A little late

"Denver's Joe Jackson (15) sneaks a layup past New Orleans' Shaun Reynolds in the first half at Magness Arena in Denver, Colo. Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008."

Ok, I'll admit that I'm a few days late posting this image but the University of Denver Daniels College of Business is to blame. I've had more school work and group projects in the past week than I care to talk about. The bad news is that I still have two group projects and papers due Monday and Tuesday. The good news is that I leave Wednesday morning at 8:25am for the warm weather of Irvine, California. For those of you who don't remember I'll be attending the Sports Shooter Academy with the likes of staff photographers from USA Today, Getty Images and The L.A. Times.

Frankly I'm impressed with the quality of work that I've been able to accomplish over the past week with SSA on my mind.

I actually have to get back to my school work now but I'll have some stuff to post this weekend but check out some of my favorites from February in the meantime.

Enjoy today because we only get February 29th once every four years.

Stuck in the shadows

"Freshman guard Kyle Lewis drives the ball up court for Denver in the first half of their matchup against Middle Tennessee State University Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008. The Blue Raiders were too tough for Denver, handing the Pioneers only their second loss at home this season in the 65-58 contest."

After a group meeting and work I shot the basketball double header against Middle Tennessee State University. The Blue Raiders teams are tough and I knew it was going to take near perfect performances for either team to get the win. Despite both teams fighting hard late in the game MTSU swept the double header.

However, on the positive end of things, Senior Sarah Benham recorded her 1,000th career point in the second half. Play was paused and Benham was presented with the game ball.

I have to say that tonight was honestly one of my better shooting nights of the season. I tried some different things, turned the strobes on for the first time in a while and set up a low angle floor remote. The above picture was an attempt at trying something new, you be the judge if it worked out or not. The arena lights created hot spots on the floor so I decided to walk up to the catwalk and try to create some type of visual image with them. I exposed for the hot spots and the resulting image created a silhouette as Kyle drove up the floor. The color is actually a natural effect of the lights when they flicker. I especially like all the marks on the floor that show up as a result.

I tried a few other things, some worked, some didn't. You can check out my selects HERE.

I have a really early start to my day tomorrow and I can barely keep my eyes open. I'll have some more stuff from basketball on Sunday.

Look out New York

"Friend and fellow co-worker Morgan Jappe poses for a portrait Sunday afternoon. Morgan is headed to the Big Apple after graduation to pursue her vocal career."

I apologize for the lack of posting in the last week. What can I say, school gets in the way of the rest of my life. I registered for my last three classes in my academic career today and let me tell you that it feels great knowing that I'm less than four months from moving on to new and interesting things.

Speaking of moving on, Morgan (above) is planning on moving to New York City after graduation to take advantage of the amazing voice she has. Sure everyone one knows someone with a good voice but Morgan is as I like to say legit! There is no doubt in my mind that she will do well, I just hope she remembers me when she gets to the top. Hopefully I'll meet here there someday. 

She asked me a few months ago if I could take some new head shots of her and we just got around to doing it. I'm always up to apply my talent to help support someone else's. After a few outfit and lighting changes the above picture turned out to be on of my favorite. The shot is a pretty straightforward setup but when you get someone like Morgan on the other side of the camera you really don't need to do too much.

I'm off to bed but before I go I thought I would share some pretty exciting news with you all. Some of you may know that I was one of 20 students accepted to attend the annual Sports Shooter Academy hosted by photographers from the likes of USA Today, The LA Times and Getty Images. I leave two weeks from today for five days of sports photography in Orange County California. This trip lends itself to plenty of excitement but you can probably understand how I nearly jumped through the roof when I found out that I was selected to be one of only five students to shoot a water polo match UNDERWATER while I'm there. The housing for the cameras, which are being loaned by the company, cost over $2,000 a piece so only a handful of students in the country have ever had the chance to do such a thing. I can hardly wait! I'll have more about the trip in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Night!

Organized chaos

"Denver sophomore Ellen McCarthy, left, preforms a release on the uneven bars while an Oklahoma gymnast competes on floor exercise Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008 in Hamilton Gymnasium at the University of Denver. Oklahoma topped Denver 195.925-195.700 in the quad meet that also featured Utah State and Air Force."

Tonight I shot gymnastics for the first time in a month because the girls have been on the road. It was a great homecoming as the gym was sold out for the second consecutive meet with an attendance of 2,195. You can read the story on the meet here. 

Hamilton gymnasium is an awful place to shoot because the light is awful because it pulses, the seats are yellow, everything is close together and the backgrounds are horrendous for sports photography. For example I'm lucky to get 1/640 f2.8 at 1600ISO. For those of you who understand what that means you know how bad the light is. However, I've been trying really hard to find clean backgrounds so that the athletes pop in the picture. I squeeze in-between two sets of bleachers on the floor just to get the perfect spot for balance beam. I look a little ridiculous but the images turn out much better so I can't complain. Check out my selects!

I love the picture above because it really set the mood for tonight's competition. There were four teams competing which means that there was a gymnast competing on each of the four apparatus at the same time. It's great for the fans because there is always something to watch.

I'm headed to Winter Park to go snowboarding in less than four hours so I'm going to head to bed. I haven't been up to the mountains this entire year so I'm excited to make some fresh tracks. I'm going with a friend who I haven't seen in over a year so I'm interested to see how things go. 

Bedtime!

Our fearless leader

"University of Denver Director of In-Event Production & Promotions Angel Field rides a tricycle during a test for a promotion in Magness Arena Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008."

I've been carrying around one of my cameras and a wide-angle lens everywhere I go hoping to make images, like the one above, that I usually never would have thought of. I should have been doing this a long time ago.

I love my job.

When I'm not making images or in class you can probably find me on the 4th floor of the Ritchie center working for Denver Sports Marketing. We work hard at preparing for and executing promotions run during Pioneer athletic events. However, it's not all work, we like to play too. The best part of my job is the people I work with. In addition to my boss Angel (above) and Alexis, manager of events, I work with an amazing group of students. Several of us have been working together since we were Freshman and now we have been training the underclassmen to take over in our places.

We all have fairly consistent schedules so we work with the same people in the office. I work a few days a week with Caressa, one of the freshman girls. Basically she's one of the funniest people I know and a complete riot. She'd probably kill me if I posted a picture of her so I'll refrain from doing so. She isn't that lucky in the office because I'm constantly snapping off frames of her. She secretly loves it, haha. We have a blast taking pictures, folding t-shirts, putting up posters, proofing scripts, filling the cheer bag, delivering flyers, writing new promotions, setting up the marketing table for Thursday afternoon women's basketball and laughing at each other for no particular reason. 

Today was no different and purely comical. Even Angel got into the act by riding a tricycle around the office, down the elevator, past the varsity locker rooms and onto the basketball court to do a test run for a promotion that we did later that night at the Men's basketball game. They won by the way, seventh in a row at home and tied for first place in the division. The women also won in a OT thriller in the first game of the double header.

I worked the women's game and then shot the men's game, well the first half of it anyway. I went up to the press box to edit my take from the first half and got a little carried away talking to one of the photographers from the AP. I'm just a kid compared to the people who have been in the photojournalism industry for a while. I love to pick their brain when I can and learn as much as possible in hopes of getting to where they are today. Jack and I got to talking about the future, or lack there of, of the industry and what I could/should be doing to make a living in the currently struggling industry. I understand that it is going to be almost impossible to survive but I would rather make photos than sit at a computer with a 9-5. 

If there is one thing that I'm confident about it is that I have a passion for making images. It doesn't matter if they are of Caressa having a dance party on the main concourse inside Magness or Tiger Woods draining a 65-footer to win the Masters. I can't wait to make images for a living...no matter what it takes.

SUPER Tuesday

"Sen. Barack Obama spoke to over 9,000 supporters inside Magness Arena Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2008. Obama captured the Colorado Caucus with over 66 percent of the vote on Super Tuesday."

As I've told everyone who has asked, my vote is not set in stone yet but Mr. Obama seems to be the one.

My day started with a heated debate in my Advertising class about what Super Bowl ads people did and didn't like. Naturally the girls didn't get any of the ads for automobiles and none liked the Victoria Secret ad. The guys on the other hand weren't really into the "warm and fuzzy" feeling that seemed to dominate the ads this year. Regardless, my favorite ad I also thought to be the most effective was Audi's spoof on "The Godfather" which presented their new sports car, the R8. I thought that the 60-second ad gave it plenty of time to develop and felt like a mimi movie rather than commercial trying to sell something. Then again you can't really sell a $109,000 car. It sells itself. 

After a productive day in the office and an hour and a half of intense pick-up basketball in the gym I headed home to have dinner with my parents, sister and Aunt Diane who is in town from Omaha for business. A lot of the dinner conversation revolved around Super Tuesday and our opinions on all of the candidates, Republican and Democrat. I can say that everyone wasn't on the same page which was good because it fostered some solid discussion.

The political talk is winding down, most everyone in the house is asleep and I'm getting tired. I'm going to head down stairs, finish a few little things and head to bed...but not before watching the new Nip/Tuck. Thank god the writer's strike hasn't affected that show.

SUPER Tuesday