Tuesday, May 6, 2008
I've had a few days off (maybe a week) to recharge my camera batteries and it's been some welcome time. It was good to get outside and behind the lens again this evening and I'm sure I'll miss it more during the summer as the shooting opportunities become fewer and further in between. I'm completely sure I'll miss the convenience of Maryland Athletics in comparison to Mystics, Freedom, and Nationals games.
There are a lot of events to cover this weekend. I received word on Sunday that the first rounds of both the men's and women's 2008 NCAA Lacrosse Tournament will be played at Maryland. The men descend on Byrd Stadium at 12 noon and the women take over the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex at 1pm on Sunday. Both of these high profile events conflict with other events. On Saturday the Terps host the 2008 ACC Softball Tournament semifinal rounds at noon and 2pm. On Sunday the Terrapin baseball has their senior photos, and the 2008 ACC Softball Tournament championship game is played.
Dave Lovell is lending a hand but we could use some more support. Al has taken a somewhat laid-back approach to this weekend's activities and said "we just can't cover it all." I'd like for us to cover as much of it as possible so I'm reaching out to other photographers I know hoping they can step in and lend a hand.
Greg Fiume will also be caught up in this mix. I've wondered what he plans to do with all the events that will take place at roughly the same time. I hoped to bump into him tonight at the baseball game, but given it was against UMES and on a Tuesday night I gave that a 1 in 10 shot of actually happening. Hopefully he'll be at the game tomorrow evening against Towson.
I asked Al to submit me for credentials for the men and women's LAX games. Hopefully he's taking care of that and I'll hear back soon that I was approved. Al's not very communicative through email or telephone and lots of times photographers (and writers) are left uninformed as to the status of their credentials. Sometimes we don't find out until the day of the event. This presents a lot of scheduling conflicts and introduces an unnecessarily level of stress into an already pretty tense (and fledgling) business. I've tried to encourage everyone at the DC Sports Box to communicate more frequently through email, instant messaging, text messaging, phone calls, etc but it seems to fall on deaf ears for the most part. A few of us instant message each other, but we're by no means a majority. I hope this will improve in the future.
Tonight's game was a quickie: just over 2 hours. That's lightning fast for a baseball game. Of course the Terps played a team they have a 5-45 record overall against so that helps. The stands were nearly empty. There were probably 50 people on hand for the event so it was very easy to move around.
I saw a Baltimore Sun photographer on the field who was there to take pictures of #11 Nathan Steelman. The Sun is doing a feature on him where they highlight his service in the US Army. I recognized the photographer from men's basketball games, but I couldn't remember his name.
We talked about online-only entities vs print media, and I told him that we really embrace the richer content we can deliver online. It was nice to describe to someone the richness of online media (podcasts, video, high resolution imagery, sound, smooth transitions between photos in slideshows, mouseovers, interactive behavior through blogs and comments) and have them actually listen to me. Most of the time when I say we're "online only" I get looks from people like "you're one of those people..."
As always you can find my photos of the game over on my Flickr Account and you can read my article and view my photos that highlight Maryland's 6-0 win over UMES in college baseball.
