I like everything about the Nikon D2xs except its ability to shoot action in low-light situations—you can’t push the ISO past 400, which gets to be a problem in baseball…since shutter speeds when photographing batting and pitching have to be pretty high. Even a 2.8 aperture can only do so much.
Result: Supergrain.
While Mizzou is on official spring break (it’s freakishly quiet in town now) and the Columbia Missourian newsroom is about a fifth of the population it normally is, I’m standing in as the department’s photo editor. I haven’t been in the newsroom at all this semester, and it was a little weird to get back into Missourian mode—but I didn’t forget the workflow process (that stuff gets deep inside your head), which is nice.
There’s only one other photographer working this week, so last night I picked up an assignment while she covered a Passover seder. I got to shoot my first college baseball game since spring of 2007, and it was excellent.
I’m usually pretty good about shooting pitching and batting, so I was trying to focus on baserunning and dugout photos. If there seem to be an excess of celebration photos, that’s because there was a serious excess of runs scored- Mizzou whomped Purdue 22-14.
I actually don’t think I’d like this more if you could see the players’ heads (the 300mm forced to me to compose creatively). Then it’d just be a picture of the backs of heads, which is boring. Discuss.
Last year, I went to the Texas Bowl in Houston as a spectator, when my alma mater (Rice) played and was victorious against Western Michigan.
This year, I went the Texas Bowl as an official part of the media corps. There’d been a lot of Internet commentary regarding Mizzou getting overlooked in the bowl selection process, and while I do feel this is true to an extent, I’m not upset with the game we were picked to play in…because it gave me a chance to go to Houston again and to actually photograph during a major (okay, mid-major) CFB matchup.
I’ve shot football exactly three times before today–once during a Rice-UHouston game in 2007 (when I was stuck shooting from the stands because my credentials were never processed correctly), once during Mizzou-Nebraska (when I didn’t get any game photos at all because I was focusing on fans), and once just for practice during a Hickman High game (when I was using just a 70-200mm)–and I was, shall we say, less than confident in my abilities to make any good pictures at all. I knew enough about college football and enough about how Mizzou and Navy both play (damn the unphotogenic running game) to not be scared completely out of my mind, but the idea that I would come back empty-handed kept nagging me. I wish it hadn’t.
This is not to imply that I took mind-blowing, paradigm-changing sports photos during the game (I didn’t), but what I took was by no means bad. I was honestly surprised by this, and in retrospect, it would have been nice to have had a little more faith in myself. I went back through the take after the first go-round of editing, and ended up finding a few MORE images that I liked, which, again, was a pleasant turn of events. All in all, at least from my perspective (not so much from Mizzou’s…), the Texas Bowl was a definite success.
In related news, I find it very strange to edit my own stuff for use in publication. I’d much rather have somebody else go through it all first.
Enjoy!
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Stills from the MU-Nebraska game this past Thursday (I got to shoot pregame activities and the first half before going up to the press box to edit during the second half). I had the D2H, so most of my attention while on the field was actually focused on the people in the stands. D2H + downpour + night + action shots of football…not a combination I wanted to play with.
I’m procrastinating writing a paper for Qualitative, and figured now was as good a time as any to post the penultimate entry from my San Francisco trip.
On Friday, July 3, I went with my family and my friend Seth to see the San Francisco Giants play the Houston Astros. I wouldn’t call myself a hardcore Astros fan, but I did go to school in Houston for four years, so I’d probably err on their side when picking an NL team to root for. However, the Astros of 2009 are nothing like the Astros of a few years ago–the team that went to the World Series and had the power trio (the Killer Bs) of Berkman, Biggio and Bagwell. They ended up losing 9-0. Ouch. To be fair, San Francisco’s pitcher was absolutely brilliant- and it was only his second start!
There was also a fireworks show after the game, which rocked. I’m already excited for the fireworks in Oak Bluffs next month, but that’s partially because I’m really excited about going back to the East Coast for a couple weeks.
I’m trying really hard to actually post Missourian assignments…so here’s an enterprise photo from today. I was waiting around for Show-Me State bowling to start, and started to head back to the newsroom when I realized they were playing Show-Me State baseball at Hickman Field. Baseball, for the record, is way more fun to shoot than bowling is.
Right fielder Brennen Wood of the West Plains Zs connects with a pitch from Eliel Malpica, back left, of the North County Indians during the pool round of Show-Me State baseball, held July 18 at Hickman Field in Columbia. Despite Wood’s efforts, the Indians won 10-1.
Second time shooting golf for the Missourian. This was a loooooong tournament–and I only shot the back 9–which lasted about five hours, including a rain delay and the trophy presentations at the end. Whew. On the plus side, I got to use the 300mm, which I love…on the minus side, I had to handhold it because the monopod wouldn’t attach to the lens, and I needed to be able to quickly switch from horizontal to vertical framing. Whew.
The girl who won the tourney, Chelsea Schriewer (wearing the black shirt; Alisha Matthews, in the stripes, placed second), won by twelve strokes, tied the overall course record (as shot by a man or a woman) with a 66, AND got her first hole-in-one on the 16th. On the 16th, while she was hole-in-one-ing, I was, of course, changing lenses. CHANGING LENSES. Rotten, terrible luck. That’ll teach me to go out without two camera bodies.
Once again, these uploaded a little undersaturated…
I lived in Florida for eight years and never went to any spring training games. I didn’t really get into baseball until I was in high school, and we moved when I was thirteen, but still– I should have at least seen something of the Grapefruit League while I was down there. It’s kind of embarrassing. I’ve seen my dad play amateur ball (in the Roy Hobbs League) at City of Palms Park, where the Red Sox spring train, but never the Sox themselves. Admittedly, it’s a hell of a lot cooler to see your dad play than anybody else, but regardless, I totally dropped the ball on Florida baseball.
So now I’m trying to make up for that. My grandparents live in Scottsdale, AZ, and (again with the happy coinciding of dates) spring break nicely lines up with spring training, Cactus League style. Arizona baseball doesn’t have the history that Florida does (nor do the Red Sox play there, DAMN IT), but it does have the excellent advantage of all the ballparks being really close to each other and not sprawled out all over the state. Had I had the time and money, I would have seen more than two games, but two is still a huge breath of fresh air after the long baseball-less winter. The whole experience was made even better by my best friend Tegan being in Arizona at the same time (having just finished a stint with AmeriCorps)…so we got to go be baseball junkies together. Awesome!
I managed to recharge my camera battery at Tempe Camera (on the advice of Tegan’s boyfriend, who could hold up to any Mizzou photo-j in terms of camera gear know-how), so I was good to go and could telephoto to my heart’s content. One regret: not enough photos of Grady Sizemore.
[Game One: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch, Glendale, AZ. Russell Martin catching while Jim Thome bats. The White Sox won 6-1.]
[Dodgers vs. White Sox. Orlando Hudson at bat, AJ Pierzynski catching, Manny Ramirez on deck. YAY MANNY! I still love you; I just hate Scott Boras.]
[Dodgers vs. White Sox. Manny Ramirez breaking his bat before grounding into a double play with the bases loaded. Whoops.]
[Dodgers vs. White Sox. Paul Konerko covering first base.]
[Game Two. Cleveland Indians vs. Chicago Cubs at Hohokam Stadium, Mesa, AZ. This was a much better, more competitive game than the other, but the Indians were victorious, 7-5.]
[Indians vs. Cubs. Mark DeRosa (who just moved from the latter to the former) runs the bases in front of a sellout crowd after his second home run of the game. DeRosa was 3 for 4 with two homers and a double.]
[Indians vs. Cubs. Derrek Lee dwarfs Indians 1B Tony Graffanino. Because he’s REALLY TALL.]
[Tegan’s boyfriend Dan at the Indians/Cubbies game. Incidentally, he’s wearing the jersey (which he stole from Tegan) of the Chiba Lotte Marines, the Japanese team Bobby Valentine manages.]
