Damn you beltway...
Spent a good bit of time driving today ...
After three hours of commuting and nearly running out of gas, you might just see a few of my images of the State indoor track championships on our sports page Tuesday.
My lone assignment today was to cover the Maryland indoor track finals, held in Landover. After an hour on the road, and a few laps around both Fedex Field and the Sportsplex trying to find a place to park, I made my way into the mob scene that was my assignment.
The easy part: finding my reporter. The challenging part, making an image (or two or three) that will catch someone's eye.
One of the things I love about being a photojournalist is going into a school or restaurant or whatever and finding one of my photographs clipped out and put up on the wall.
For example, my wife and I went to a new Japanese steakhouse on Valentines day, the same day my photographs of that particular establishment appeared in the News-Post.
Look at that; I've already digressed from the sports topic. Getting back to the track finals, I came across several photogs from my neck of the woods (Frederick and Carroll counties). Like the athletes we were covering, newspaper photographers from around the state converged on Landover, all of us looking to come away with a unique image.
After the first heat of a boys 3200 meter race, I saw two runners sucking wind and one of them laying on the ground in some discomfort. I thought it looked pretty interesting, so I snapped a few frames only to hear some kid from another heat behind me say "why don't you stop taking pictures of people laying on the ground, and take pictures of the winners?" I replied to the young runner, "I already did... cause they finished before these guys".
The best images from events like these come from very fleeting moments, moments that you have to be able to anticipate. I find that it helps to watch peoples eyes to see what they're seeing, but it helps even more to always have the camera in the ready position.
Case in point: When several runners bunched together to cause someone to take a spill at full sprint; yeah, that's when you would want to have the camera ready. Did I? Well, I won't say (yet). But if I did, rest assured you would see it on the front page of the sports section.
You may be asking, "Well?! will we see it in the paper or not?". Alas, you will not. That's why I find it so important to have the camera at the ready. I hate it when I let an image get away like that.
Enough for now; as my wife is pregnant, the responsibility to change the cat boxes falls to me.
After three hours of commuting and nearly running out of gas, you might just see a few of my images of the State indoor track championships on our sports page Tuesday.
My lone assignment today was to cover the Maryland indoor track finals, held in Landover. After an hour on the road, and a few laps around both Fedex Field and the Sportsplex trying to find a place to park, I made my way into the mob scene that was my assignment.
The easy part: finding my reporter. The challenging part, making an image (or two or three) that will catch someone's eye.
One of the things I love about being a photojournalist is going into a school or restaurant or whatever and finding one of my photographs clipped out and put up on the wall.
For example, my wife and I went to a new Japanese steakhouse on Valentines day, the same day my photographs of that particular establishment appeared in the News-Post.
Look at that; I've already digressed from the sports topic. Getting back to the track finals, I came across several photogs from my neck of the woods (Frederick and Carroll counties). Like the athletes we were covering, newspaper photographers from around the state converged on Landover, all of us looking to come away with a unique image.
After the first heat of a boys 3200 meter race, I saw two runners sucking wind and one of them laying on the ground in some discomfort. I thought it looked pretty interesting, so I snapped a few frames only to hear some kid from another heat behind me say "why don't you stop taking pictures of people laying on the ground, and take pictures of the winners?" I replied to the young runner, "I already did... cause they finished before these guys".
The best images from events like these come from very fleeting moments, moments that you have to be able to anticipate. I find that it helps to watch peoples eyes to see what they're seeing, but it helps even more to always have the camera in the ready position.
Case in point: When several runners bunched together to cause someone to take a spill at full sprint; yeah, that's when you would want to have the camera ready. Did I? Well, I won't say (yet). But if I did, rest assured you would see it on the front page of the sports section.
You may be asking, "Well?! will we see it in the paper or not?". Alas, you will not. That's why I find it so important to have the camera at the ready. I hate it when I let an image get away like that.
Enough for now; as my wife is pregnant, the responsibility to change the cat boxes falls to me.
Labels: news, photography, sports, track
posted by Graham at
8:01 PM
