I got the call to cover a community outreach visit for Stanford football on Tuesday.
Terrence Stephens asks a student how much his Orange Bowl ring weighs.
Three Stanford football players, Terrence Stephens, David Green and Michael Thomas, visited a community recreation center in a neighborhood in San Francisco and hung out and spoke with kids in an after-school program. This was definitely a type of event I didn’t have a lot of experience covering yet. In fact I ended up needing to rent a flash as mine and the pool’s are not working. It was cool to see the players work with the kids and for me to get to meet with the folks at Stanford football since I came on at the tail end of football season. The players were nice guys who stayed after to sign autographs for anyone.
Michael Thomas tries to block a student's throw during a football drill.
They also ran a football drill, which after a little bit of re-explaining the rules to some the kids, looked like a ton of fun. I actually wanted to join in.
David Green watches a student's throw during a football drill with an after-school program.
My selected images were shown on the football page at GoStanford.com.
On Saturday I got to cover another new (to me) Stanford varsity sport: sailing. Stanford’s sailing team was hosting the McIntyre Intersectional at their boathouse in Redwood Shores just up 101 from campus. I signed up to cover the first day of the races, not knowing what to expect.
Sally Mace and Katie Riklin of Stanford sailing turn their boat during the first day of the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores. Stanford won all 9 races of the day.
I talked with the coach the previous day about getting on a chase boat to shoot the action. He told me to be there at 9:30 to get on a boat for the races to start at 10. I arrived well before because I honestly wasn’t sure where I was supposed to meet him. The boathouse is listed on the website but there’s another location listed a few exits up 101. I wasn’t even sure what I was getting into as far as boats and waters go. I could have shown up to a kiddie pool filled with those toy sailboats the French kids play with in the fountain outside the Louvre for all I knew. I had seen pictures of these huge America’s Cup things but I didn’t know if they’d be getting into that either.
Kevin Laube and Kelly Ortel of Stanford sailing race for the lead against Hawaii during the first day of the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores.
When I arrived, I introduced myself to John the coach and he said we may have a delay due to no wind. He was right. I looked out onto the bay and saw it was as he described: “a swimming pool.” Knowing nothing about sailing, I didn’t even realize that was a bad thing. After standing around during the delay with very little visuals, especially sailing related, I was getting really hungry. I also knew that I was slated to be there all day. So I snuck away. I didn’t bring my laptop on this shoot because I thought I’d be on a boat the whole day. That was dumb. So I drove all the way back home, microwaved a burrito (yes, at 11am) and grabbed my laptop. When I came back, all the boats were gone. Shit.
Boats wait at the start of one of the races during the McIntyre Intersectional hosted by Stanford.
It turns out the sailing I would be covering was team sailing and it takes place just off the shore still in the harbor in relatively small boats on a relatively small course that can easily be viewed from land. I did not know that though and just saw empty docks. Coach said he would be in and out in his boat throughout the day so I could get on whenever, so I wasn’t too worried. Just then he rolled in, Miami Vice-like, on his motorboat.
Coach John Vandemoer of Stanford sailing steers his motorboat through the harbor during the McIntyre Intersectional.
He explained to me they went out to test the wind and still had nothing so there’d be a further delay. So I went in and edited some baseball images. Things got going close to lunchtime eventually. And it was awesome.
Coach John Vandemoer asks for confirmation on the placement of a marker while changing the race course during the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores.
I couldn’t even begin to explain the strategy and all the rules of team sailing but I can tell you my perceptions. First, as a non-sailor, one couldn’t think of all the strategy and strength involved. I just kind of assumed there was some because it’s a sport and it’s not just called “Sitting in Boats”. Each team has three boats with two people in each boat. The matches are head-to-head so six boats are racing at a time. They basically race an up-and-back-and-up course making an “N” across the harbor. The start is a rolling start probably similar to NASCAR type stuff. The start is counted off with a whistle and if your boat is past a certain line created by a bobbing buoy and the start boat you are flagged and forced to get to the other side of the line before crossing it again. Then all six boats are off and you are trying to work your way through the course. It’s a team event because you’re not just racing for first place. You are trying to get all three of your boats across to beat the other team. Each place is assigned a value and you are trying to get the lowest number. The magic number being 10 or lower. If you get first, you get one point, second, you get two, etc. So if your team gets second, third and fifth, you win or first, third and sixth you win, etc.
Rebecca King and Mateo Vargas of Stanford sailing work the ropes in a turn during the first day of the McIntyre Intersectional at Redwood Shores.
That makes the racing and tactics very interesting. I guess the main idea is to get good speed and position but also to block opponent’s wind by being upwind from them. That seems so organic and weird to me. I definitely could not see that element of the game and probably only would if I was in the sailboat itself. Something Jayne and I hope to do this summer with the Stanford sailing camp. Better order some boat shoes.
Sally Mace and Katie Riklin watch their sails as they cross the finish line of a race during day one of the McIntyre Intersectional.
I was shuttled from start boat to finish boat by Coach Vandemoer. He and his sailors who were administering the race were very friendly and were kind to answer all of my stupid questions. As a photographer, I am normally just a bystander but at one point I even got in on the act. I wasn’t shooting and they were moving the race course because of changing wind direction (the coach’s weather knowledge was insane!). The coach was yelling to move the finish boat now, but one sailor in the motorboat I was on was busy and the other had to drive the boat, so I pulled in the anchor. I felt like a real life pirate.
The Stanford sailing team gets pre-race instructions from their coach during the McIntyre Intersectional.
Stanford ended up winning the event, 14-1. For more photos from the races, go to StanfordPhoto.com.
Stanford’s baseball team was home for their second game in the first 11. After road trips, I was glad they were back at Sunken Diamond against Santa Clara.
Third basemen Stephen Piscotty scoops up a grounder during Stanford's game against Santa Clara. Stanford won 8-4.
When I got to the media room, Niall told me that I could expect to get a lot of different photos of pitchers who may not have seen any playing time yet. Being a Tuesday after a three day road trip, the pitchers were worn out and A.J. Vanegas would get the start. Vanegas is not a normal starter but things worked out just fine. The Cardinal ended up winning 8-4.
A.J. Vanegas pitches during Stanford's game against Santa Clara. Vanegas got the win for his first start of the season, 8-4.
Vanegas is normally a reliever so I’ve seen him before. The other relievers and closers were also the usual platoon so I didn’t get to see any pitchers I hadn’t seen before. Still good to work on learning the stadium and getting better angles. Every pitcher has a different routine, delivery, release and mannerisms. My favorite so far has to be A.J. Talt, who is a sidearm/submarine pitcher. His stride is so different than the others.
A.J. Talt pitches relief during Stanford's game against Santa Clara. Talt is a sidearmed/submarine pitcher.
The top of the order were big scorers for the Cardinal against Santa Clara. Jake Stewart, Tyler Gaffney and Kenny Diekroeger seemed to have a hand in every run scored. Although, Zach Jones (bottom of the order that night) had a great triple that he eventually scored on, thanks to the top of the order.
Kenny Diekroeger waits to hit for Stanford during the game against Santa Clara.
Stanford debuted the “now batting” videos which are really cool. They go with probably my favorite motif from baseball which is baseball cards. As an added bonus, they reminded me of one of my favorite baseball card designs: 1993 Donruss. The guys on the team were getting a kick out of watching them cycle through all the videos before the game started, especially freshman Danny Diekroeger.
Danny Diekroeger watches his teammates' now batting videos on the jumbotron at Sunken Diamond before the start of Stanford's game against Santa Clara.
Next Stanford will play a three game series against Texas in Austin. Then they’ll be back in California for some local away games and some home games against Long Beach State. For more images from the Santa Clara game, go to StanfordPhoto.com.
Jayne and I flew out to Colorado this past weekend to visit our friends the Daniels. Joe, Emily and their baby girl Georgia live in Denver and they had planned a weekend getaway in a cabin in the Rockies with us.
Georgia props her feet up to watch some Sesame Street in the basement.
First we hung out in Denver. Thursday night was Emily’s aunt’s birthday at a “Denver institution” Ship Tavern. The vibe at the tavern was awesome if a little old. The food was also pretty good although the service was spectacularly poor. I’m normally not a restaurant complainer but our waiter was top notch when it came to (purposeful, it seemed) obliviousness. Anyway, the prime rib sandwich was humongous and the company was good. Along with the Daniels, Emily’s folks were there as was her brother, Billy. Emily’s dad is a photographer. He’s also one of those “Denver institutions”. I had my camera with me so we talked a little bit of photo stuff. He’s very softspoken so in the buzzing tavern it was a little hard to talk shop. The birthday cake for the evening was a ski theme (and delicious theme) which was an appropriate send off for our trip the next day.
Roger kisses his granddaughter Georgia while Grandma Chris holds her at the Ship Tavern in Denver.
The next day we debated number of cars and then loaded two cars for our trip to the cabin at the YMCA of the Rockies’ Snow Mountain Ranch. Joe and I drove the caboose completing various errands before heading out of town. With Emily and Jayne hauling Georgia, there’s definitely more of a sense of urgency since a child in a car is like a ticking time bomb. You have to get there before she falls asleep or before she wakes up or else sleep patterns are ruined and the Earth is thrown off its axis. Being a parent has to be super humbling.
Joe loads Georgia into her car seat before our trip into the mountains.
After making it through the pass and a stop for pizza and hummus in Winter Park, we arrived at the Ranch. Our cabin was not ready so we went to the Nordic Center. We asked what the Nordic Center was and Joe told us it was where a bunch of tan blonde dudes stand around and talk about skiing. That wasn’t that far off except the dudes were replaced with those friendly but stern old lady types that you find at any YMCA. We rented skis. They asked us if we wanted classic or skates. I asked what does a beginner usually use and they said classic. After we were out on the trails, I saw tons of people wearing the skates and I was definitely coveting. The rollerblading mullet-head in me had the urge to skate in my skis.
Georgia tries on her shades (and a smile) in Deno's Mountain Bistro in Winter Park.
Cross country skiing is fun. This first time we just went to the off leash dog trail and did the loop. At one point we hit a berm caused by a snowplow and we could not navigate over it. We had quite the episode getting Jayne’s right ski back on. After that run we went back and fetched Emily and Georgia. Emily is preggers so skiing was out of the question for her which was a bummer. Georgia probably appreciated the company though.
Georgia crawls over to pet Monk in our cabin.
We checked in to our cabin and Joe and Jayne went and got provisions for dinner. Emily made up spaghetti with sausage. It was great and we all scarfed it down. I believe that night little Georgia was showing signs of sickness. She was not real happy. The night went fast for me because I’m a heavy sleeper but I’m sure Joe and Emily would disagree. The following night was not any better for Georgia. In fact it was worse. The diagnosis after the trip actually ended up being the flu.
Georgia avoids one camera to be shot by another in our cabin in the Rockies.
The next day we did some more skiing and Joe even did some snowshoeing with their dog Monk. One thing we did while skiing was keep track of number of times we fell on our asses. Jayne definitely won (lost) but by the end her numbers were a lot closer.
Joe waxes his old wooden skis before another skiing run. His classic wooden skis turned some heads at the Nordic Center.
During some afternoon downtime, Jayne and I decided to go wall climbing. We heard there was a climbing wall so we signed ourselves up. We showed up and no one was there to escort us. So we wandered around and ran into a Y instructor. She said, “Are you our last two climbers?” We said, “Sure” and went into the climbing room. We were at least double the age of everybody climbing. More likely triple. There were some adults there in harnesses but that was clearly for the sake of their child. None of them went on the wall. It definitely felt weird waiting in line for a wall behind an 8 year old. Or going when some other kid wanted to go. We tired ourselves out and then got out of there. We decided to cleanse our palate of such childish behavior and go rollerskating. It was basically the same situation though. But at least this time we were skating circles around the little eight year olds.
Joe comforts a cranky, sick Georgia after bedtime in the cabin.
That night we ate some dinner and played some spades and watched some TV movies. I was the odd man out with my opinion of movies on TV. I hate them. Jayne LOVES them. We could own something or have it available at all times on Netflix Instant and she will watch it on TV, commercials and all. We watched Air Force One or President Kickass as Jayne and Joe were calling it. Then we watched A Time To Kill but unfortunately it was A Time For Bed so we didn’t get to finish it.
The next morning we packed up to head back but we had those skis rented for the rest of the day. So after vacating our cabin and sending Emily and Georgia and Monk on their way. Joe, Jayne and I tried out one last set of trails. We upped the difficulty and conquered some more hills, up and down. That allowed for more spectacular spills and a few bruised legs and twisted ankles. It was lots of fun though picking ourselves out of the deep, deep snow banks.
We dried off and headed back to Denver before the Breckenridge/Keystone crowd caught up to us that evening. On our way back, we stopped at Idaho Springs for some BeauJo’s Pizza. Since we skied that day we thought it necessary to order the Skier Mike pizza. The unique thing about BeauJo’s is the pizza has a huge crust on it. Typically not my thing. But it’s made this way to allow you to soak your crust in honey and eat it. And that’s an awesome way to eat it.
Billy waits for his balloon to inflate and dispense from the balloon vending machine at Casa Bonita.
It was good we got our bellies full of delicious pizza because we had plans that night to punish our bellies. Casa Bonita, a “Denver institution” of a different sort, was on our agenda. Emily’s brother, Billy was excited as hell to take us there. If you’re not familiar with Casa Bonita, there’s an entire South Park episode devoted to it. Animated construction paper doesn’t do it justice though. My best description of it is Chuck-E-Cheese meets Mexican food meets Disney World. The commitment to atmosphere is on a Walt Disney level. The commitment to food quality is even below Chuck-E-Cheese’s and the arcade is probably worse too. But the mariachi band was actually really good. And they have a huge waterfall with cliff divers. Every hour or so they’d have a cliff diver come up and do some acrobatic dive. But in between, in order to get their money’s worth out of the pool and waterfall, they had some sort of show that would incorporate the water. Like a princess would come out and speak, but if you looked closely you saw a bathing suit under that ill-fitting costume and you knew she was soon going to go into the water. Another highlight of Casa Bonita is a helium balloon vending machine. Anything to distract you from the food.
Emily holds Georgia after Georgia woke up to say goodbye before we drove to the airport.
Emily, Georgia and Billy say goodbye to us from the porch as we get in Joe's car to head to the airport.
The next morning we hung around and watched some Sesame Street and then rolled out toward the airport. We had a heck of a trip. We knew going into it was going to be fun. The Daniels are very relaxing to hang out with and we always feel like we’re having fun whether we’re powering our way up a hill on some skis or making fun of the sweat on Matthew McConaughey’s body throughout all of A Time To Kill.
There’s the slideshow but I also took a panorama of the view from our cabin. I’ll try to embed it here but for now you can go to the Gigapan website to see it.
John texted me the morning before Jayne and I were going to head out to Colorado. He had a group portrait assignment for Stanford men’s swimming and he wanted me to take the ropes. He would assist and I’d be the main photographer. I met him over there and we wrangled the lights over to the aquatic center. John put me in charge but he definitely stepped up with several decisions which was nice. I definitely want to get better at flying solo on that sort of thing. When it came time to shoot I felt fairly confident but it’s practice runs like this that help.
The Stanford men's swimming team poses for a team photo in front of the awards monument in front Avery Aquatic Center.
Tuesday night was Christmas morning for me. Stanford baseball’s home opener against California started at 5:30 at Sunken Diamond on Stanford’s campus.
Jordan Pries of Stanford baseball pitches the first four innings of Stanford's game against Cal. Stanford won 3-2.
Like Christmas morning, I didn’t sleep much the night before. It wasn’t completely baseball related but I ended up staying up late getting files moved around and backed up and starting a new Lightroom catalog for the start of the baseball season. I may have to post about that sometime. I’m no workflow guru but I am pretty happy with my final file decision. Yes, I lead a very exciting life, file-wise.
Austin Wilson, rightfielder for Stanford baseball, tracks down a fly ball in the first inning of Stanford's game against Cal at Sunken Diamond.
Being the first game of the season and not being able to just hang out wherever I please on the field, I made sure to show up early enough that I could get the lay of the land and make sure I knew my plan of attack. Even though I showed up plenty early, Stanford was already done with batting practice. They did that 3 hours before game time. I would have loved to shoot BP in the afternoon light.
Jake Stewart looks to the umpire for the call after he safely steals second during Stanford's game against Cal at Sunken Diamond.
During warmups the light was nice and low and coming from rightfield. Unfortunately, a lot of the warmups I was around for were Cal’s and I didn’t have any obligation to cover them. Cal’s first atbat in the top of the first had just a sliver of light falling on the right-handed batter’s box. Unless it was a three pitch inning, I knew I wasn’t going to get that light when Stanford stepped up in the bottom of the first, and I was right.
Stanford second basemen Lonnie Kauppila throws to first during warmups before Stanford's game against Cal at Sunken Diamond.
Being the first game, I wanted to test the waters in my first live game. I wanted to work out all the kinks that come with shooting: where can I shoot, what angles are best, how the light falls, how I’m greeted by event management. Everything (besides wishing the sun didn’t go down so fast) went smoothly. After a little bit of trial and error, I figured out where I’m allowed to be field level and with smaller crowds in the “cold” evenings I also found some places in the stands that are similar to field level.
Stephen Piscotty swings on the on-deck circle in the late innings of Stanford's game against Cal.
I say “cold” because it’s not actually cold. I’m sure resident Californians get sick of me mocking them/denying it’s cold but I probably won’t stop until they stop saying things like “freezing” and stop wearing snowboarding gloves when it is 50 degrees. To put a positive spin on it, I just always try to point out that I’m just really happy to be watching baseball in February.
Scott Snodgress peeks over his shoulder as he pitches in Stanford's win over Cal.
Playing Cal, there was some buzz caused by Cal being an area/conference rival and the fact that this is Cal’s final year with varsity status for baseball. Definitely a huge bummer for such an established program. It was a pretty pitching heavy game. In fact, Stanford had several stretches where they retired several batters in a row. They still managed to give up 2 runs on a bad inning but got the 3 runs they needed thanks to a Kenny Diekroeger home run and a separate two run inning after a bunch of back-to-back singles including another RBI by Diekroeger.
Kenny Diekroeger throws to first on a slow grounder to shortstop.
A lot of the guys seem like nice dudes and I think part of that comes from their coaching. Before the game Kenny actually came up to me and apologized and said he wasn’t trying to kill me with an errant ball. During warmups, he threw past the first baseman and hit my lens hood with a baseball. No harm, no foul and I had actually forgotten about it, but he still made sure to come over and check. He also called me “sir” which is part of the discipline of the team but hard to get used to for a scruffy guy who still feels like he’s in college and gets called “kid” by all the other Stanford folks.
Assistant coach Rusty Filter bumps fists with players at the end of Stanford's win over California at Sunken Diamond.
I can’t wait until the next home game. Check out more photos from the game on StanfordPhoto.com.
Saturday afternoon was my chance to shoot Stanford women’s basketball with the strobes at Maples Pavilion. Stanford played Washington and won 62-52.
Chiney Ogwumike of Stanford women's basketball team guards a driving Kingma in Stanford's 62-52 victory over Washington.
When we were sitting in the press room before the game, fellow photographer JC said that he imagined today’s game would be a physical game. He said when the Stanford women went to Washington it was “a fight”. He was right. Four of Washington’s players ended up fouling out. One of their players comes from a family of football players and she looked like it. As soon as she got underneath, she was throwing her arms out clearing space. Some of Stanford’s players were even getting into foul trouble which is something I don’t see very often.
Mikaela Ruef, Sara James and Sarah Boothe fret during the second half. Even though it was a 10 point difference at the buzzer, the game against Washington was very tight at times.
At one point in the first half, Nneka Ogwumike went up for a shot and Washington’s Marjorie Heard moved in underneath her. This caused Nneka to roll over Heard’s back and come down on the floor hard on her back. It definitely got folks riled up. So when we came back to the photo room during halftime, the photographers asked who got “the shot”. I was a proud to say I did somewhat and was the only one who did. I still feel like my basketball instinct is pretty off. With the strobes firing, I have to wait a few seconds for them to refresh before the next shot. So I need to make sure I get the peak action with each one shot. The flip wasn’t perfect; it could have been a little later in the play where her feet were moving more into the air. The real interesting part was the scrum that followed but that was such a mess of legs and players that an image didn’t really tell the story. But this shot beats the others that didn’t get it I guess, so Zach 1, fellow photographers 304.
Nnemkadi Ogwumike of Stanford women's basketball goes up and over Washington's Marjorie Heard during a shot. Heard was called for the foul and Ogwumike was alright after landing hard on her back.
Another big part of this game for me was that I was using an overhead remote we had setup for the first time. On Thursday morning, I helped John setup a remote above the second half basket. That night he used it in the Washington State game. Saturday was my chance and the way the remote was setup it was perfect for catching the women boxing out and rebounding. Both the Ogwumike sisters, who primarily work underneath, had a big game and they were featured heavily in my remote shots. John gave me a good compliment when he said I wasn’t allowed to use the remotes anymore.
Nnemkadi Ogwumike, Chiney Ogwumike and Kayla Pedersen battle Washington's Regina Rogers for the rebound. This is seen from the overhead remote that John and I have setup above the second half basket.
The remote is an ongoing saga so I’ll have even more later, specifically on our setup for the remote. Until then you can check out more images at StanfordPhoto.com.
After another baseball scrimmage, I packed up my bag and rolled over to Burnham Pavilion. The Stanford wrestling team would be wrestling Cal Poly that evening.
Kyle Meyer of the Stanford Cardinal wrestling team wrestles Barrett Abel during Stanford's dual meet against Cal Poly at Burnham Pavilion. Abel beat Meyer in an 8-6 decision. Stanford won 21-15.
John and I had previously talked about lighting Burnham Pavilion with strobes. Before my first attempt of wrestling, I thought that would be the ideal setup. But after I shot that meet, I actually liked the outcome of my images. Since then, a fellow StanfordPhoto shooter lit a meet with some strobes. In comparing the two, I like the available light method better. It’s obviously a personal preference. Lighting wrestling allows for better quality prints to be made since you can use a lower, less grainy ISO. But the warmth of the light in the gym seems to come out in the available light shots. That combined with my laziness and unwillingness to get strobes setup for the meet meant I was shooting available light.
Stanford wrestling fans from the Los Gatos Wrestling Club get their faces painted before Stanford's meet against Cal Poly.
The team definitely draws a crowd. I talked to one of the parents that brings a group of kids and gets them painted up to cheer on the Cardinal. The kids are wrestlers in a local club, Los Gatos Wrestling Club, and they like to bring them up and show them some collegiate wrestling. I’ve mentioned Coach Jason Borrelli and his team being really nice before. According to this father, the kids actually take some lessons from Coach Borrelli too at the Stanford Wrestling Club.
Coach Jason Borrelli talks to Nick Amuchastegui of the Stanford Cardinal wrestling team during Stanford's dual meet against Cal Poly. Amuchastegui defeated Cal Poly's Steven Vasquez in a 19-4 tech fall.
The only thing I focused on besides getting some tight action was setting the scene a little bit. I made sure to go with a little wider lens for some shots of the fans and the mat setup. John and I were talking that we didn’t have a lot of “scene setters” from wrestling.
Dylan Rush of Stanford wrestles and defeats Cal Poly's Atticus Disney in a 4-2 overtime decision.
I’ll have a post in a bit about my experience and learned techniques shooting wrestling. If you want to see more of my wrestling images, go to StanfordPhoto.com.
After a Thursday night of other people’s baseball images, I was itching to shoot some baseball myself. I had planned to shoot Friday’s scrimmage anyway so this worked out. I’d been pretty happy with baseball takes so far. Of course, I’m never satisfied but at least sometimes I can be happy. Then seeing Brad Mangin’s stuff last night reminded me there’s plenty of room to improve.
Stanford third baseman Stephen Piscotty throws to first after charging a short grounder during Stanford's Friday scrimmage at Sunken Diamond.
I didn’t rush over to practice this time. Typically they start around 2 with warmups and eventually work their way up to a scrimmage. I find myself getting stuck once I’m there. There are too many images to chase and too much I try to accomplish. I’ll keep shooting until the last minute. I’m not really a man of restraint (have you ever seen me around a self-serve Coke machine?) so I figured the best way to police myself was to not arrive so early. I knew I’d eventually be leaving for wrestling so this time I knew my window to shoot during. Pre-engineered restraint.
Head coach Mark Marquess talks to Sam Lindquist of the Stanford baseball team before Friday's scrimmage.
When I showed up (with lunch from Village Cheese House in hand) the umps were arriving and players were watering the infield down for the scrimmage.
Tommy Colton and Sahil Bloom of Stanford baseball water down the infield prior to Friday's scrimmage at Sunken Diamond.
After seeing Brad’s stuff, my main goal for the scrimmage was to get close. Sometimes Brad shoots with an 800mm. My limit was my 400mm but I was less constrained on where I could be. I wasn’t at a big league World Series game. I was at a preseason college scrimmage. So I ended up parking myself in the visitor’s dugout for shots of left-handed batters and almost into the home dugout for righties. I didn’t think the coaches would appreciate if I wound up on the bench so I stopped right before the dugout and made my own little photographer’s well in a storage closet. In between innings during warmups, sometimes I would even get the balls to run out closer to fair territory to get a tighter shot of a throw down to second or pitcher’s delivery.
Stanford catcher Zach Jones throws to second during Stanford's Friday scrimmage at Sunken Diamond.
I also worked on some portrait-y type images since Niall said he’s less likely to use game action photos from games that he knows are just scrimmages. One element I’m getting a lot better at is anticipating the team. I’m learning their routine and their names.
Stanford pitcher Mark Appel talks to his teammates and parents while icing his arm after the scrimmage.
Pretty soon it was time to head over to shoot wrestling at Burnham so I had to take off. That’s probably the last of the scrimmages for me since the season is starting. I can’t wait. For more pictures from the scrimmage go to StanfordPhoto.com.
A little while ago Brad Mangin’s tweet directed me to an event he’d be speaking at in San Francisco. The SFBAPPA (short for, kind of, San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Association) was hosting several local photographers who had the honor of shooting the San Francisco Giants during their first successful World Series after moving to SF.
I flipped over to Facebook to alert my fellow alumni from my Stanford Sports Photography class. But classmate Shirley had already beaten me to the punch. So a few of us planned to meet up at Stanford and head up together. It ended up being me, Shirley, Rachelle (who graciously drove) and Sina. All Giants and sports photography fans, naturally.
The venue was the Exposure Gallery which is a really cool photo gallery that is part of the Woolf House. The Woolf House, if I understood correctly, is low-income senior citizen housing run as an NGO. Seems pretty impressive. We got there right at 7 and found some of the last remaining seats. The room ended up being packed pretty full of other photographers, Giants fans and some of the speakers’ students. The lineup was introduced by MC Kim Komenich and the first guy stepped up to the plate.
Obviously because I don’t own any awesome World Series images I’ll try to tell you about their presentations and see if I can link you to any of their work. I wish I had the rights to show you some pictures on my site, but I guess you’ll have to settle for their exchange rate of a thousand words.
Brad Mangin hit leadoff and helped set the tone. Regular readers probably know that I basically want to be Brad Mangin, irreverent swearing included. The dude makes awesome stuff. Part of it is his constant stalking of baseball. What I think I really like most about his stuff is I grew up with baseball cards. Brad used to shoot for baseball cards. His colors and tight action are reminiscent (although actually better) of baseball cards. Brad had a nice slideshow starting from the first round of playoffs against the Braves. He covered the ups and downs in chronological order through to the champagne celebration.
Brad has a World Series book coming out soon. I’ll let him tell you about it. Here’s the best representation I’ve found of his World Series take. Although he also showed playoffs stuff too. I just recommend looking at everything Brad’s shot ever, like I do.
One of Brad’s standout images was a play I vividly remember of Freddy Sanchez making a leaping catch of a line drive in Game Four of the Series. Later three other photographers shared a shot in their slideshow from the same play. They all seemed to be in the first base well though because they caught the “after” instead of the during. It was still a cool shot of Sanchez upside down on the grass eyeing his caught ball while his feet dangled above his head and glove. Here’s Nhat Meyer’s take on it. I think it was the fourth photographer who had shown the same play, sheepishly. To clarify I just asked if that was from the same Freddy Sanchez play that Brad had shown. I didn’t mean to set off the jealousy but you could tell all the other photographers were cursing him for his luck and ability to get such a great peak moment.
Nhat Meyer from the San Jose Mercury News was next. He showed a slideshow complete with Giants-themed soundtrack. Nhat definitely came from the newspaper perspective which has the duty of setting the scene too. His stuff definitely showcased more of the behind the scenes stuff which was really cool to see especially since San Franciscans and Giants fans are wackier. Here’s a collection of the Mercury News’ coverage with a lot of Nhat’s work in there.
The official photographer for the Giants, Andy Kuno, spoke next. He was added later to the lineup and admitted himself that he was “under dressed” with the number of images he brought. It was still really interesting to hear his take though because he has a lot more access than other photographers. He ended up only showing 11 images, many of which, he said, weren’t the ones he asked for. That in itself was really interesting to me. MLB has such a strong grip on photo rights that it seemed like Andy couldn’t just grab what he wanted off of his hard drive and share it. He had to ask someone to retrieve it for him from the pool. I guess that’s the price you pay to get access to shoot Coach Bruce Bochy signing a bunch of baseballs on a table with Aubrey Huff strolling in the background in a thong. He actually didn’t share that image but he told us about it. He also showed a standard picture of players young and old talking. It was old Giant Will Clark standing with new Giant Madison Bumgarner in the clubhouse. Andy said, “You see these pictures and think they’re talking about some deep baseball wisdom. But they’re both from the south so they were actually talking about the proper way to kill an alligator.”
Next were two photographers from the Sacramento Bee: Paul Kitagaki and Jose Luis Villegas. They were both very soft spoken and mostly went through their images which were also more of the photojournalism style. Definitely interesting to see six guys show shots from the same event and see how differently it’s viewed. One thing they discussed was some positioning for photos. Several of the dugout/jubilation shots even had other photographers that were there in the background. The photographers used that chance to tease each other as well as point out photo well positioning. I’m struggling to find a good slideshow of some of their work.
Last was Carlos Avila Gonzalez from the San Francisco Chronicle. He spoke as a representative of the entire crew that covered the World Series for the Chronicle. He pointed out that in 2002 the Chronicle put out a book covering the Giants’ World Series even though they lost. So with another chance to actually win the World Series, the Chronicle was “all in”. They had a staff of I believe five photographers and six writers covering the games. This made for some truly complete coverage. He showed images from all the photographers in his show. The stands, outside the stadium, streets around the stadium, field, McCovey’s Cove were all covered. One of the early shots he shared was a fan who wasn’t even going inside who had her very pregnant belly painted like a huge baseball.
One interesting thing that Carlos said about the newspaper industry was how many more images he actually moves because of the website. He said (paraphrasing), “We may print like 5 images but the web will take a slideshow of 200 without any problem.” So here’s a slideshow I found of almost that much from the San Francisco Chronicle crew.
I of course wanted to stick around until midnight talking baseball, but we took off after an auction of a panoramic image to benefit the gallery. It was a great night and I hope there’s an excuse to see something similar next year.
