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

Think Pink

Softball started this past weekend, and I had a deadline for our Baseball/Softball preview. 5 games in 3 days (well I only shot 3!) but it was a ton of fun. The games started at 4:30PM so I had about 45 minutes of some really nice light coming from left field of the SDSU Softball Stadium. This game on Saturday against Tulsa was preceded by a ceremony honoring players family members who were battling or had beaten cancer. The "Think Pink" theme was represented by all athletes this past week and the softball players donned pink and white visors and accessories.

Here I caught the players in their cheer just before their game started. The light was just about perfect.

Not very much action early in the game while there was light other than this double play being turned by freshman Taylor Sutton.

I was trying to get a good shoot to shot off the idea of "Think Pink" and this shot with all the visors in the background really caught my "eye."

This week I also got the opportunity to shoot the production of "The Vagina Monologues." It was interesting to say the least, awkward most of the time. I was the only male in the dress rehearsal. The actresses all performed very well and it was actually quite funny at times. The lighting was pretty rough, shooting at f2.8 ISO 1600 at 1/80 of a second. If there was any movement, my image was screwed. Luckily the setup they had allowed for some pretty cool perspectives. 

I was just playing around with some ideas, shooting 1 second exposures and zooming in/out with my 24-70. I kind of liked the way they turned out. I wish I had a flash with me, but did not think I would be able to use it. Had I known how open they were with me shooting, I could have gotten some cool long exposure shots. Next time I guess!

Should have fun this weekend, tomorrow is the first baseball games and a men's basketball game against Mountain West Conf. leader BYU. I will be setting up a remote above the rim in the rafters. Should be pretty interesting, its the first real remote I have set up this year. I should write again tomorrow night with some images from the games. 

If you have any comments feel free to let me know. I relish anything I can learn.

Glenn

Crazy Week

So I haven't had time this past week to really sit down and write. Unfortunately my Assistant Photo Editor Dave Olender had to resign due to medical issues. All I can say is that he will be missed by me immensely. He has done so much this year, and I know that we would not have gotten half the things done without him. Dave if you read this, I really hope you come back in the fall once everything is back under control.

Anyway, I have been shooting quite a bit lately and been working a lot, but mostly production and office crap. I hate being in the office, I would so much rather be out and about shooting anything.

My week started off (or ended depending on how you look at it) on Sunday with the USA Sevens Rugby tournament at Petco Park. Man was it fun to shoot! The games consist of two 7 minute halves. It is so fast paced there are games every half hour. It took a few matches to get a feel for how the game was played. I have only seen one or two rugby matches before this so it took a minute to be able to predict the action and get some good shots. There were a ton of shooters there, and luckily there was pretty good access angle wise. I shot mostly behind the endzone (if thats what its called) with my 300mm, which is waaaaaaaaay to short for field sports. 

I caught this frame with my 70-200 as the West Indies scored on Chile early in the day. Towards the end of the day, the shadows started to take over our side of the endzone, which wrecked havoc on exposures. It was nice once the sun went down and we got some nice even lighting again. Overall it was a long day but well worth it! I cannot wait till next year

On Sunday evening returning home from Petco, I remembered an assignment on the residents halls and their safety. Recently there has been two sexual assaults in three days. I wanted to capture an image that would show off the dorms in question but make it a little bit unique. I got lucky because the sun had just gone down and the sky had a beautiful blue glow as the light tapered off. This exposure is shot from on top of the parking structure across the street with my mini-tripod that I luckily had with me. It was shot with my 1D mkIIn and 24-70, ISO 100 f13 15 second exposure. I wanted to get some sense of activity so I waited for cars to drive by.

So after finding out Dave was leaving on Monday, my classes were pretty rough. I had a ton of homework in my Typography class due on Thursday, but YAY! we had a men's basketball with a dreaded 8PM start time. Who starts there games so late?! Everyone in the media groans about making the tight deadlines that this start time demands. What is wrong with 7PM? I just do not get it but it doesn't really matter what I think. We were playing New Mexico, probably the hottest team in the conference after beating Colorado State and Wyoming both by more than 40 points (40!). My predictions of an ass-kicking were pretty much true. It ended up being a 10 point loss for SDSU, but the game was much worse to watch.

I shot with the strobes for probably the first time this year. I have not been a big fan of them, but I think that was because my timing sucked and I never caught the right moment. I was really impressed with the way they look compared to ambient shooting (other than the shadows in the face). This image was shot with my 1D mkIIn and 24-70 with the strobes on. It was a fast break by Kelvin Davis, but his layup was blocked. This was pretty indicative of the game ahead.

I just really liked this image, and it shows the versatility of the strobes. They are pointed at the free-throw line but can cover nearly all the court. I think this could also be because of the tiny reflectors we have on them. We have 11in. reflectors but I have not had time to put them up yet. Hopefully we can do that in the coming weeks.

This weekend coming up there is a pretty big softball tournament, the first of the season. Ill probably be shooting 5 or 6 games between Friday and Sunday. I love shooting softball more than baseball just because of the more condensed action and smaller field. Our 300mm are not quite enough for baseball, but are just about right for softball. I should write again on Sunday hopefully. I just hope my next week is a little bit of a reprieve compared to this one. Andrew Huse should be taking over the Assistant Photo Editor position so hopefully that will take some stress off me!

Hillary Clinton

So Hillary Clinton came to town today. It was a pretty crazy set of events. We were not sure if we were going to get press passes until late last night, and we had to get their nearly 3 and a half hours before Senator Clinton would get there. So I get there a little before 11AM, and parking is already a mess (she doesn't come on till 1:30Pm). Luckily I have a Faculty/Staff parking pass and could park in the lower section for the closest parking structure just behind Cox Arena. When I arrive, they are not letting anyone in and are not giving out credentials again for another 30 minutes to an hour because the Secret Service is doing a security sweep for bombs and other sorts of "goodies." Finally we are able to check-in and enter Cox Arena around 12:15PM. I can tell that there is going to be very little space to move around with all the television cameras and reporters. The press row is very narrow, but it is pretty nice because it wraps around in an "L" shape so you have a number of different angles to shot from. 

After awhile setting up my gear and picking out a spot (that would later be stolen by the evil TV reporters), I decided to go see how many people were in line. Little did I know that the line would wrap around most of the campus. I could not believe that it wrapped all the way down Centennial Walkway, in front of Heppner Hall, and back down Centennial Walkway to Adams Humanities.

Finally, after standing in one spot on a riser for nearly two hours, Senator Hillary Clinton showed up around 2:30PM, an hour later than scheduled. I really like how the traveling press (the press that travels in the chartered busses, usually the AP, Getty, Reuters, etc) barged in and got to go in front of the rest of us. Whatever, I understand though, I cannot even image on the campaign trail nonstop. Kudos to them for being able to handle it.

Hillary has some very "interesting" facial expressions. This one here is after being greeted by San Diego State's President Stephen L. Weber and California Senator Christine Kehoe.

The nice press advisor allowed us to get up close for a few seconds in order to get the shots we wanted. I shot this from about 20 feet away with the 300 2.8. The light was decent on the stand, and there was a big drop off on the crowd so the background is pretty nice in this image.

Towards the end of Clinton's speech, a few expressed their displeasure with the Senators ideas, and help up a banner that I couldn't really understand. This gentlemen on the right was a Hillary supporter sitting next to these guys. He did not take too kindly to these guy's idea of a joke and after some pushing and shoving, the supporter prevailed and ripped the sign out of the protesters hand. They were then arrested...it was humorous though!

All in all my back and feet hurt from standing for so long, but there were plenty of great images to be had. It was a great experience. I'll let it be known, I am not the biggest fan of Hillary, but she was a pretty powerful speaker.

The Mars Volta

So it was Tuesday and I was ridiculously excited because not only did The Mars Volta's album, "The Bedlam in Goliath" come out, but they were playing at Soma here in San Diego that night. Luckily we were able to get a photo credential. 

When I got there around 7PM, the line was wrapped completely behind the building. After walking past all the fans that had been their since early that morning, I had to hassle my way into actually getting in. Apparently the paper was supposed to have purchased a ticket and they would allow me to have a photo pass. Whatever. I just think they wanted to save face because they were sold out and didn't want to show they did have a few tickets left. 

Anyway, the show was insane. I got to shoot the first 10 minutes of their two and a half hour set. Needless to say its two days later and my ears are still ringing. 

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is the mastermind behind the music. He is the composer and lead guitarist. I loved the way this shot turned out in black and white. I bumped up the contrast a bit and it just seemed to "pop."

The new drummer Thomas Pridgen is too good. He comes from a gospel background, be he could one of the best drummers out there. After their second song, "Viscera Eyes," he ripped off a two minute drum solo with Omar and Cedric just smiling and the crowd going crazy. This guy was a beast for two and a half hours. If I were to play like him, I couldn't last 30 seconds.

I liked this shot because of the silhouette and the light through the drums. I think it looks better because all you see are Pridgen's dreds.

I loved the faces that keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens was making. 

And of course there is lead vocalist and other half of the brain's of The Mars Volta, Cedric Bixlar Zavala. His voice was really good live. With the way he belts out all the falsetto note on TMV's albums, I did not know how well it would sound live. I should eat my words because he sounded too good. He definitely puts on a show, jumping and swinging the microphone and stand, climbing on the double-stacks, trying to mess up Omar's guitar solo's, and throwing Pridgen's symbols around like they were toys.

Cedric moves too quick to catch him in a really nice frame dancing or running around. The lights for the first few songs were somewhat conservative so it was pretty difficult to stop the action. I did what I could, and this shot was taken when I had moved to the right of the stage in order to watch the rest of the show after my ten minutes was up.

All in all it was an awesome show. Its taken me since Tuesday night to find time to write in my blog. Classes and work haven't given me time. I was so happy that I could get to cover my favorite band for The Daily Aztec. The Mars Volta are definitely a band that you have to see live. I cannot really describe with photos or words what it is like. I wish I had more time than just ten minutes. It was basically one song and then the 5 minutes of ambience/breakdown of the song. I wish I was upfront when they played faced paced intense songs. I think my favorite from the night was "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)" from "Deloused in the Comatorium" or "Goliath" from "The Bedlam in Goliath."

Can't wait to see them again. The new album is great.

A Busy Saturday

I had to get up early (8AM is early) this morning to shoot women's tennis. I actually enjoy shooting tennis; its somewhat fast-paced and you have a lot of access to try different angles. The women had a double header, and I got to shoot their match against UC Riverside. 

There was some really nice light in the morning. It was fairly soft and I like this image below where the backlighting looks pretty nice for a change. I was just glad I could get out today and shoot since it is going to rain the next few days.

Well after waiting around and shooting the singles to get images of the women that did not play in the doubles matches, I headed over to Cox Arena for the men's basketball game. I love the fact that they are having an afternoon game. I hate getting out late at the 7PM games. It was going to be a good game, and SDSU needed to win coming off a close loss to BYU earlier this week. 

I tried out using a remote for the first time this year. I placed it on the baseline with a 16-35 on my 40D. Liveview was really really helpful in this situation! I liked the results, however there really wasn't any big dunks or anything exciting that happened in the game. UNLV hit a ton of 3 pointers in the 2nd half when they were on offense the side my remote was on. Next home game I am going to put a remote in the rafters shooting down at the rim. I did not have very much time since I had to run from tennis to Cox Arena, and of course I had to indulge in the free Papa Johns pizza. 

Anyway, I liked this look, and I will definitely try it again. Unfortunately I was a bit too concerned about the remote and messing around with the Pocket Wizard and didn't focus on getting some of the shots.

It came down to the last second, and they hit a three pointer with just over 11 seconds left. We had a couple of chances, but we just couldn't hit.

Freshman Billy White walks off the court dejected after almost pulling off the comeback.

Well I am shooting The Mars Volta (my favorite band, they are awesome) on Tuesday at Soma, the day their new album comes out. I am super excited, I wish we covered more concert stuff at the Daily Aztec. I should have a few of those shots up later that night. 

Getting Started

Well, I just got my website going (still in the works). Just getting back to school and I am not looking forward to this semester. Anyway, just trying to figure out how this blog thing works. I am totally new to all this, but it is time I start marketing myself.