K is for Kauffman

Posted by Ivy

I’m slowly working my way through all of the Major League Baseball ballparks in the country. So far I’ve been to a third of them*; I added my tenth last night when I went to see the Red Sox (my most favorite team ever) play Kansas City at the K. Having now been to both of the Missouri ballparks, I can confidently say that, while I love the roofdeck at Busch Stadium, I like the overall coziness of Kauffman much better. I think I also might have preferred the Cardinals’ old stadium to their current one.

Anyway, the game itself was excellent–it was a matchup of Zack Greinke and Josh Beckett, which is in itself fantastic. The game itself was pretty competitive for the first few innings, until the old guard of the Sox (Jason Varitek and Mike Lowell) decided they might as well make the most of their limitd playing time and hit some home runs. Once Greinke was taken out of the game, it was over for the Royals. A huge thank-you must go out to Laura Herring and her friends who were also at the game for not giving this Red Sox fan a hard time about her team loyalties!

We were in the nosebleed section, and my 70-300mm can only do so much from that range, but I tried to make a few photos anyway:

*I am doing much better in my parallel quest to go to all the NPB parks in Japan. I’ve been to six, with six more to go.

Zack Greinke. He was on my first and only fantasy baseball team five years ago.

Jacoby Ellsbury all alone in the outfield

There was a hot dog race. Ketchup won. He’s so jaunty!

People started leaving in the seventh. Boooo.

Laura’s boyfriend kept score the whole game.

I have NEVER seen the opposing team’s gear for sale in an MLB team store. They do that everywhere in Japan, but here it seems kind of weird.

Wide-open shutter…

Easter Shenanigans

Posted by Ivy

I’ve been to many, many Easter egg hunts.

But I’ve never tried to photograph one, and it was a very good thing Caitlyn reminded me yesterday (after her own egg hunt shoot) just how short they really are. There’s a whole lot of buildup, a mad dash, and then…it’s over and you go play games.

When I went to cover the Douglass Park EGGstravaganza (their emphasis, not mine) this afternoon, I intentionally went straight for the part of the park where the 1 and 2 year olds would be gathering eggs, since I knew they would be the slowest group. I was right, but the hunt was still over in less than two minutes.

All things considered, I guess the egg hunt photos aren’t terrible…except that two of the ones I liked best—the first two—couldn’t be used in the paper because I lost track of the families right after the eggs had been collected (there were about 350 people there) and I thus didn’t get names. FRUSTRATING. I’m still mad at myself about this.

The kids are still cute, though.

Extra bonus photo- balance flash from the in-camera flash on my baby Rebel XT! I just love the facial expressions here; the little girl had essentially just cut in front of the first boy, and you can definitely tell.

Softball + Rainout

Posted by Ivy

I covered a softball game for the Missourian this afternoon, but the game was rained out and rescheduled after 3 and a half innings. The reporter didn’t write up a story, and the sports desk had left early, so none of the photos were published. Oh well. I had fun shooting anyway!