One Game at a Time

When I woke up this morning it was sunny and I thought "wow, I really got lucky." They called for rain on Wednesday night, and they also predicted rain on both Saturday and Sunday. So far not a drop!

I wrote up my article for yesterday's baseball game and posted it on the DC Sports Box as well as posted several photos from various shooters. Everybody's keep very busy lately and that's good for us. I have noticed though that the captioning could use some help. Some of the shooters are just getting factual information wrong. For example, two shooters misquoted the final score of a game they attended. It's kind of funny actually that both would incorrectly report the final score in their caption.

It's actually a pretty easy thing to do. In one case I misquoted a score and had to go back and re-caption all the images with the proper game score. I then had to re-post the gallery too, which is a hassle.

I'm going to spend some time writing up some photo and writers guidelines for the DCSB. We need some basic documents we can hand to new shooters that go over the ground rules (e.g. how to submit articles and photos, as well as formatting for the title and caption). Nothing too extravagant... Just the basics..

I saw Greg Fiume at the game today and that was nice. He was in lot 1 assembling his gear when I pulled up. I walked over and said hello and we headed down to the diamond together. He told me he's covering the Nats game tonight and he may even have the opportunity to fly in a Park Police chopper for some shots. That's hella exciting - I just hope he doesn't fall out or drop some glass out the door!

By the time I made it to the Terps game the sun had hidden behind a thin overcast and I was forced to shoot at slower speeds than yesterday. That wasn't too bad though because a cloudy sky produces fewer shadows. The colors don't pop as much and the photos aren't as vibrant, but at the same time I tend to get more eyeballs when it's an overcast sky. When it's overcast it's easier to avoid overexposing and blowing highlights. When it's sunny its' really difficult to do. I think if you turn down the contrast on your shot you can do it. But that then takes away from the shot.

I posted my write up of Maryland's Game 3 loss to Clemson along with my photos. Please go take a look!

After shooting a softball game I headed over to Shipley to take in game two of the Tigers vs Terrapins matchup. It was a pretty warm day and there was a good amount of sun available, so I looked forward to this game on the way over.

I bumped into James Lang at the game. He was there on assignment from Greg Fiume while Greg worked the track and field event. Dave had remarked that he would have liked to shot the track and field event. I would have enjoyed that as well but I don't know how to write for track and field. It seems like a lot of it would be just posting of stats from the event, so in that regard it might be pretty straight forward. I wish we had some more Terrapin writers...

The baseball game was pretty good and the Terps turned around a 3-0 deficit to emerge victorious at 5-3. I got all my photos processed last night and wrote my article this morning after waking up. I was knee deep in post processing softball and baseball photos, as well as posting Dave's baseball and softball photos, Al's Nationals photos, and Mike's lacrosse photos. It was a lot of bit-pushing last night!

I scored my first sunburn of 2008 today. I didn't realize I was getting a burn during the day but it definitely came out last night. My lips started pulsing from the burn and my forehead and face caught it pretty badly. Definitely need to add sunscreen to the go-back in my car.

Google News continues to be good to use in so far as our hits on DC Sports Box. We've doubled or tripled our site traffic just by getting into their index. That's great news for us - hopefully it will help with advertising or in cutting deals with people in the future.

Please cruise over to the DC Sports Box and read my article on Maryland's 5-3 victory over the Clemson Tigers at Shipley Field. The story sucks, but I don't pretend to be a writer.

Dave Lovell recently joined the DC Sports Box and has volunteered to take on some Maryland shoots. I was really happy to hear that because it meant I had some backup on days where there were multiple games going on simultaneously. Today was one of those days...

Dave had an event that didn't end until around 2:30pm so I decided to take Game of the Maryland Terrapins and Virginia Tech Hokies in softball. I enjoy shooting at the softball stadium because the field is small, the crowd is friendly, and the players are loud and boisterous. It also helps that the stadium isn't very tall because the sun stays up longer and lights up more of the field longer.

Today's game was pretty fun and I enjoyed taking the pictures. It was sunny and fairly warm (mid 50s) and the logistics of the shoot went pretty well. I'm really careful these days after cracking my UV filter over at the baseball stadium. Today was no different.

Towards the end of the game Dave showed up and we got a chance to shoot together and talk. I'm glad we had some overlap because we got a chance to talk about shooting at Maryland as well as doing some Nationals games later on this Spring and Summer. Dave hasn't shot much as a credentialed photographer, so he's in the same boat I was about a year ago. I was more than happy to give him some pointers about what to do and what not to do.

It was pretty interesting to talk with him because he has many of the same fears I had last year: I don't want to screw up the game, I don't want to get us banned from the arena, I don't want to do a bad job, etc... I had a tough time mentally in learning the ropes and asked a lot of strangers a lot of questions. So I was glad that I was able to talk with him and tell him about the ground rules they have at the various facilities. Hopefully he'll be able to learn from what I picked up over the last year.

We're going to do a single article for the Virginia Tech series and post 3 galleries. Since we're only through 2 of the games I can't link you over to the DC Sports Box article yet. But when it's up I'll come back around and post. In the meantime you can look at my Flickr account for photos of the Maryland vs Virginia Tech Softball Game 1.

Not a whole lot to say tonight other than ... I hate Ludwig Field. The lighting is awful. It's so sharp and from the sides. It's so difficult to shoot at night at Ludwig because the light is pretty much from one direction. You can't shoot from the sideline because 1/2 the players faces are dark when they look at you, and you can't really shoot from the sidelines either because the players backs are towards you because they are looking at the goal. The only possible players you can shoot are on the far side but you can't get them because the lights behind you can't reach them. Ugh...

I drove past the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex on the way to the game tonight and wished that the match was being placed in that facility. It's smaller but the lighting is so much better. Oh well...

I worked the 2008 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament first and second round at Comcast Center this weekend. Unfortunately we didn't obtain photo credentials due to an NCAA regulation that prohibits online-only entities from taking photographs. Mr Dull at Maryland explained the rule to us and basically said the matter was out of his hands. It's unfortunate both for us and for the NCAA because there were very few (a handful at most) photographers covering the games. Both the NCAA and the DC Sports Box would have benefitted from photographic credentials because it would have generated more publicity for the league and better content for our group. But the rules are the rules, and we opted for file photos for the Duke and Maryland games and the NCAA Basketball logo for all the other games. It's hokey but at least we didn't break any rules.

There's been a lot of interest in our group lately and we have a few photographers and writers we've brought on board. It's exciting to see our group grow and succeed and I'm looking forward to being able to take more of a back seat with respect to covering games. I'd like to still be involved in order to help drive our group forward but I need to take a step back at times in order to regain my health and sanity. I've been sick a large number of times this winter and there's no doubt in my mind that it's a direct result of late nights up writing, editing, and processing photos, exposure to arenas with lots of people in them that are also sick, and also just the stress of trying to start up a new business. Having some other people shoulder the burdon will be very welcome.

The game tonight was pretty exciting. Lots of shooting and scoring and that is always good from a photography standpoint. You don't want to get lacrosse players just passing the ball and orbiting the goal. You want them bashing each other, flicking shots, and chasing down loose balls. I was pretty happy with my shots tonight, but my interest waned as the sun set and I switched my white balance over to stadium lights. Most of the shots I ended up using for the sight are from the early game. Please go read my article and view the photos I took of the Maryland vs Towson women's lacrosse game at Ludwig Field in College Park.

I ran into a new Diamondback shooter tonight. I didn't speak with her but I did notice that it was a new person. Maybe she's Yuchen's replacement. I also saw the photographer from the PG Sentinel. I keep meaning to ask her name since I see her at a lot of events and talk with her, but I always forget... Maybe next time. I also bumped into the CSC guard that worked next to me at the NCAA games this weekend. Most of the CSC guards I've met are personable and friendly people and this guy was very warm hearted. We chatted about the student section and the crowd and how successful Maryland has become in the past few years. It's nice getting to know the people you work with even if you only see them a few hours every other week.

There are a few events this weekend and I'll probably attend them. It all depends on the weather though. If it's rainy I'll probably stay in. But if it's sunny it should be a fun time!

I avoided some out-of-travel this weekend in order to spend some more time at home. Earlier today Julie and I went up to her brother's house for our niece's 2nd birthday party. I was looking forward to taking pictures of the kids because they're so animated and lively. They find excitement in almost everything they do and as a result they make for excellent subjects in photography.

I played around with using motion to isolate my subjects and liked how it turned out.

After Cassidy's birthday I headed home and did some post processing. I've been growing more and more frustrated at my laptop's performance as of late. I recently installed Time Machine and despite claims from Apple that it "only runs in the background" I've found that backups frequently zap my computer of any responsive behavior. I constantly get the rainbow spinny ball while the Time Machine runs and my kernel waits on I/O.

Aperture has also frustrated me lately. I upgraded to version 2.0 and my Automator script I use to caption everything has gone from taking about 30 seconds for 30 photos to taking over 20 minutes. It seems to apply each individual IPTC tag on each image as a separate transaction rather than doing a bulk update. I adapted by using the Lift and Stamp tool in Aperture but come on Apple - please don't give me the finger after I paid you $200 for Aperture. I'd like my v1.5 Automator script to function with the same (if not better) performance after an upgrade to v2.0. Is that so unreasonable?

Aperture itself has irritated me as well. They have made some good performance upgrades and fortunately it no longer takes me 5 minutes to start up the application and get to work. But the import is still extremely clunky as are copies/moves of masters and versions from one album to another. I copied one set of photos from Album A to Album B and was able to delete the photos in Album A without any change to Album B. Then I came along and did the same thing but found the photos in Album B were gone. Fortunately I had a backup but still... Stop giving me the finger Apple - I gave you $200.

I went to the Maryland baseball game this afternoon to get a few shots for my own personal use. Dave Lovell was there on a DCSB assignment so I got to just enjoy myself and shoot and not pay much attention to what was going on from a reporter standpoint. It was very refreshing and I can definitely get used to it. I got a LOT of action photos from the game today and I was very pleased with my results. Oddly enough I caught 3 or 4 players with their eyes closed in the middle of an action shot.

Usually I don't quite catch the exact moment of an event because my timing isn't very sharp and I only use a D200 or D2H. But today I caught the exact moment where a player swung on a pitch, an outfielder caught a fly ball, or a first basemen reached out and caught a ball to record an out. In many of those photos the player has his eyes shut. It was really odd to see!

I can't link you all over to a DC Sports Box article just yet because we're waiting for Game 3 to be played tomorrow before we post our story. But once it's up I'll come back and update my post with a new link.

I also started taking photos for Julie's blog tonight. She'd like some more pictures to use in it so I offered to be the photographer she can use for free. Well maybe not free... I did ask her to bring me up a Coke from the basement as payment for tonight's piggy bank photo.

After notarizing our refinance application I headed over to the women's lacrosse game. I was looking forward to seeing how the D3 would perform in the Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex. The lighting in there is the best outdoor lighting on campus but I figured that putting the D3 through a true outdoor low light test (even if it was the best lighting on campus) would be an interesting experiment.

I started off at low ISOs (1600) and gradually worked my way up until I was shooting around 3600 or 4000. The noise looks great on the photos and you can hardly tell that I shot at such high ISOs. Even better I didn't have to lighten in Aperture at all!

They charged admission for the game tonight and I was able to sneak in next to my friend who works in the Athletic department. He was on his way there to help someone and we were chatting while we walked in. I need to get on Al to get me a season credential for the LAX and baseball games.

I had fun shooting the Lacrosse game and I took a lot of notes on my voice recorder. I practically filled the thing up recording notes on how the different goals played out. Terps scored 17 goals and took something like 42 shots during the game.

I finished post processing my photos and published my story over on the DC Sports Box. Please go take a read about the Maryland Terrapin women's lacrosse team and how they defeated Richmond 17-9.

Work at Zenoss was really busy today. We were pushing out a release and when that happens the entire team gets involved to help build, test, deploy, and push out all the new files to the rest of the world. As a result I didn't make it to the start of Game 1 but I did make it by the top of the 6th inning.

I spoke with Al earlier in the day and he informed me that another photographer and reporter would be covering the game with us. I was happy to hear we have another writer. Writing is not my strong point and it's really time consuming. It's a lot of work to photograph, post-process, analyze the game, and write a meaningful article.

I arrived at the game and didn't look for Al or our new reporter. Instead I headed straight down to behind home plate to get some photos of Meredith Nelles pitching. Pitcher photos are always your go-to shot if all other shots fail. There's always action in the pitcher's area.

I was a little by an fEE message from my 400mm f/2.8 AF-S I lens. I connected it to the D3 and got the error and initially panicked thinking that I had somehow broken the D3. I then tried the 400 out with my D2H and got the same error message. I tried my 70-200 f/2.8 on both bodies and it worked fine. I then adjusted the aperture ring to f/22 and the lens started working again. It's very strange...

Eventually I bumped into Al and we chatted for a little bit. He asked if I was going to head over to Lacrosse later on and I nodded my head. Julie and I are refinancing our second home in North Carolina and we had to have some things notarized this evening. I called Julie and got her to agree to get the notary stuff done earlier so I could work the Lacrosse game.

As a result I don't have very many photos of the Softball game. You can view the photos of the Maryland Terrapins and Pittsburgh Panthers softball game over on my Flickr account.