Worth the wait

So after eleven months of procrastinating I finally made time to get my car fixed after my accident last December. I have to thank my friend Bobby who did the work for a lot less than the body shop wanted--he also made some great suggestions to liven up the paint scheme.

Old and busted....




New hotness....

This hasn't happened in a while

Ah, the joys of being a high school coach. I guess this is a sign that I am loved...



You gotta love Halloween.

State playoffs bound

I now have a pretty good idea what it's like for those basketball teams waiting for their bids to the NCAA tournament. The Middle Park HS boys soccer team (which I am an assistant coach for) finished its regular season last week and finished second in their region, thus securing a spot in the state playoffs for the first time in several years. The seeding committee met this morning and finally around 12:30 the bracket was posted. We were seeded 25th in the 32 team field--a little lower than we had hoped, but are looking forward to the opportunity to extend our season. We will be traveling to Hotchkiss on Tuesday to take on a team that went undefeated with record of 11 wins and 4 draws. With just one practice to prepare, we will have to be on our game. Although we like our chances going up against a team that we have no history with, so we have no preconceived idea of what we need to do. We just have to play our best soccer and see how things play out.

goo goo g'joob

One year +

I'm a month late in celebrating my one year anniversary of working for the Sky-Hi Daily News. But I guess that's okay, because my boss just did my annual review today, so I'm not the only one late in marking the occasion.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I've had to work for the newspaper. In these times when many newspapers are laying off staff or even folding, I'm thankful for this job and the support I receive from my editor and the rest of the editorial staff. Working for a small community paper does have its advantages and there are also a few disadvantages. We just finished putting together our entries for the state press association contest and I was hard-pressed to find any strong news images from the last year. I had plenty of feature and sports photos to choose from. I guess that will be a challenge for myself in the next year--to produce more news photos.

One other thing I want to do in the next is make this blog more interesting. I think I said that a while back, but I'm now to the point where I like the title and I feel I have a better vision of what I want it to be, so that anyone who actually reads it will have a reason to keep coming back.

So I'll be anxious to see what the next year holds in store for my community, the nation and the world, and what we will be talking about a year from now.

goo goo g'joob

A Weekend in Missouri

I visited my daughter at the University of Missouri over the weekend. It was great to be able to spend some time with her--coming from a high school of 400, then being a part of the largest freshman class in Mizzou history (approx. 5,900 students) has been quite an adjustment. We were able to watch the Missouri women's soccer team defeat my alma mater Iowa Friday night and then go out for a nice dinner.

I shot the Missouri-Buffalo football game on Saturday, then we headed out for dinner in downtown Columbia. You just gotta love the atmosphere of a college town after a football game.

Emily mentioned to me that she had seen a building in downtown Columbia that had our last name on it. We drove by it a couple of times during the weekend, but I didn't get a photo of it until I was on my way out of town Sunday morning:

Apparently in the late 1800s/early 1900s there were two brothers named Hetzler who had some sort of meat packing operation in downtown Columbia. Hetzler isn't a very common name, so it's always interesting to come across things like this.

It was an all too quick couple of days, but well worth it.

NOTE: Shameless plug to follow!

One of the things that made traveling easier for me this time was the purchase of a ThinkTank Airport Security rolling case. I had been reading about them for a long time and talked to other photographers who own this particular case and each of them had nothing but praise for it. I had been using a LowePro Computrekker for many years, it's a good bag, but it was taking a toll on my shoulders and back. The ThinkTank case is carry-on size and I was able to fit everything in it I needed to shoot a football game.

A new title

For the first post on my revised blog, let's start with the obvious question of "what's the deal with the new title of this blog?"

Over the years, I have had to photograph a variety of subject matter and events. I have photographed editorial jobs, commercial jobs, NFL football, college football, high school football, NBA basketball, college basketball, high school basketball, NHL hockey, World Cup skiing, the Winter X Games, Major League baseball, high school baseball, MLS soccer, high school soccer, PGA golf, high school volleyball, high school softball, high school track, rodeos, trail rides, traffic accidents, wildlife, weddings, black tie fundraisers, ground breakings, ribbon cuttings, concerts, craft fairs...you get the idea. Each of these situations often requires blending into the scene, thus the title "I am the Chameleon" and the obvious spoof on the Beatles "I am the Walrus."

Goo goo g'joob, or was it coo coo kachoo?

Rodeo

Unlike many of my photographer friends, colleagues and acquaintances, I am not in Beijing.

I've had a few people ask or comment about some rodeo photos I've been shooting for the paper lately, so I thought I would offer some insight into what I do to get those shots. I have to say that this may not be how every other rodeo shooter does it, but these are the techniques that work for me in the arenas I shoot at.

I have been shooting the rodeos in Grand County off and on over the past 18 years, but in the last five or six years I have shot most of the rodeos in Granby and Fraser each summer. The Granby rodeo series runs from Memorial Day weekend through the Fourth of July. Granby's Flying Heels Arena is big--so big that I shoot most events from inside the arena. Over the years I have had a few close calls with the livestock, but, knock on wood, nothing worse than having to scramble over the fence.

In July the rodeo action in Grand County moves from Granby to Fraser. The rodeo arena in Fraser isn't as big as the one in Granby, so I don't have to be inside the arena (except for mutton busting), which makes it easier not having to think about the traffic in the arena and avoiding getting run over by horses or bulls, so I can focus on shooting.



What the Fraser arena has in common with Granby is that both have terrible lighting. Of course the bull riding happens at the end of the rodeo, so in order to get usable shots I put up several small strobe units to supplement, or more accurately, take control of the lighting. It helps, but it's not perfect, because of the limited options I have for placement of the strobes as shown below:



For comparison, here is what the action looks like without any additional lighting. Keep in mind I did a fair amount of work on the image in Photoshop to get it look like this:



The best action tends to be right in front of the chutes, so that is where I have them aimed. Here are a couple examples of the results of shooting with the strobes:





(Please note: I've been trying to finish this post for a couple of weeks now, but for some reason I was having a terrible time getting the photos added to the post.)

How I spent two hot days in Denver...

I spent the last two days in Denver shooting a benefit golf tournament for the National Sports Center for the Disabled. I have shot this event every year for the past 15 years or so--the last eight years the tournament has been held at The Sanctuary, an incredible private golf course south of Denver. They only host a handful of tournaments each year, so it's quite a privilege to get to see this amazing golf course.




PGA Tour player Jonathan Kaye was on hand the second day to schmooze with the players and did a clinic with some disabled children.



The event raised more than $500,000 for the NSCD.

It must be summer

Living where I do, it seems as though summer often has a difficult time finding us. Until a couple of weeks ago, even though the calendar said June, it still didn't seem like the temperatures were warming up very much. But all of a sudden it was as though someone finally flipped the switch and summer has arrived.

Another sign of summer in the mountains is all of the events on the weekends...rodeos, mountain bike races, music festivals, running races, town festivals, and on and on. Having lived in Grand County for more than 20 years, I have had the chance to attend many of these events, but I had never been to Hot Sulphur Days or Kremmling Days...until this year. I had a great time covering these small-town celebrations.





The Grand County Blues Society hosted its sixth Blues from the Top festival at the end of June in Winter Park at the revamped Hideaway Park. I've always felt like I have eclectic taste in music, but my experience with the blues has been limited--mostly the few blues shows the GCBS has put on during the past year. Having the opportunity to hear a variety of artists over the course of the two days of this year's BFTT was a memorable experience. I will say that if you ever have the chance to see Zac Harmon in person, make sure you do, otherwise you will miss an incredible performer. Zac had, what has to be, the unenviable task of opening Sunday's show at 11:00 a.m. All he did was blow everyone away with a performance full of energy and a pure love for what he was doing--it was better than a tall, double latte!



Here is blues harmonica player Jason Ricci silhouetted against a tent near the stage:



And because it's taking me so long to post this, I might as well include the Fourth of July. I traveled from one end of the county to the other covering the various events celebrating the holiday. I had three choices of fireworks displays to attend and I finally chose to go to Kremmling to see their "Fire Up the Cliffs" display, which I had never seen before. I spent quite of bit of time choosing a location to shoot from. I settled on shooting from a spot along U.S. Highway 40 just west of town where I could get a reflection of the cliffs and fireworks in a pond. I almost regretted my decision when I was immediately attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes, but luckily had a stash of repellent in the car. In the end it was all worth it. Here is the result:



I was able to shoot a second display the following night when Granby did their display following the final Flying Heels Rodeo of the season. Because the fireworks were set off immediately after the conclusion of the rodeo (around 9:30), I didn't have time to get set up and follow my normal timetable for shooting fireworks where I normally would make my first image about an hour prior to the start of the show, so that I have a frame with detail in the sky. But I was still happy with the result:



(Both fireworks photos were created from four different files and combined into one final image.)

Does this mean I'm getting old?

It was a special time last weekend as my daughter Emily graduated from high school. She was also one of the valedictorians, which made it all the more special. I am very proud of her!





On a closing note, I was shooting some end of school year festivities at a local elementary school yesterday and came across these flags that were being passed out to the parents. I thought it was quite funny/ironic/sad. If it doesn't show up well and you can't read it, it says "Made in China."

The End is in Sight

The last two weeks of the girls' soccer season always fly by. We come back from spring break, there is usually a game or two to make up from postponements earlier in the season, so those are crammed in with our regularly scheduled games, plus practice on any open days. Throw in the fact I also have to work my regular job and we are at the end of April before you know it.

The end of this season is especially bittersweet, because not only will we be saying good bye to a great bunch of seniors, but also to one of whom is my daughter, Emily. When it comes down to it, Emily is the reason I got into coaching soccer in the first place 10 1/2 years ago. When she was seven, she came home from soccer practice and said they were going to need another coach for her age group, because there were so many kids. I went to the next practice and thought to myself, "this could be fun." Then, as they say, the rest is history. The other thing that will be hard about saying good bye to these seniors is that they were freshmen when I started coaching at the high school, so we have been together all four years that I have been with the program. Their commitment and desire was a key factor to our success this season.

The girls actually finished out the season with some strong performances against the top teams in our league. These teams will likely be contending for the state title this year and the way the girls performed shows how much our program has improved this year. We finished with our best record ever, scored more goals than we ever have before, allowed fewer goals than ever, and had a great time doing it! We will have our end of season banquet next week, where there will be plenty of laughter and tears. Thanks girls!

Countdown to spring break

(I should have posted this a couple of weeks ago, but got caught up with work, coaching soccer and thinking about my pending trip to Florida for spring break.)

I have to get my taxes done!

Sometimes this job can be an emotional roller coaster. Take yesterday (Tuesday, April 1) for example...

I got to the office and was promptly notified that there had been a serious car accident with a fatality and the rumor was that the victim was the principal of one of the local elementary schools. I got to the scene around an hour after the accident, but the cars involved were still there and the amount of damage was incredible. By this time it was confirmed that the victim was indeed the principal of Fraser Valley Elementary School, so I headed to the school to see what I could find.

This is the second staff member the local school district has lost this school year in an auto accident. In the fall, a teacher at the high school was killed on her way to work, so this was all too familiar and very depressing.

On the flip side, I spent the evening with one of the candidates for mayor here in Granby. When I walked into the bar she and her supporters were gathered at, her supporters immediately thought she had won because I was there. I had to assure them that I was only there, because their candidate had a good chance to win, not that I had any information on the results. It turned into a long night and eventually the candidate, her family and a small group of supporters went to her home to wait on word from town hall. When she finally received official word at 11:35 p.m., despite it being a long day for me, I was glad I had stuck it out and was happy with the image I got.

Turning to the world of soccer, our girls had an amazing game on Monday, March 31, defeating Bishop Machebeuf 7-6. Our girls were down 5-2 at one point and staged an amazing rally in the second half to comeback for the win. In past years, it would be easy for the team to lose hope, but not this year. They never gave up and ended up beating a team they had never beat before. The win also put us at the top of our league, temporarily, which was an added bonus.

The following Thursday, we had another home game scheduled, but our home field is still covered with snow, so the game was moved to Denver. All of the snow we received over the winter and spring, along with the fact that we just haven't had much warm, sunny weather to melt that snow, is making it look more and more like we aren't going to be having any home games this season. We played St. Mary's Academy, a team that has given us fits the past few years. We had trouble getting our offense on track, but our defense held its own giving up just one goal in a 1-0 loss to a team that had beaten us 8-0 and 7-0 in the past two years. It is encouraging to see how much more competitive we are this season.



This brings us to spring break. I'm heading to Florida with my son to visit my parents. Some warm weather and the beach will be a welcome break from the winter weather here in Colorado.

Catching up

I have been way too lax in keeping this blog fresh, so it is my intent to be much more diligent. I commend my peers who are able to update theirs on a consistent basis. You can check out some of them by clicking on the links to the right.

I can't believe it is already mid-March--where does the time go? Because it has been a while since my last post, we have some catching up to do.

Work at the Sky-Hi Daily News has been going well. You can get an idea of what I have been doing by going to the paper's web site or checking out my SportsShooter.com page. I feel fortunate to be working at a small community daily when many large dailies are suffering layoffs.

For anyone that doesn't know, in addition to my photography work, I also coach soccer at Middle Park High School here in Granby and we are currently almost a month into the girls season. Now you may ask how does a soccer team practice in the heart of the mountains when there is still several feet of snow on the ground. In the past we practiced in the high school gym, which didn't do much to prepare us for playing outside. During the past year we were very fortunate to have a parent who was able to raise the money to build an indoor field. It's only a third of the size of a normal field, but it's a tremendous improvement over the gym. Four games into the season and we can already see the difference it's making in the girl's play.



The girls are playing better than they ever have this early in the season. We have three more non-conference games before we start league play, which is what will really tell us where we are at, but until then we are enjoying the ride.



One of the original reasons I moved to Grand County was because of the skiing at Winter Park. As the years have gone on, I don't ski as much as I used to and I am getting pretty choosy about when I ski, but with a regular work schedule at the newspaper I actually have day(s) off, so as the ski season enters its final month I have tried to get out for at least a few runs each week. Earlier this week I was able get with my good friend Dan and we made some great turns. This being the height of the spring break season, there was only one way to get away from the tourist crowds--that was to hike to terrain no one else would go to...it was well worth it:



That's the quick update. I'm looking forward to posting on a more frequent basis and I hope you will enjoy my future offerings. Cheers!