The Mars Volta @ Open Air Theatre

Its been quite awhile, but I have been busy or preoccupied with some personal issues, but everything looks to be settling down so I should have time to post on my blog regularly again!

So I got to shoot The Mars Volta at Open Air Theatre on campus tonight. It was amazing as usual. I got to shoot TMV live on the day their latest album "The Bedlam in Goliath" was release at SOMA, and that was a great show. This one lived up to that and then some. The lighting was absolutely awesome for the show and really showcased the music and the personalities of the band members. Thomas Pridgen was insane, busting out some crazy solos along with Adrián Terrazas-González on the sax.

I only got to shoot for 10 minutes, and that was about half of Drunkship of Lanterns but it was still great. I only wish I had been able to shoot when they dropped the other background with the "Third Eye" and when they really got the lights going. Open Air is a fun place to shoot and can't wait to shoot there again.

Here are some of my fav's from tonight,

THANKS FOR LOOKING!

Glenn

New Internship

Well, it has been quite a while since I have posted, but trust me it has been for good reason! I have been busy finishing up the school year and my duties as Photo Editor. I am glad to take a step back next year and be the Assistant Photo Editor since my school and personal life took such a hit this past semester with all the stress I had been under. I did end up with pretty good grades this past semester (3.33 YEAH!).

I started my new internship with Crittenden Research in their XKSanDiego.com division that focuses on local soccer news. It should be a pretty good summer endeavor that should look good when I apply for more photojournalism internships next summer. So far I have been shooting a lot of team pictures for our archive but last weekend I got out and shot an adult premiere league match.

I have never been a huge soccer fan, Football, baseball, and basketball are my favorite sports so I really feel like this internship will connect me more with soccer.

Here are some of the images that I liked. It has been quite awhile since I last shot soccer so I had to shake the rust off at first!


It was rough getting back into shooting soccer, but I liked a number of images including this one where two players from the San Diego SeaLions and SD United get hit in the back by the ball. Its just a shot you do not normally see.

This image above is an almost. Damn you shallow depth of field!

I also shot the SD United men's team play the Arizona Suaharo's and here are a few of my favorites.



Anyway, I hope to post a lot more often with what I am doing on my internship now that I will have a lot more time!

Thanks for looking!

Spring Sports

This weekend was a lot of fun, we had the Mount Pacific Sports Federation women's water polo tournament here at the Aztec Aquaplex. Its been extremely hot (its 93 degrees as I write this) and I honestly had to hold myself back from not jumping in the water! We also have had a number of home baseball games, and on Friday, junior pitcher Steven Strasburg threw a one-hitter with 12 strikeouts against conference leader TCU. Man is he a dominating pitcher and a strikeout machine, especially after his 23 K performance earlier in the month.

Here are two choice images I made this weekend.

Junior Anna Gonzales shoots and scores with a San Jose State defender in her face on Saturday. The Aztecs won 9-7 and advanced into the fifth place game where they beat call 12-11 in double overtime.

Junior ace Steven Strasburg comes to the plate as the sun sets behind Tony Gwynn Stadium. Strasburg had a perfect game going in the seventh before TCU got its first baserunner on a double in the leftcenter gap. Strasburg had 12 strikeouts in his second complete game in three appearances.

Not too many games left this year, but I'm hopeful that I will get this internship that I applied for over the summer. I am excited about the Red Bull Air Race this coming weekend, this time around I think I can come away with some really great images.

Mountain West Conference Championships (1 of 2)

I'm a terrible blogger, I know, for not posting in a more timely manner! I have been way too busy with my studio classes to post images from this past weekend's Mountain West Conference Championships. This post is the first of two. This is dedicated to the men's championship game from Saturday March 15th, 2008. The end of the game was the most important part, with UNLV beating BYU for the second straight year in the championship and having their fans rush the court. It was pretty crazy, I almost lost my hat, had my credential torn from around my neck, and proceeded to drop my extremely heavy camera on some students head (they knocked it out of my hands). 

Tournament MVP Wink Adams celebrates with students after they rushed the court. I head there was fights, but I was in the middle of they mayhem and did not see any of it until afterward in the press room I saw Chris Detrick's images of bloodied fans and yelling wives. 

Wink Adams runs around the Thomas and Mack Center shaking hands with fans that did not make it onto the court after UNLV's basketball team cut down the nets.

Wink Adams was clutch at the end of the game, scoring 14 straight points, inlucing three straight treys enroute to a game high 23 points. 

BYU's stars Trent Plaisted and Lee Cummard look stunned as they lost in the MWC Championship game two years in a row to a lower seeded UNLV Runnin' Rebels squad. 

The weekend was a ton of fun, and you can read more about the Aztec's and how they faired in my second post about the Mountain West Conference Championships. Four days and dozens of Mountain Dews later (thank god the MWC is a Pepsi supporter!) we made it back home to San Diego. I cannot wait to come back next year!

Mountain West Conference Championships (2 of 2)

I just found time to write about this past weekend in Las Vegas covering the Mountain West Conference Championships. The Aztecs faired pretty well considering they were all low seeds (men were 4 seeds, women 6 seeds). The women surprised everyone by beating No 3 seed Wyoming on Wednesday night. Even more so was the upset of No. 2 seed TCU on Friday's semifinal match up that sent the Aztecs to the Championship game. 

This image below is after the Aztecs came back to upset TCU. It was a crazy ending that saw a trick play by Quenese Davis who threw the inbounds pass off a TCU defender and hit the layup with just two seconds left on the shot clock. The play ended up Number 6 on Sportcenter's Top Plays. 

The mens team played Air Force on Thursday night and won in what was a terrible basketball game to watch. Somehow they won the game, yet only had four field goals in the entire second half. This is an image of Lorrenzo Wade getting defended tight by Air Force. Wade is the leader of the Aztecs and took over the game, hitting clutch free throws at the end.

Next for the Aztecs was regular season champ, BYU. The two had split their regular season series, 1-1 with each team winning at home.

BYU's Trent Plaisted dominated the paint, scoring easy baskets over SDSU's center Ryan Amoroso (below) The Aztecs lost 63-54.

Head coach Steve Fisher walks off the court in dismay over the poor offensive performance of his team late in the second half of the Aztecs loss.
Over all the weekend was pretty fun. I wish I was 21 so I was not couped up in our hotel room while my friends Devin Kunysz (Editorial Advisor) and Eric Shannon (Sports Editor) had all the fun. Oh well I am probably better for it, and wealthier from not making stupid bets on parlays at the sports book! For more info on our trip, see Devin's daily diary of it.

Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters played at Cox Arena last night. It was the first time I had shot a concert at Cox, and let me say it is SO much nicer to shoot there than at Soma! The light was so much brighter that I did not have to shoot at ISO 3200 at 1/50th of a second. The concert was a lot of fun once I actually got in (it was a pain getting my photo pass so I waited a good half hour outside the arena). Dave Grohl is a crazy energetic guy, running up and down the stage and down the walkway in the middle of the Cox Arena floor. I wish I got to see the entire show and not just the standard first three songs, but regardless it was better we had to leave since I had a paper to write! I wont bore you with technical information or descriptions of the images, I will let them speak for themselves. I wish I could have gotten a better crowd shot since Cox Arena was PACKED, but the security guards messed up the few photos of Grohl and the crowd that could have been good. 

If you would like to see more, just leave me a comment, I have a ton of the Foo Fighters and Serj Tankian (of System of a Down fame) that I can post as well. 

Thanks for looking,

Glenn

Start of Baseball, Basketball Winds down

Baseball started this weekend, and I do not know if I should be happy or sad about this. Our baseball team has been mediocre at best. Last year after enduring a 5 and a half hour game in which we lost, I swore off our baseball team. After Friday and their 11-2 win over No. 5 University of San Diego I thought things were looking up again. I could not shoot that game, but I was heading to the game at USD on Saturday morning. 

USD's field is pretty interesting, it is nestle right below a steep hill and their stands rise up about 40 rows. The seats are only about 50 feet wide though and very steep. Needless to say, there is not much seating, and not much space around the whole facility. There is a designated photo area by the first base dugout. It is elevated, so there goes any chance of seeing a batters eyes. The dugouts are so small that a full squad has quite a time fitting in the dugout without the umpire yelling at them to keep back.

This shot was taken as the USD players were cheerleading. I thought I was at a softball game with as much cheering as they were doing. They did this little chant while the pitcher was about to pitch the ball. You do not see this much in baseball so I thought it was a cool frame.

for a 17-11 game, there was little action in the field. There were four homeruns and countless walks. SDSU went through at least 6 pitchers. I caught this frame of right fielder Cory Vaughn diving (and missing) a hit into shallow right.

After leaving baseball in the 7th inning with the score 16-8, I headed back to the office to pick up my gear for remotes. Tip off for the game was not until 8PM I got there to set up at a little before 6PM. I wanted to set up a camera in the rafters shooting directly down on hoop. Results can be seen a little further down. 

This game was against BYU, the Mountain West Conference leader at 10-1. We had lost to them in Provo, Utah by one (we should have beat them then), and we had to win this game in order to stay in the middle of the pack. First of all, I would like to say how upset I was about there not being pizza before the game. I think everyone was a little moody because of this. 

This frame is a kind of cliche image, but it was the best tipoff shot I have gotten all season.

Like I said before, I had my remote set up. I love using the 40D for remotes. The LiveView feature is a lifesaver! It makes focusing sooooooooooo much easier. I had a 70-200 at about 95mm shooting almost all of the key, just in case. I wanted to try it this game with ambient light. I was at 1/400th f5 3200 ISO. 3200 ISO on the 40D is like 800 on my 20D. I set the focus at the very bottom of the net, and that seemed to be just about right. I was pretty happy with this frame and I hope to use this set up a lot more in the future!

So, we ended up winning. I was pretty surprised, but BYU couldn't shoot anything that was not a three pointer, and even they came out flat in the second half. The fans were pretty excited, even a few ran out on the court. It was pretty stupid, BYU is the leader of our crappy conference. If we beat Tennessee or Duke, then rush the court, not against BYU when the game means anything. Oh, well it was still fun!

I do not know what is going to happen this next week, all I know is I need a break! I am going home next weekend and I am looking forward to getting some time off. It has been a pretty hectic schedule for me as of late. Do not know what I am going to be shooting this week, but I should post some stuff Wednesday!

Glenn