Paying Respect

A couple of days after the Cape Cod assignment, I hopped on my least favorite airline and headed down to Washington DC to shoot a fairly unusual assignment....A full honors memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery.  I was asked to do this by a family friend whose father was a decorated WWII veteran and passed away in March.  Having recently been the photo editor on a book that my company put together, I felt I was up to the challenge despite having never photographed a full honors service.  While editing the book, I had pored through thousands of photographs of services over the past few years and felt I had a pretty good idea of what went on.  Despite this, there were a few things that made this one of the more difficult assignments I have ever shot.

1) The humidity/rain...Dear Lord, I don't know how anyone can live in DC in the summertime. It's Horrible!!!  I mean honestly, anyone who looks you straight in the eye and tells you that they 'just get used to the humidity' is flat out lying.  I mean come on, I don't care who you are...nobody ENJOYS going outside and having their clothes stick to them within seconds.

Thankfully, the service took place on a relatively 'cool' day and it only felt like it was 95 degrees or so.  It was smooth sailin' until I had to start RUNNING LIKE A MANIAC to catch up to the procession once the service left the staging area to head to the gravesite.  I was sprinting all over the cemetery (like a gazelle, of course) in a jacket and lofers and before I knew it, I was soaking which leads me to my next point...

2) The reason I was running is that the cemetery cranks out 25+ funerals a day!  So, they have it down and when they do a full honors service, it's done with serious precision.  As you can imagine, this is a photographer's worst nightmare since it all happens very quickly.  If you haven't photographed a service at Arlington before, you're in for an adventure that starts pretty easy, then changes pace quickly and by the end of it you want to ask them if they can just run through it again so you can get a few more snaps in.

3)Lastly, it rained at the end of the service.  In all seriousness, I was pretty psyched it did because it created an opportunity to make some different photos and all of a sudden, I wasn't the only one soaking wet!

It was a great trip though and I hope you enjoy the photos.  And as always, say a prayer for those who are serving to protect our country.  It's the least you can do.

TSB2

On the shuttle to the service...

In the family waiting room, checking out the monitor of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier...

They handle the remains with the upmost care...

The guys I had to chase...

One of my favorite images from the shoot...

When you're part of a procession like this, it's quite moving, especially at Arlington.  You truly feel that everyone who is buried there is paying their respects as the caisson passes.

The moment when everyone started looking like the 'sweaty photographer'...

The precision...

The rain provided a nice, soft ethereal feel...

My favorite photo of the shoot since it has a spiritual quality to it.  Shot it from the bus when I saw some funky reflections in my window.

Cape Classic

At the beginning of the Summer, I had the chance to shoot a wonderful one day, "just go there, and find something" shoot.  I visited the town of Wareham, MA to shoot a one day story on the Gatemen, the town's local Cape Cop Baseball League Franchise.  For those of you not familiar with the Cape League, for some time it was one of, if not the only summer league to use wooden bats.  For this reason, it has always been one of the most popular Summertime baseball destinations for upcoming college players and professional scouts alike.  Additionally, there is a deep connection to the local community, as demonstrated by the large crowd I witnessed.  The players are invited not only to play baseball, but they're also invited into the homes of various host families for the summer.  The players are not paid and they find jobs in the local community, sometimes with the help of John Wylde, the Gatemen's President and more importantly, PA announcer who has been with the club for 25 years now.  The local library often has players work there in the Summer, and its courtyard out back is named after Wylde.

He often gives his books to the library when he is finished with them and one librarian described them as 'like new' when she gets them.  The respect for all aspects of the baseball-community friendship, large and small, are honored by everyone involved.  This was evident on the night they honored John Wylde who is dying of liver cancer.

Now that it is out in print, I can share the photos with you.  You can also see it online at the NCAA's website.

I hope you get a feel for what I witnessed.  This wasn't an ordinary baseball game.  This was untainted East Coast Americana that brought everyone together to honor a man who has spent every ounce of his energy giving back.  I'll never forget this story.

Enjoy the pics...

TSB2

A pregame 'snack'...a gigantic chicken parm sandwich...

Heading out to the field...

Photo day...

I had to lean out of a balcony that had a slight angle into the press box to get this photo of John Wylde.  You'll see why in the photo after this one...

Since John is so susceptible to infection, they keep him as far away from people as possible...

A player and a team volunteer selling 50/50 raffle tickets.  50% of the proceeds go to the team, and the other 50% is the grand prize.  Local businesses also contribute various prizes to the raffle.  Tickets are 1 for a buck, three for two bucks, an arms length for fuve bucks, and a wingspan for ten bucks.  People complain when a pitcher isn't selling tickets since they have the longest arms...

It was a packed house on John Wylde night...

Scouts get ready for the game behind home plate...

I was exhausted at the end of the day, but I stuck around for a little while longer and got rewarded with an incredible sunset...

Home sweet Home...Finally

Back in March when we scheduled the Spring Championships, I took on an exceptionally heavier load this year since my colleague Jamie and his wife recently welcomed a baby girl into their life. Thus, I picked up some slack to help out and over the last few weeks my travel schedule was at its peak.  My travels took me to Houston for a week for the NCAA Division II National Championships festival, Fort Worth for the Mt. West Conference Baseball Championships, and lastly to Sacramento for the NCAA Division I, II, and III Rowing Championships.  While I did have a blast shooting all of these events, they couldn't have come at a worse time since I missed more of the NHL playoffs than I would have liked.  However, the one positive in this was that I didn't have to sit and watch the Red Wings (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!) destroy every team in their path on their way to winning The Cup.  Hopefully the Avs can regain their '96 and '01 form to bring Lord Stanley back home!

Anyway, my first trip was down to Houston for the NCAA Division II National Championships festival with my colleague Steve.  Division II started doing these festivals about four years ago and they have been extremely successful.  The student-athletes love coming to them since they get to stick around the entire week, regardless of whether they win or lose in the quarterfinals or semifinals. Friendships are forged between teams while at the same time, the competition is fierce in a wide variety of sports.  Tennis, golf, lacrosse and softball were all on the menu at the festival and I got to shoot them all over the five days that I was there.  The best part of this event from my point of view was that our images were used daily in a NCAA Newspaper recapping each day's events that is printed every night and left in the hotel lobby for the teams and their parents/fans to read in the morning.  Throughout the week, Steve and I received several compliments on the photos and it really made us work harder to capture unique images that kept the newspaper fresh.  The worst part was the heat, and we even caught Houston on a 'cool' week.  Can you imagine me in Houston on a 'normal' week with 90+ degree heat and 90% humidity?  I'm sweating just thinking about it!  Good God, how do people live in that???

Well, I found out the following week when I went to Fort Worth for the Mt. West Baseball Championship and roasted in the sun for four straight days.  The temps did hit 100 and I think I may have created Lake Brown somewhere near the 1st baseline at TCU's baseball stadium since I was sweating so much while shooting there.  It was almost embarrassing.  I shot this tournament last year in Las Vegas and I didn't think I would ever shoot in a hotter environment...well, that theory was quickly put to rest as I wilted away while drinking Dasani out of their entire supply of bottled water.  One last thing about Ft. Worth...if you ever find yourself in this city, consider yourself lucky!  It is a really cool downtown area with great bars and a pretty happening scene at night.  Business leaders in the city hire police officers to keep the streets safe, and according to my taxi driver they even built homeless shelters and established social programs to keep homeless and transients away from this bustling district. If this is all true, it has worked to perfection and might be a model that other cities should take a look at.

After the baseball tournament, I got home for a few days then packed my bags for one last trip out to California to shoot some rowing.  I'm not going to lie...I really wasn't all that psyched to go do this assignment since I was new to it and I knew it was going to be a challenge to come up with variety since you're stuck on a boat trailing the rowers.  This indeed was the case and after the first day of shooting, I wanted to throw all my stuff in the water!  I felt like I had been shooting the same photo ALL DAY LONG.  I finally got some decent celebration of the Williams team that won the Division III Eights Grand Final (Rowing speak).

The second day of the rowing went much better considering I convinced the folks at the NCAA to get me my own boat.  I felt like Caesar on the front of it, just pointing to the right or left to let him know where to go and giving other signals to speed up and slow down.  I should have given the thumbs down to see if anyone would have been fed to lions!  I even managed to get the driver to drop me off at the base of a cliff where I spotted a trail to the top of it and got a nice overhead blur of the starting line that I've included below.

Hope you like the pics!

Next up... the Cape Cod Baseball League, and a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery (definitely a different assignment).

Enjoy the pics!

-TSB2

Coming up with variety at Rowing was pretty challenging, so I'm pretty proud of this one...

I think I had three lattés in me at this point and it was only 6am....

...and 6 lattés at this point since I started messing with my white balance when the light wasn't as dramatic...

No, he didn't make the catch, but at least he got a 1 for an effort grade...

More incorporation of NCAA logos, which they love...

Wow, this girl had been to the championship her freshman, sophomore, and junior years but lost every time.  She finally won her senior year, can you tell?

So, I was all finished for the day, relishing in the fact that I wouldn't have to go back out into the humidity of Houston...until I found out this girl hit a hole in 1!!!  UGGGH!

At least I made a nice photo of her on the 16th hole.

I think that trophy must be extremely hot and burning her hands....

Okay, so one last thing...I just got a couple new cameras and they're AWESOME!  The AF system on them is much better than my previous ones and don't get fooled by the net nearly as much when shooting tennis.  I love this photo.  He looks like a spider to me...

"That's a three hour shoe"

Once I got home for a little while I shot some baseball and in the midst of it, I learned what a 'three hour shoe' was.  For the Rockies magazine this coming month, they're doing a feature on Samantha Castilla, the wife of former Blake Street Bomber, Vinny Castilla.  

About a year ago, she opened a shoe store in Cherry Creek that sells some wonderfully beautiful shoes from top notch designers.  My assignment was to shoot a portrait of her with Vinny as well as a nice portrait of her.

Both she and Vinny were so easy to work with and extremely nice.  If you're in the neighborhood, drop by and see her little nook on St. Paul.  The shoes are truly works of art.

I mentioned to her that, to this day, I can't understand how women wear shoes with such high heels.  Her response?  "Well, that shoe you're holding there is a three hour shoe."

Ahhh, the female logic...  Fellas, I tried.  We'll never get to the bottom of a women's obsession with shoes, but when I saw these, it did allow me to understand a little more since they're gorgeous.  Additionally, it's a warm shop with some stylish accessories other than shoes.

It was a great shoot since it was something different than the norm and the I was really happy with the photos.

Next up, the Division II National Championships Festival in Houston, TX.

Enjoy the pics...

-TSB2

As you can see, she didn't exactly make life tough for me since she's a very elegant lady...

And good ol' Vinny.  One of the nicest athletes Denver has seen...

Oh, how I love the desert!

Shortly after the Qwest shoot with Tony Peña in Phoenix I returned to Arizona for the Mt. West Conference Men's Golf tournament. Despite my heavy travel schedule, I was actually looking forward to this assignment since the Mt. West puts me up in a nice place and the days aren't too long compared to some of the other assignments that I shoot for them (Baseball, Basketball and Outdoor Track).
I arrived in Tucson on the first day of the tournament without a hitch. My flight left Denver on time (DIA is the best airport on the planet) and once I arrived, I was able to get my super sweet rental classic Chevy Impala from my trusty friends at Thrifty and was on my way. I swear, I think I get an Impala about two-thirds of the time when I am on the road. I will admit, the Impala has gotten better over the years and the ol' 'Sir, we have an Impala for you' has less sting now than it did 4 years ago. Still though, I try to weasel my way into a convertible, or just about anything BUT an Impala whenever I step up to the rental car counter. No Mustangs though...they're just trouble for me. Just ask the Texas Highway Patrol, they know me well.
Anywhoooo, I got to the hotel and checked in and to my surprise, God (or the suits at Omni) actually listened to my prayers from the previous year! The Omni Tucson National Golf Resort and Spa last year was nice, but in dire need of a makeover. When I checked in this year, I was told I would be staying in a brand new room. Excellent! AND, it had a nice balcony that overlooked the driving range and golf course! HOORAY!!! (accompanied by a backflip, of course!) When I got to my room, I realized it was the exact same room from the year before, but much nicer, but still with some of the old furniture...I guess you can't get EVERYTHING your way. However, it was such a drastic improvement that I was totally content with my accommodations. Plus, the pool was totally redesigned and I spent some time that afternoon reading my book next to it before heading to dinner with the Mt. West folks that evening.
This year, they started the tee times at 7am. Let's stop and think about this for a second. At first glance, I thought this was going to be awful. Getting up at 5:45 or so to get ready only to go out and turn into a french fry for the day didn't look so sweet on paper. But after the first day wrapped up around 3pm, I quickly transmitted my photos, checked my e-mail and attended to some biz, then headed for the pool with a beer in hand and a smile on my face! I chilled out there for a couple hours before cleaning up and heading to dinner again with Javan and Carrie, two of my favorites from the MWC.
The second day wasn't much different, just with less pool time since there was an awards ceremony following the tournament. CSU came from nowhere to win the MWC title and represented Colorado, full force. I hope you like the images that I've posted below. They're just a random selection that I liked. It's hard to shoot golf on a desert course since there isn't a lot of color, but I managed to find the little there is and incorporate it into my images.
Lastly, one little tidbit of advice....NEVER EVER, AND I MEAN EVER, FLY US AIRWAYS. If you want the story, call me...I could write an entry longer than War and Peace about how they screwed up my flight home, but I'll refrain. Hopefully one of these days United will use their peanut sized brain and cut ties with them.
Sorry to end it on a sour note with my US Airways mini-rant, but consider yourself warned and please do enjoy the pics!

TB

I liked the layering that I got in this photo with the trees....

I always try to shoot through trees and bushes when shooting golf.  It provides a nice layering effect, plus an intimate feeling like you're spying on the golfer after they've hit a crummy shot...

The early morning tee times brought with them long, cross-fairway shadows on the holes that ran North-South...

There wasn't much color on this desert course, but these yellow trees were in a few places and really lent themselves to making nice pictures...

He must be drawing a smiley face on his ball...

Backgrounds, backgrounds, backgrounds...the key to good golf photos is clean backgrounds...

You can always get good emotions and reactions in golf on close putts...

All Day, Every Day - Part 2 of 2

Once the Frozen Four ended, I had about three days to catch my breath, then headed out of town again. Since I can't seem to get enough of Arizona, I took another trip down there for a shoot with Qwest, this time featuring Tony Peña of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Since I have already been on a few of these shoots and know the drill, I was asked to be the photographer on this one and my colleague Brett was my assistant.

We arrived at the stadium at about 2pm on Wednesday the 16th for the initial walk through. Since we wanted some of the scenes to look as if they were shot at Tony's house, we took a look at a couple of different suites at the stadium to find the right one for the shoot.  The first one was fairly bland and didn't lend itself to looking like a living room.  It would have been very difficult to make it NOT look like it was a suite in a stadium.  So, we checked out another suite, directly beneath the first and WOW!  What a difference!  As you'll see from the pics below, it was exactly what we needed for the shoot!  Once we finished the walk through, we headed out for a drink and dinner at Kincaids, a steakhouse near our hotel.

Dinner at a steakhouse is always awesome, but it's even more awesome when it's paid for BY THE DIAMONDBACKS!  Apparently, there was a little misunderstanding/miscommunication when Qwest was reserving the spaces at the stadium for the shoot and it was the D-Backs fault, so they felt obligated to pay for our dinner!  Woohoo!  The conversation was great all night and the entire crew felt great about the shoot the next day, despite a couple of us being under the weather (I had a cold, Dave the art director was getting over one).

The shoot on Thursday went really well, despite a couple of unexpected miscues such as 1) Tony's english not being nearly as strong as the ad company thought/hoped and 2) him showing up in mesh shorts, when we needed him in jeans.  The result of this second little mishap was that we basically threw out the plan for the first half of the shoot up in the suite.  We had a couple people run to get him some jeans which took about an hour.  Now, I've been on enough of these shoots, large and small, to know that just about every time you can pretty much count on tossing what you deem to be vital parts of the plan of attack.  You just have to wing it and make it look good.  The one benefit of these experiences is that you get good at thinking on your feet and can react quickly to little fires and other unexpected hurdles.

Anyway, we finished the stuff up in the suite and broke for lunch, then had Tony put on a uniform so we could get some action photos of him and some other stuff down on the field and in the dugout.

One of the lighting techniques that I have learned while going on these shoots is using large reflectors to capture nicely lit action photos of the athletes we shoot.  By using ambient light, modified with reflectors (Yes, I'm about to photo-geek out on you) we're able to keep our shutter speeds high, thus stopping the action.  At the same time, the reflectors provide a nice accent to the standard action photo, in this case adding some nice fill light under Tony's hat in the pitching photo below.  I've also included a photo of the video guys and Brett aiming their reflectors at Tony so you can see how we're making some of these photos.  Without the light under his hat, his face would be in the shadows from the brim of his hat and you wouldn't be able to see very many of his facial features.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics.  They're not the most exciting pics by any means, but I think they're technically done very well and Brett and I put together a nice group of images for our client.

Next up, the Mt. West Men's Golf Championship in....YOU GUESSED IT!.....ARIZONA!!!

Enjoy the pics!

-TSB2

You should have seen the first suite we looked at for the shoot.  Compared to this, it was horrible!

The nice thing about this was that we actually had a live phone and he was able to call some friends.  So we got some pretty genuine smiles from him.  I wonder what they talked about...it was all in Spanish, so I didn't understand a lick of it.  He probably said something like 'These suits are paying me so much cash to just sit here and smile while I talk to you!  How sweet is that?'

Okay, so here is the pitching photo.  Take a look at the nice light on his face...

Here's how we got that nice light under his face.  That's Brett on the left with the big white reflector...

I told Brett I was disappointed he didn't have some grapes to feed him...

This was the last scene we shot in the dugout...I was so happy to be shooting this since it meant we were done.  It was a great shoot, but it was definitely long.

All Day, every Day - Part 1.5 of 2 ;-)

So at the tail end of the first week of the baseball season, the Frozen Four rolled into town and I had the chance to photograph it with my colleagues Jamie and Ryan.  I was really looking forward to this event since hockey is one of my favorite sports and I've only really begun to enjoy photographing it since this was the first year that I've actually shot it on a consistent basis.  Throughout the winter I photographed a few DU games and it served as a nice warmup to such an exciting event.

Despite the lack of a hometown team in the field, Notre Dame, Boston College, Michigan and North Dakota didn't disappoint.  In the first game, BC blew out North Dakota.  Even though it wasn't all that exciting of a game, the goals were pretty...AND A PLENTY!  Good lord, I thought it was raining goals at one point.  BC advanced to the final with a 6-1 win.

In the second semifinal, upstart Notre Dame shocked Michigan in an exciting overtime thriller to get to the finals for the first time in Irish hockey history.  I made one of my favorite images in this game, which is the first image below...If I were to do it all over again and grow up playing hockey, I think I'd be a goalie the second time around.  There's a certain grace to goaltending that I've always appreciated.  If you're a hockey nut like me, you'll really understand what I'm about to say...Nothing in hockey is better than the multiple overtime 0-0 goaltending duel in the playoffs.  There's something about watching two goalies trade magnificent saves into the wee hours of the night.  Every save is bigger than the last one and it just builds and builds and builds until one team has to ruin it and win the darn game...You'd think they would be a little more considerate to the 23 or so hockey junkies like me who want to someday tell their grandkids about watching every minute of the famed 'Three Days Game'.

Anyway, back to the important stuff.  The final was pretty exciting, with Boston College defeating a tentative Notre Dame team.  The refs did make a bogus call in the game, taking back an Irish goal that would have changed the momentum of the contest drastically.  Instead, Boston college came down seconds later and tacked another one on the board, handing Notre Dame a second slap in the face while they were still bummin' from the first.  The better team clearly won the championship, but I always root for the underdog (unless it's the Raiders) since upsets are always fun to shoot.  It was a great tournament and I really enjoyed shooting it.  I can't wait to get to some more DU games next winter and hopefully, they'll get back on top where they belong!

Next up, my trip to Phoenix for another Qwest shoot with Tony Peña of the Arizona Diamondbacks!

Enjoy the pics!

-TSB2

What a save!  If you're looking for the puck, it's in the lower right corner, just above the white underside of the goalie's skate...

This is BC's star player, Nathan Gerbe who is a speedy and shifty little guy who has a great nose for the net...

...And this his him celebrating how sweet his nose for the net really is...

The NCAA will love this strictly because of their sticker on the boards...

I love finding celebration moments like this at championships.  They're on top of the world and you can see the pure joy, not only in their faces, but in their sway...

BC got great goaltending throughout the semis and finals...

Shooting from ice level takes a little getting used to strictly from a speed standpoint, but once I settled down I got some decent stuff...