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!

Out with the old, in with the new

The newspaper I work for launched its redesigned version this week. So for the last edition of the old version of the paper I was asked to come up with an appropriate photo for the front page. Lucky for me, a rancher friend was moving his herd of cattle from their summer pasture to the fall pasture. The cattle drive covers several miles and takes the herd along U.S. 40, and offers a variety of images as several hundred head of cattle make their way down the highway and bring traffic to a crawl. After an hour I still felt like I hadn't captured "the" image--I knew I had photos that would work for the paper, but nothing fitting the final edition of the paper. Then, as the last of the herd was moved off the highway into the pasture, the four cowboys (and girl) who were helping rode between some cottonwood trees, which were still in full autumn color and I then knew I had what I needed.



I then needed to find an image suitable for the front page of the new redesigned paper. Because we were starting a new era in the history of our newspaper, I thought a shot of a sunrise would work. Our editor agreed and I set off each morning on three days to try and capture a suitable sunrise. After trying several locations, I decided on the one which gave me a good view of the mountains and an interesting look at the valley in the foreground. It was the third morning which gave me the best color in the sky as the began to rise from the behind the Continental Divide.



And here are the two front pages...

Do I miss shooting pro sports?. . .not really

Now that I'm working for the newspaper I haven't had any time to shoot for US Presswire (the sports photo agency I have covered a variety of pro and college sports for during the past two-plus years), so I've had several people ask me if I miss covering things like the Broncos and Rockies--especially with this evening's play-in game on tap. I think a month ago there were times that I might have missed it, but I definitely don't miss the drives to Denver. And after covering high school sports for the paper during the last month, it's a pleasure dealing with the local schools who actually appreciate me being there and getting such great feedback from parents and other community members. The pure joy high school athletes play with is often a sharp contrast to the egos and attitudes of professional athletes. If there is anything I miss, it's having the opportunity to see photographer friends from Denver, but I'm hoping our paths will cross again soon.

Sure it would have been great to be at the Rockies game on Sunday and to go to the game against the Padres later today, but I will be having a great time applying what I have learned from shooting pro and college sports to the local high school volleyball game I will covering.

So far, so good

It's been a few weeks since I started working for the local newspaper, and it's been a great couple of weeks. I've been getting some great feedback from the community, which is one of the perks of working for a small paper. I'm still working on getting back in the swing of working a regular job again, as well as getting used to the workflow of the paper.

I'm still coaching soccer at Middle Park High School and our season is well underway. I'm coaching the junior varsity and they are progressing nicely, we're seeing improvement every day. The varsity boys are undefeated, but we have some tough games coming up this week starting tomorrow. Before I forget, I have to congratulate my son Erik (#12 below) on scoring his first varsity goals last Friday. A junior, he is settling in well to his role as the left midfielder. Good luck to the Panthers on their six games coming up in the next 10 days!

The First Day...

Today was my first day of work at my new job as the photographer for the Grand County Newspapers here in Granby, Colo.

It has been more than 21 years since I worked as a full-time newspaper photographer, hence the name of my blog. In the years between newspaper gigs I have worked as a meetings/group coordinator for a resort, done sales and p.r. for a small ski resort/hotel, managed Front Range sales efforts for a major Colorado ski resort, been the assistant media relations director for a major Colorado ski resort, been the staff photographer for that same ski resort, then having that job eliminated, I became a full-time freelance photographer, while driving a shuttle bus part-time for a ski resort and coaching boys and girls soccer at the local high school.

But now I return to my newspaper roots. This is actually a great opportunity as the paper is getting ready to get a major re-design and move towards being a daily county-wide paper. I'm really looking forward to the chance to be a part of the new and improved newspaper. We've got a great staff that is really easy to work with, which makes going to work a pleasure.

We'll see what the future holds...