If you have a lot of free time on your hands, my actual Island Cup article is here:
football
The Island Cup: Jr High + Jayvee
The Island Cup: Getting There
Each year, the final game of the MVRHS high school football season is a matchup between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket–the “Islands” part of The Cape and Islands part of Massachusetts. The rivalry unofficially dates to the late forties, and officially became the Island Cup 33 years ago. The game site alternates between MVY and ACK (Nantucket has an odd airport code); this year, it was on Nantucket.
So on Saturday, I caught the fan boat–a Steamship Authority ferry boat chartered by the booster club specifically for this trip; I think there were about 400 passengers–over to Nantucket. I was pulling double-duty, reporting and photographing all three games (jr. high, JV, and varsity (although the latter is The Game), and was also working on a reporter’s notebook story about the fan boat itself.
It was a very long day (thirteen hours, if you include the time spent writing a web update after I got back on-Island).
But it was also a very awesome day, the kind of day that makes you love journalism even more than you already do because there are just so many stories all around.
The Last Friday Night Lights
…sure, there’s still one more game left—and it’s a biggie; it’s the Island Cup, when the Vineyard plays Nantucket—but tonight was the last home game of the season. Senior recognition, announcing of Homecoming king and queen nominees, all that good stuff.
I am not a fan of shooting night games; my gear isn’t equipped for the light conditions. I tried using a tripod for stability. I tried using my flash, of all things. I drew the line at pushing the ISO past 2500, though. Oh well. Some day I’ll have that 70-200 f/2.8!
In more exciting news, the Vineyard stomped all over Medford in this game, winning 21-0. They haven’t blanked their opponents all season, so that’s a good way to get ready to take on 8-1 Nantucket.
Choate Sports: Football and Football
The football and soccer teams at my old high school played like polar opposites this weekend…football stomped all over NMH 54-7, but the boys’ soccer team lost 5-0 (I didn’t make it to the girls’ match. I’m hoping they fell on the stomping side of the spectrum).
I love how much closer you can get to the action at high school games. It makes up for only having a 70-200 to work with (regardless, most of these have been cropped).
A Soggy Story
After three years using a Canon Rebel XT as my only body (when I didn’t have access to the MU photo locker), I finally upgraded to a 7D (video hooray!). I’d been looking forward to testing out the 8fps feature at the first home football game of the season…and then it poured that day, which put a bit of a damper (no pun intended) on my plans.
I was still assigned to photograph the game, though, so I wrapped the body and my telephoto in two layers of garbage bag, and taped everything down with duct tape. Then I went out to shoot.
But I had to leave a little bit exposed beneath the garbage bags so I could work the dials and change settings…and after about a half an hour, enough water snuck into the camera body that it stopped working. Just like that. My two-day-old camera that I had sunk my summer savings into. The only good thing was I had managed to get enough photos that I could still turn in something to the paper.
I was trying my best not to freak out, and I did know about the rice trick, so I decided to give it a go. I put the camera body in a giant Ziploc baggie with about a pound of rice, and let it stay there for six days. I tested everything after a day, but nothing happened; after three days, though, the display flickered a little bit, like it was trying to start up (hope!). By the end of the week the rice had absorbed all of the water. And the camera works like it just came off the factory line. I’m still floored by this; I really thought it would end up being one of those tricks that works for everybody but me.
So. Here are some of the photos that almost did me in:
Bowling in Texas
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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Mizzou vs. Nebraska: Sidelines
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.
