10,000 sq ft exhibition hall? Yeah, lots.

When that was all done, the gallery was officially open to the public. This is where I was able to shoot in a more documentary/news/feature type style that I know and love instead of the bland, cookie-cutter type style that is commercial/public relations photography.

All in all, I had a great time helping out the city of Rockford and shooting their gallery exhibition. The staff was fantastic to work with, and if asked to help out on future projects, I would not hesitate to make the 75-mile drive out there! If you are interested in seeing the HE & SHE exhibition, the works of Vallien and Hydman-Vallien will be on display at the Rockford Art Museum until July 8, 2007.

Big Ten Men's Basketball Tourney

2007-03-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

It's madness! Well, not quite yet, but it was madness shooting it! I just finished covering my second Big Ten Basketball Tournament, which was at the United Center in Chicago. The first time I covered the Big Ten Tourney was two years ago. However, I had it easy that season, as I was only covering Northwestern, so I only had to shoot two games. This year, I was covering the entire tournament, which meant shooting ten games in four days. Like I said, it's madness!

Although it's a lot of basketball, and you all know how I feel about basketball, tournaments like this are actually kind of enjoyable. Because it is the end of the season, and because there's quite a bit riding on the outcome of these games (NCAA tourney bid, conference championship, etc.), you can really get some pretty nice emotion out of these games: both jubilation and dejection.

The first two days of coverage were the most difficult, for the simple fact that those days say the most games piggybacked on top of each other. There were three games on that opening Thursday, and then four games on Friday (and only two on Saturday, and of course, the one championship game on Sunday). The difficulty of having so many games in one day is not the actual act of shooting it (although it did get a bit tiring), but it was having to try to edit and transmit my images in between each game. Normally, we want to edit and transmit quickly anyways, but with only about 25 minutes in between games, we really had to push it because if you get backed up, you're screwed. Why? Not only are other organizations getting images out ahead of you, but now you're backed up into the later games and maybe miss something important in the following game because you're stuck in the media room transmitting!

Anyways, as for the actual games, other than the Illinois-Indiana game on Friday, they weren't that exciting. None of the games were really that close, and the favorites won just about every game. As a result, there wasn't a whole lot of intensity of action on the court as teams may have eased up a bit. But hey, you shoot ten basketball games, you're gonna get some cool out of it!

I Love Hockey

2007-03-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

I've said it fore, and I'll say it again: I love shooting hockey. I don't think I will ever turn down any assignment that asks me to shoot a hockey game. Yes, it's challenging since it's extremely difficult to follow the puck... but when done right, man, are the results worth it! Plus, the games are exciting. The speed, the hits, the emotion of when goaltenders make spectacular saves or when forwards score some fancy goals.

Anyways, on Sunday, I was out at the United Center again to cover the Blackhawks-Senators game. On paper, this game is a tremendous mismatch (heck, every game the Blackhawks play is a huge mismatch), but our Hawks played tough, and sent Ottawa packing with a surprising 4-3 loss! The game started off like any other for me, but like the Hawks, man, did I get in the zone the last few minutes! So many great shots!

This game actually ended in an overtime shootout. It's a rule that the NHL started a few years ago to eliminate ties and jazz up the game, and has quickly developed into a crowd favorite. Basically, if the teams are still tied after the 5-minute overtime period, they have a three-round shootout (if it's still tied after three rounds, it goes to sudden death). Whoever wins the shootout, wins the game.

Now as a photographer, you have three options in overtime. One, you will try to get into one of the photo holes behind one goal. That way you can shoot the near goal and the far goal. However, the way the skaters come in, it is kind of hard getting both the shooter and the goalie in the frame. Two, you can sit in one of the side holes, which is great to get both the shooter and goalie, however, being in a side hole, you can only shoot one team. So if the other team wins the shootout, they're celebrating on the other end of the ice and you're screwed. Three, you can shoot from the concourse. Out of those three options, the concourse is the safest option because you can get an overhead view of the action. The end holes will give you the most "impact" though, so they are the most popular. Unfortunately, there are only four holes behind the goal (two on each end of the ice), so they normally go by "rank." In other words, the end holes always go to the Blackhawks (actually they use two of them), the AP, and the Chicago Tribune. However, I noticed the AP photographer had vacated his end photo hole and saw him up in the concourse, so I took it. Although you can't see the player who scored the game-winning goal, you can see the Ottawa goalie missing the puck and allowing the game-winner, so it worked out pretty good in the end.

On a totally unrelated note, I think goalie helmets are so cool. The Blackhawks' Patrick Lalime has Marvin the Martian on his with Blackhawk feathres coming out of it. However, the Senators' Martin Gerber was far less original, using just a variation of the team logo. Weak.

AP Photo

2007-02-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

OK, I don't know why it has taken me so long to announce this, but I have big news! I am now officially a stringer (aka freelancer) for the Associated Press, Chicago bureau. I will be covering primarily sports assignments for them, although if some breaking news ever occurs, I may fill in here and there. I shot my first assignment for them in the middle of December.

The reason this opportunity came about for me is that one of their sports photographers, Jeff Roberson, decided to pursue an opening in his hometown of St. Louis and transfered to that office. So while I am currently low on their call list, it is definitely a big step forward in my photo career. I am sure as time goes on and they begin to trust my work, I will be given more and more opportunities with them.

Anyways, as you'd expect, I've been covering mostly smaller events for AP: women's college basketball and D3 men's college basketball....

... but maybe their trust in me is growing as I've most recently covered an event where former Bears players cheered for their team in Super Bowl XLI and also a Blackhawks-Sharks game...

You can keep up with my work with AP (and Reuters, if they use me again) on Yahoo! News or click "My Photo Wire" on the right (NOTE: images more than 2-3 weeks old are not displayed).

Blue Demons Basketball

2007-02-20T22:48:00.000-08:00

Well, NFL season has come and gone (thank you Chicago Bears for a wonderful season!), and we're a month away from the MLB regular season. That leaves us right in the thick of basketball season: my least favorite time of the year.

It's not so much that I dislike basketball, it's just that I don't care for the sport at all. And from the photographer's side of things, I think all basketball photos kind of look the same. Yeah yeah, I know that sounds a bit silly because all sports photos do get a bit repetitive, but I think it's especially so when it comes to basketball.

On top of that, basketball arenas are pretty dark, so the images come out pretty noisy, and that's assuming the camera is able to find a good contrast point for the autofocus to lock onto!

Finally, I am ill-equipped to shoot a basketball game. Typically, sports photographers will bring at least two cameras to a basketball game. One camera will have a 70-200 for halfcourt action, the other camera will have a 300 for downcourt action. A 300 mm lens is the perfect focal length for everything beyond the halfcourt line. It's long enough that your frame gets filled up by the action pretty well, but short enough so that you still have a bit of peripheral vision to follow the action around. My problem is that I don't have a 300. Instead, I have a 400 mm lens.... great for most sports, but not for basketball. It's a bit too "tight" for downcourt action. When looking through the 400, the players downcourt fill up almost the entire frame, making it extraordinarily hard to follow and frame the action. However, shooting basketball with the 400 growing on me (it better be because I don't plan on getting a 300!). For one, it's easy to get a good isolation shots of the coaches, even if they're over on the far bench!

For two, it's making me very good at following the ball around. And for three, because everybody else is shooting downcourt with 300's, if you nail the shot with a 400, your images are more likely to be used because you have a tighter image, yet more pixels for editors to work with. They love that! Hooray!

Anyways, I don't shoot pro basketball since the company I do most of my work for does not cover them. However, I have been busy with NCAA basketball, mostly covering the DePaul Blue Demons and their opponents. Here are a few images from the past few DePaul games (all ended in victories for the Demons):

Next Stop: SUPER BOWL!

2007-01-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh, yes, the "Law of Vegas Betting" was in full effect yesterday, and it is a beautiful thing. Basically, that law states that in a championship game, if large majority bettors pick one team compared to the other, the team less picked will win that game. Similarly, if sports reporters unanimously agree that one team will win, the other team will end up winning that game. Don't believe me? Some notable examples:

- Ohio State was supposed to beat Florida in the '07 BCS Game. Florida won.
- Oklahoma was supposed to trash Boise State in the '07 Fiesta Bowl. BSU won.
- The Rams were 14-point favorites against the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVI. The Pats won.
- Or how about the Miracle on Ice???

And most recently.... the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints in the 2007 NFC Championship Game. Almost every so called "expert" picked N'aww Lenns to win this game, but instead, the Monsters of the Midway turned the game into a stunning 39-14 blowout at Soldier Field in Chicago! Next stop: SUPER BOWL!

Now I've been photographing football for a couple of years now, and being in Chicago, it's pretty surprising that I have yet to shoot a football game in the snow. The forcast for Sunday's game was "clear for the first half, but 2-4 inches of snow in the second half." As a sports photographer, I actually welcome bad weather, because it adds an extra element to the photos. There's more muck flying all over the place, jerseys get extra dirty, and not to mention you get all that cool looking rain/snow in the background! So when the snow finally came, it was a beautiful thing.

So I got all those sweet shots of our modern gladiators under the lights and in the snow, but I didn't get take any of myself while on the sidelines during timeouts. Although I will never forget the noise and all the sights of January 21, 2007, I'm kind of kicking myself about not getting a photo of me out there, because it was just so perfect and pretty. The full crowd, the players huddled on the field, and oh, that glorious snow, lit up under the bright stadium lights. The reason why I didn't was because I think I was kind of afraid to. I don't usually photograph myself (at least not during the game), because I think a lot of the jaded "old-timers" in the business would give me funny looks and just see me as some "newbie." Sounds stupid, I know. Oh well.... next snowy NFC Chamionship game, right?

Anyways, early Vegas lines and football analysts say Colts by 7... will the "Law of Vegas Betting" be upheld? I guess we'll find out in two weeks! GO BEARS!!!!

Let's Go Bears!

2007-01-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

Think the city of Chicago is jacked up for tomorrow's NFC Championship Game against the New Orleans Saints?

I think so!

:-)

Good As Gould

2007-01-16T13:22:00.000-08:00

"A year ago I'm pounding nails. Now I'm hitting game-winning kicks and going to the NFC Championship Game," Chicago Bears kicker Robbie Gould said. "I didn't even watch the end of it. I hit it right where I wanted it to go."

Gould kicked a 49-yard field goal in overtime to lift the Bears to a 27-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks, setting up a Sunday afternoon date with the New Orleans Saints next week. The stakes? A trip to Miami and the Super Bowl.

This was my very first NFL playoff game, but surprisingly, it wasn't that much different from a regular season game. Obviously, there was more media covering the game, but I don't think things were any more difficult for photographers. I guess the difference with football is that we are pretty free to roam around the sidelines, so you can increase the number of people shooting the sidelines without really much effect. Other sports like baseball can't really support the increased media coverage... which was why at the World Series I kinda got screwed and was relegated to the upper concourses, into a non-assigned position (of course, as you remember, I had sweet stuff anyways!).

Anyways, back to the Bears. This team has become so frustrating. Everybody in Chicago knows from the first few weeks of the season, that this team can be dominating on both offense and defense. Especially defense. However, these days, the team has been so maddeningly inconsistent, you don't know who will show up and play a good game. The offense has been pretty spotty with Rex Grossman at quarterback, but the defense has arguably been equally inconsistent.

This playoff game was no different. The defense showed flashes of brilliance that they had displayed in the early part of the season...

But it also displayed some huge lapses of concentration, resulting in some big plays for Seattle...

However, woah, where did the offense come from? By putting up 27 points, they really bailed out the inconsistent defense. If it weren't for solid running by Cedric Benson and Thomas Jones, as well as clutch performances from the wide receivers and quarterback Rex Grossman, the Bears probably would have been "one-and-done" at home in the playoffs. Again.

Celebrate now, Bears fans... here come the Saints!

Chicago Shamrox

2007-01-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

For the second time in two years, Chicago welcomes another professional lacrosse team. In June 2006, Major League Lacrosse introduced the Chicago Machine. Here in January 2007, the National Lacrosse League has introduced the Chicago Shamrox.

Wait, there's a professional lacrosse league? Wait, there are TWO professional lacrosse leagues? Well, the MLL is an outdoor league, and is more "traditional." The NLL is an indoor league, and some people might call it a "bastardized" version of lacrosse. A similar comparison would be what the Arena Football League is to the National Football League. Why's that? Well, just like the AFL is to football, the NLL plays on a smaller field, promises bigger hits, faster action, and of course, lots of razzle dazzle. I mean honestly, doesn't fire, glowsticks, rock music, and scantily clad cheerleaders make you think of indoor lacrosse? It does for me!

OK, all that said, I did enjoy shooting this game. I've always liked shooting lacrosse because it's not what we'd consider a "traditional" sport here in the midwest. Plus, just like hockey, the game is extremely fast paced, which helps keep viewers (and photographers!) engaged. The only thing I didn't like was the fact that even though the Sears Centre is a new arena, it doesn't have any photo holes in the glass like they do at Blackhawks games. So shooting action from field level was really spotty because of the glare, not to mention that shooting through the plexi glass really degrades the image quality. I mean, I really loved looking at my pictures after the game and finding a large percentage of them useless because of seeing random patterns from people/arena lights being reflected into all my images or being out of focus/warped by the glass or both. To counter those problems due to the glass, I shot some of the game upstairs from the upper concourses. For future Shamrox games, I may spend more time up there just so I don't have to deal with the glass.

In the end, the Shamrox did not disappoint the crowd, as they pulled off a 15-12 victory over the New York Titans in their inaugural game. So how did the Shamrox win this game? Easy, making the most of their offensive chances, and doing a great job killing the power play.

Or, we can just credit this victory as more proof of "cheerleader professionalism." (It's a theory that ESPN's Greg Easterbrook coined realting a team's chances of victory to how uhhh, little, said team's cheerleader's wear... he and his readers cite examples of this almost every week in the NFL as part of his column "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" or TMQ for short).

Green Bay's Favre-ite

2007-01-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

New Year's Eve 2006 may go down as the night that Green Bay Packers legend Brett Favre played his last NFL game. And I was there.

The game itself was meaningless because the Bears have already clinched home-field advantage for the playoffs, and the Packers were eliminated from the playoffs because of the New York Giants won plus the Packers lost the strength-of-schedule tiebreaker by virtue of not hitting their "superfecta" (they needed fact that the Packers didn't hit their superfecta of Arizona, Detroit, Miami, San Francisco, Minnesota, and a whole lot of other teams winning). What that means is this game was all about #4. So basically, I spent the whole pregame and first quarter shooting Brett Favre in all sorts of different positions and putting them up on the wire ASAP.

Of course, another story line developed in this game as well: the Bears are in trouble! The defense has kind of fallen apart (although to be fair, they were resting some starters), and the terrible quarterback play has reared its ugly head... again. The one thing Bears fans finally learned in this game is that if Rex Grossman sucks, backup Brian Griese probably ain't much better! There sure is a lot of angst in Chicago for their 13-3 football team!

OK, so back to Favre. After the game, he was pretty much swarmed by the media trying to get interviews/photos of him leaving the field. What a big mess. I wish I had a bit more body mass to throw around to jockey for positioning. I did get pretty close to him, but if you're not at the very front, you will get blocked out by other photographers and security personnel in front of you. The way around it is to either be patient and wait for heads to move out of the way or to elevate the camera above your head and shoot down. Now, I hate doing that because you're basically shooting blind. You have very little idea where your focus point is on, and very little idea of what you're camera is actually seeing. Sometimes you get great shots, but othertimes, not so much. I think I managed a few decent frames, but I don't think it's anything to brag about... oh well, it probably won't matter in the end because who are we all kidding? Sure he hasn't announced a final decision yet, but come on. This is Brett Favre. He'll likely be back for another season and we'll just do this all again next December!

Ford Field

2006-12-25T11:12:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

This is the second time I have spent Christmas in Detroit (which, if you ask me, is two times too many). Why the heck would I do that? Well, both times it has been football related. The first time was in 2003, when Northwestern went to play in the Motor City Bowl (quit laughing, for NU, a bowl game is a bowl game). The second time was this year, when I went up to shoot the Bears against the Lions.

Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions, is a pretty nice stadium. It's easy to get around, and has a nice retro feel to it despite being a new stadium. For the fans, there seems to be a great selection of food, and all the seats are built close to the action. Finally, it's a dome! So it keeps the cold, bitter, Detroit winter outside!

OK, so it was pretty awesome shooting a game in the winter without a jacket... 30 degrees outside, 75 degrees inside! However, I think as a photographer, I would take shooting outdoors anyday because shooting indoors sucks! It's a noon game, it's sunny outside, and I'm shooting at ISO 1000. Even darker in the end zones. Boooooo. Well, I guess that's what I get for not being cold...

Anyways, to the game. It was a pretty meaningless game. The Lions(2-13) suck and sure as heck aren't fighting for anything, other than the #1 overall pick in the 2007 NFL draft, and the Bears have home field wrapped up. So although the game meant nothing for Chicago, they find themselves in a dilemma. If the Bears pack it in and take it easy, they might lose their competitive edge come playoff time, and end up laying an egg in the playoffs like they did last year. So that's one argument to play hard, and they did for the first half.

Of course, in the second half, they relaxed (and also pulled a bunch of starters to prevent pre-post-season injuries) and the Lions roared back and gave the Bears a real scare!

If the Lions weren't being the Lions, turning the ball over and dropping a lot of passes - including a potential game winning TD (below) on the last play of the game - the Bears would have actually lost this one!

Prey

2006-12-21T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Blackhawks are rolling! Since Denis Savard made his coaching debut a few weeks ago, the Hawks have gone 7-1-3 and have been climbing up the NHL standings. I don't want to jinx it, but if they keep this up, they will finally get back to the playoffs!

Well, I guess I jinxed it, because after last night where they lost to the Nashville Predators (who imo, have one of the ugliest uniforms in all of sports), they are now 7-2-3. The Preds are one of the best teams in the NHL, but the Blackhawks have had their number this year, winning the first three head-to-head matchups here in 2006.

Ironically, the Hawks probably played one of their better games of the year against the Preds, but ended up losing anyways. They scored first and had many other scoring chances, and then they played solid defense with hard hitting and shot blocking for the first two periods.

I really like that last shot I posted. People getting checked into the boards happens a lot, but most of the time, it doesn't make a good picture. This one did, but do you notice that weird haze at the bottom of the photo? That's kind of freaking me out. I keep thinking its a blown shutter, because my 1D Mark II is definitely near 100,000 actuations so it's close to that time where shutters start failing (even though Canon says it actually goes to 200,000....). Blown shutters normally present as streaks of light on all your images in the same place, so I think in my case, I'm just being weird. I mean, I don't see that weird "light fog" in a majority of my other images (although it's hard to tell because I shot that frame near the end of the game so I don't have much else to compare it to, plus bright ice would mask a lot of the fog in other pictures anyway), and those that do seem to have that "fog" move to different spots in the frame. So therefore, I'm pretty sure it's just the borders of the hole that I shoot from that is creeping into some frames. I hope...

Anyways, back to the game. Unfortunately, the Preds turned the tables on the Hawks in the third period with their own solid defense and two quick scores to escape Chicago with a 2-1 victory.

One final observation: This guy has the best name/jersey number combo in all of sports. His name is Jordin Tootoo, and he wears number twenty-two. That's two-two.