A Little News

Alabama defensive lineman Terrence Cody walks off the field following Alabama's 31-20 loss to Florida in the SEC Championship Game.

And I am not talking about the game either.  I had a loaned 400mm f2.8 from Nikon Professional Services stolen while I was covering the post-game dejection/jubilation right from in front of Georgia Dome Security.  The thief could only have been another photographer.  The lens shade and monopod were found in one of the photo workrooms after the game.  All I can say is that really stinks and the person who did this violated every tenant of ethics and trust that we subscribe to in this business.

The game itself was very good for about three quarters then Florida put on a fourth quarter surge to claim a 31-20 victory.  My feeling going into the game was that Florida would probably win but that Alabama had a really good football team and the game would be very competitive.  It lived up to the billing.  As our sports editor Mark Edwards put it, the difference in the game was that Florida has the best football player in the country on their team and Alabama does not.  That player is, of course, Tim Tebow.  This is the first time I have shot a game involving Tebow and he is more impressive in person than he is on TV and he is plenty impressive on TV.  He may not win the Heisman again this year but it won’t be because he doesn’t deserve it.

I shot the game with the same gear as at the Iron Bowl, the 400mm f2.8 with a D700 and a Nikon D2Hs with an 80-200.  At times I switched bodies around depending on how close I was to the action.  We ran a huge, for us anyway, section just on the SEC Championship.  We had an 8 page section wrapped around our normal sports section and we ran a lead story on A1 with photo.  That meant a bunch of photos.  I had plenty of shots to cover the sections and slide show for the internet. You can view the slide show here.

The primary trouble in covering this game was just mobility.  The sidelines were full of shooters, still and video, and moving up and down the field is really tough.  I favored an end zone position for most of the game but that meant long jogs from one end of the field to the other carrying a lot of gear.  Fun times and judging by the outcome, I would really still be loving it to carry that lens around (nasty thief!).  Okay, I know, I have vented enough.

Covering the game was a blast.  It was my first SEC Championship game and I was thrilled to be there shooting.  We have had teams in the Championship before but someone on staff always seemed to be from Georgia and got to go shoot the game.  I was feeling a little bit of pressure because our paper was running the extra section and the big lead photo on page one.  Still, pressure is a good thing as long as you control it and don’t allow it to control you.  That is kind of an important point.  When you are covering any big assignment it is easy to get caught up in the pressure and get swamped.  I learned how to handle pressure when I was a volunteer firefighter.  There is no pressure in photojounalism like in the fire service where your actions can literally determine the life and death of people.  What I found to be true in fire service was that in those high tension times you perform well because your training kicks and you do things automatically.  In other words, you don’t think too much about what you are doing you simply do what your training dictates in the moment.  The only times I ever really felt fear as a firefighter were in those rare situations where I had not been trained to handle something.  As a photojournalist you have been trained to handle yourself in terms of equipment and through your education and then through your own experiences.  Don’t allow nerves to distract you, allow them to motivate and drive you.  Then you will perform your best.  Whenever I “try” to do really good is when I generally under perform.  When I simply go with the flow of the moment I usually get outstanding results.

For what it is worth, this SEC Championship was a mixed bag for me.  I got plenty of good action but I didn’t feel like I got “the moment.”  I didn’t see it and miss it, I just never saw it.  Some games have a really defining play in visual terms and I never found that play in this game.  Maybe others did.  I don’t know but I didn’t.  So in the final evaluation of my own performance I would have to say that my performance was good but not great.  It is a good thing to evaluate yourself but don’t be too hard on yourself.  If you underperform there will be another day.  If you knock it out of the park there is still going to be another day so don’t get to bummed on the bad days and don’t get too high on the good days because you will have plenty of both in your career.  Just go out today and do your best.  Oh, and have some fun doing it!

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  These photos are intended for the viewing/instruction of readers of Alittlenews.  Any other use is strictly prohibited.  Downloading or republication of NCAA football photos is prohibited.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

We have been banned from this workroom ever since this

You guys seem to really have eaten up this Iron Bowl stuff.  So shamelessly playing to your interest, I thought I would share some Iron Bowl memories with you.  This was my fifteenth football season in Decatur and during that time I think I have covered eleven Iron Bowls.  I have worked with a variety of other photojournalists in that time beginning with my current boss John Godbey.  That list includes Scott Trigg, David Higginbotham, Dan Henry, Emily Saunders, Jonathan Palmer and most recently Deangelo McDaniel.  I must be pretty tough on co-workers ehh?  And I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.

How about a list of my Iron Bowl goofs.  Oh yeah, this could be a long list.  My very first Iron Bowl was in 1994 and was at Legion Field.  I was still in my first year at the paper and was shooting with John Godbey.  John’s sister lived in Birmingham and he was going to shoot the whole game and process at her home.  I was to shoot the first half, take all the film for both of us and head back to Decatur to process that take.  I shot and scooted without remembering to get John’s film.

That was a minor SNAFU compared with the 1996 Iron Bowl also played in Birmingham.  Scott Trigg was my partner for that game and it was a night game in Legion Field.  Scott was shooting the first half and leaving with our film to go to his girl friend’s home just outside Birmingham.  I would shoot the whole game and then run over as soon as possible after the game with my film.  It is somewhat traditional to get a photo of the coaches at mid-field after the game but I decided not to so I could beat as much traffic out as possible.  As soon as the buzzer sounded ending the game I dashed to my car and busted out of the parking lot as fast as I could go.  I got to Scott’s girl friend’s home and his first question was, “Did you get Stallings at the end of the game?”  It was only then that I found out that Coach Stallings had announced his retirement during the post-game press conference.

During the 2000 Iron Bowl no one scored a touchdown.  I believe the final score was Auburn 9 Alabama 0.  Neither I nor David Higginbotham bothered to send a photo of the field goal kicker who was the only person to score.  That Iron Bowl was also the coldest I have ever been.  The game began with sleet and progressed to an extremely cold rain.  My thermal gear was all soaked by half-time and I had no other coat to wear in the second half except a thin, vinyl rain coat.  I nearly froze.  (Don’t laugh out loud there Corey.)  I spent more time shivering during the second half than I did shooting.  This was also the infamous Bear hugging incident where Dave found a larger than life sized Bear Bryant statue carved from a tree and spent a little time hugging it.  Needless to say, there is now a restraining order against Dave filed by the spirit of Bear Bryant.

I have also had a hard time keeping up with monopods at the Iron Bowl.  I lost my second one at this year’s event.  I have no idea what happened to it.  I left my personal monopod beneath the hedge at Auburn a few years ago and have never seen it since.  Weird, I know.  At least it is not long glass I am losing.  Oh, and lest I forget, there was the photo of Jerraud Powers, the guy from Decatur, making a key interception in the 07 Iron Bowl.  It was only the play that kind of turned the game.  No big deal right!  But, I had the photo, toned it and then saved it in the wrong folder and never transmitted it.  Yeah, fun times.

A rare photo of me working. Double meaning intended! Photo by Deangelo McDaniel

I do have good memories too.  It is always a great pleasure to get together with a lot of other shooters in the state.  There is some really good talent in that photo work room.  We also get together after the game for the annual Shrimp Boil.  I didn’t hang around this year but the Shrimp Boil is usually hosted by the group from the Mobile Press-Register and it is a great social time.  There is a lot of good natured verbal jousting and some excellent fellowship.  Oh yeah, it is great to cover the biggest game of the year in Alabama.  This is the year round game.  It never really ends, it just kind of morphs into mythology and begins again the next November.  To be part of that legendary game is just really cool. Every now and then I even make a picture worth publishing so over all, the Iron Bowl is really great experience.

By the way, did I mention that when the Auburn Tigers win at home they run down to Toomer’s Corner and roll a huge tree there with toilet paper.  I guess everyone to his own thing but that just seems a little weird to me.  I guess it beat setting police cars on fire and vandalizing property like some of our brethren in larger cities do when their team wins.  Well, let me leave you with a big Roll Tide since Bama won this season and , yes, I do have loyalties in this game but only when I am sitting home in my living room watching on TV.  There is nothing more annoying or out of place than photographers being fans on the sideline.

There you go then, some memories good and bad of Iron Bowls past and still looking forward to Iron Bowls future.  My fondest wish for future Iron Bowls is that both Alabama and Auburn go into the game unbeaten.  It’s always nice to have a little something on the line.

Photos copyright Deangelo McDaniel and Gary Cosby Jr.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

The annual Iron Bowl is in the books and it could be called the retribution bowl as Alabama vented six years of frustration on Auburn with a 36-0 pounding.  The game was played in a continual mist of rain, not bad rain but enough to be annoying and enough to make you keep rain covers on your gear.  That’s no big deal except it makes you have to focus on routine maneuvers with your cameras.  It could have been much worse.  It could have been cold for one thing and it could have been really raining.  The only real side effect was the weather made a day game look a lot like a night game.

This Iron Bowl marked the completion of two very different season.  For Alabama the game marked the completion of a 12-0 regular season and sealed the number one ranking going into the SEC Championship where they will play Florida which is probably the hottest team in the nation right now.  For Auburn it marked the merciful end to what can only be the worst year in the Tommy Tuberville era.  Auburn’s offense was the worst major college offense I have ever seen.  They could not move the ball much less score points.

So the big game was not so big this year with Auburn being so low coming in but it was still the big game in Alabama as it is every year.  I covet this game.  I want to be there because I know all the best shooters in the state are going to be there and, of course, in a big year like this one for Alabama Sports Illustrated is going to be there.  So yeah, I want to be in that mix to test myself against the best in the state.  And this year, I think I had my best Iron Bowl, especially in terms of peak action photos.  A lady at church this morning said, “God really put you in the right place all day didn’t He.”  I couldn’t agree more.  I also got a nice photo of Rolando McClain celebrating which was one of my goals.  Rolando is a graduate of Decatur High so he is a homegrown product and the starting middle linebacker for the Tide.  Another Decatur High grad, Jerraud Powers, plays corner back for Auburn and he is one of their best defenders.  Clearly, getting good photos of those two was something I wanted to do.

Deangelo McDaniel, one of the Daily’s reporters who is also a photographer on the side, went to the game with me after my photojournalist co-worker Jernomio Nisa became ill at the last minute so Deangelo and I shot the game together.  It is always great to have two shooters at a game like this because if one of you miss something the chances are the other one will get it.

I used a Nikon D700 and 400mm f2.8s that Nikon Professional Services graciously loaned to me.  That camera is the little brother to the D3 and it rocks just about as much as the D3 does.  I shot most of the second half at ISO 4000 and it was sweet, noiseless and wonderfully sharp.  The only thing I lacked was the battery grip that gives the camera 8fps.  I can’t say enough about the performance of this little full frame wonder.  It was a fantastic camera.  Many thanks to NPS for the loaner.  They have helped me shoot many big games over the years.  Without their assistance my photos would have been nowhere near as good as they were.  The other gear I used was a Nikon D2Hs and 80-200 which I barely touched.  The 400 was just perfect on the full-frame D700.  For the post game stuff, I shot a 17-35 f2.8 on the D700.  I have never used a flash for the post game stuff.  I like the stadium light and there is enough light I don’t really need to supplement.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I shot the Auburn vs LSU football game this weekend, my first game this season without the D3 and 400 mm lens NPS loaned me.  I was back to my D2H and D2Hs body and the thought of a night game with our gear just didn’t appeal to me.  I stood looking over my lens options with no enthusiasm.  We have a 300 f2.8 that the AF performance is so poor on that it is not really worth shooting night football with.  We have the 400 f3.5 manual lens which I use fairly often but hate using at night.  It is old and worn out and my eyes are older than they used to be.  Not really good choices.

Naturally, I chose the third option.  I decided to take my EOS 5D and use the 70-200 f2.8 with the 1.4 extender.  This would give me a focal length equivalent of about 280mm.  Not a 400 for sure but probably enough for using as a backup to the D2Hs and the 400mm f3.5.  I would have to shoot both bodies at ISO 3200 to get enough light to perform at f3.5 and f4 so it was a risky deal but I felt fairly comfortable doing it.  I figured to rely mainly on the Nikon as my main body and the Canon for the shorter shots.

After shooting for just a few minutes, I realized my basic plan needed to be reversed.  I looked at the image quality on the Canon at 3200 and the Nikon at 3200 and to say there was no comparison would be significantly understating it.  The Canon images were way cleaner so I decided to go with the Canon for the main shots and only use the Nikon when the images were well beyond range.  This plan worked pretty well.  I was also blessed to be in the right spot for a good play coming right to me on a couple of occasions so my Canon stuff was really nice.  I am not going to tell you which was which.  I think you will probably be able to figure it out on your own.  At least it will be a nice exercise in focal length recognition for you.

The secondary consideration in going with the Canon as my main body was the ability to use the AF.  No matter how well I do manually, the AF will always beat me so that factor made the decision easier.  The game itself was interesting but not excellent.  Good defensive teams have a tendency to do that to offensive teams and Auburn does not have a good offense.  In fact, it has one of the most irritating offenses I have ever seen.  It is supposed to be a spread offense that moves through its plays quickly and efficiently.  Lets just say they have some work to do on that front.  The irritating part is the offense comes to the line, sets up like they are ready to run a play, then the whole offense stands up and looks to the sideline where they do a funky little dance to signal in the play.  In fact, watching the three coaches who are doing all the dancing is the most entertaining part of the offense.  Never the less, the game came down to the final minutes with Auburn leading 21-20.  They have an excellent defense.  Then LSU struck for a late score to put Auburn away 26-21.

Enjoy the pictures and feel free to leave any question or comment you have in the comments section or just drop me an email.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this photo are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

NCAA Disclaimer.  These photos are for the educational/viewing use of the readers of A Little News and are not for commercial application in any form.  The images may not be downloaded or reused without the written permission of Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily or, where applicable, the NCAA or its member institutions.

I shot the Auburn vs Southern Miss game in Auburn Saturday and I still have the D3 and the 400 f2.8 from NPS.  Sadly, it must go back before too long but just having the camera and lens is a confidence builder.  Never the less, having equipment doth not a photographer make and I was having an awful first half.  I felt like I was getting shots but in reality I was missing it in every regard from not getting the moment to missing focus.  When I downloaded images at half time I was able to see that I basically had nothing and that I was having some really bad auto-focus problems that I didn’t have the week before when shooting Alabama and Clemson.

What to do, what to do?  Well, when a football team has a bad half they go into the locker room and make changes to their game plan.  They adapt to the other team and try to make things happen differently in the second half by not repeating the mistakes of the first half.  Hey, if it is good enough for football teams it must be good enough for those shooting the game.  I had primarily shot the first half from the back of the end zones and I shot from my knees.  This created an environment where I was missing shots due to poor focus.  It doesn’t matter how good the gear you are using is if you are not giving the AF sensor area enough information to work with.  Basically staying in one position throughout the first half also created a sense of laziness in my attitude too.  Sometimes it is just better to move it a little bit and keep pace with the play moving up and down the sidelines with the teams.

Coming out for the second half I determined to try a different AF setting on the camera, to stay closer to the action, to shoot at least some of the time standing rather than kneeling and concentrate on getting the AF sensor in the right place.  Shooting with the D3 is somewhat different than with the D2Hs.  The controls are all in familiar places but there are more choices on the D3 and I didn’t have a manual so some of it was trial and error.  But no matter what, I needed to have larger images in my viewfinder to help the AF function properly. I used the dynamic focus tracking some in the second half and tried a couple of different focus tracking settings.

The whole standing up versus kneeling thing is not much more than psychological.  It is slightly easier to swing the camera left and right while standing rather than while kneeling.  It was mostly just to change things up and give myself a mental edge.  Moving along the sidelines more and keeping pace with the teams forced me into the rhythm of the game.  A little running around the back of the bench area carrying all that gear is good for the body and it can’t hurt the soul and it is good punishment for laziness too!  Btw, laziness is a terrible enemy.  It was very hot Saturday and staying in one place was cooler but it was causing me to miss pictures.  Like the Marine Corp says, a man never drowned in a pool of his own sweat so I needed to move it and shake off the lethargy.

While man may never have drowned in a pool of his own sweat, that torrential downpour that struck during the second half certainly could have.  Fortunately, it only lasted for a few minutes but it was enough to soak me to the bone.  I had rain gear but it literally went from a drop or two to a downpour in about 30 seconds.  I got a sleeve over my camera and lens but I was drenched before I could slip on a rain jacket.

End result, my half time adjustments worked.  I got much better stuff in the second half and I got a nice image of one of the kids from Decatur making a big play in the game.  Jerraud Powers, a Decatur High grad, intercepted a fourth quarter pass killing a comeback attempt by Southern Miss. (That’s the photo at the top of the post.)  I had missed a photo of him in the first half making a nice open field tackle when I allowed the AF sensor to go high throwing him completely out of focus.  The bottom line here is don’t keep doing the same thing over and over again if you are not getting the results you want.  Shake things up and keep moving and trying new things until you hit on some combination that works.  Talk to a pro fisherman sometime about this.  It will be an eye opener to you for your photography.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

NCAA disclaimer:  The photos in this post are for educational purposes only.  The photos are not available for sale, disbursion or any purpose other than for viewing by readers of A Little News.

Dedicated readers of this blog will recognize Corey Wilson right away. Corey did a post for us about shooting in the deep freeze at Lambeau Field for the NFC Championship game between Green Bay and New York. Corey is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University and has been my friend for about seven or eight years now. We worked together in Decatur for two or three of those years and he has worked in Green Bay for five years. Corey is one of many photojournalists whose work inspires me. He is a wonderful shooter and a good man to top it all off. I hope you enjoy his musings on covering one of the NFL’s true legends.

History. When does it become such? As soon as Father Time ticks to the next second? Months later? Years later? As far as I know photography is the only way to stop time. Every photograph represents a slice of history. Is it your child’s first steps? A birthday? A war? A sports feat?

Most photojournalists like myself are in this business because we can’t get enough of capturing time…in fleeting moments. I’ve been fortunate enough to cover the NFL, namely the Green Bay Packers, for the last five years. This has always been a dream of mine and it’s one I’m proud I’ve accomplished. Unless you’ve been living in Northeastern Siberia for the past two or three weeks you know one thing. Brett’s done. Brett Favre that is. He donned the uniform like no other quarterback has from 1991-2007. He NEVER missed a start during his entire Packers playing career! (That’s 253 for those of you who are counting). He’s a legend and everyone has heard of his magic feats on the field.

I did a lot of reflecting as I pulled file photographs for special sections, books and audio slideshow productions that my paper, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, would be publishing in the days after his retirement on March 4, 2008. Covering Brett Favre has been a once in a lifetime opportunity. You could go an entire career as a photojournalist and not photograph a legend like that. It’s an opportunity I’m extremely thankful for. Thumbing through all these hundreds of images over the past couple of weeks made me sentimental. Do we realize that we are literally photographing history at the time we’re actually shooting it? Or does that come much later? Does it ever come at all?

Have you ever been on an assignment when you suddenly realize that what you’re doing, in that very instant, is going to be documented as history for years to come? Does it take a monumental event to seem important? A career like Brett Favre? Or do other events like murder trials feel like live-history? I fall victim to feeling like lesser-scale events like plays, church services, portraits or city council meetings matter less. Aren’t they just as important? You bet they are.

I guess all the reflecting did one thing for me. It served as a wake-up call. It hit me that our smaller communities are not made up of Brett Favre grandeur. As photojournalists we have a tremendous responsibility to document everything around us as if it were just as famous. Don’t we? How do we not?

With that said I’ll never forget the moments I had covering Brett Favre. I’ll have the newspaper covers to remember it. I’ll forever have my spot in the new Sports Illustrated Commemorative Edition of Brett Favre. I’ll have the black & white picture I shot with my Holga 120 plastic film camera (retail $20) as he ran onto Lambeau Field for a game in 2005.

***If you would like a glimpse of my 2007 reflections of Brett Favre please copy and paste the following link to a first-person audio slideshow:

http://www.packersnews.com/includes/newspaper/assets/soundslides/2008/030408remembering4/

Be aware that everything you shoot as a photojournalist is important. In 10, 20 or 30 years, when memories begin to fade, it will be YOUR photographs that remind people of days-gone-by.

Photos copyright Corey Wilson. The opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the writer’s employer.

Note: This is the second of two posts from Green Bay Press-Gazette photojournalist Corey Wilson, a friend and former co-worker. Corey and I worked together for a couple of enjoyable years in Decatur before he moved to the frozen north to become a snowman.

After I got all bundled up for that Jan. 20th NFC Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants I headed down to the field about 30-minutes prior to kickoff. Wow. Nothing like minus-25 degree wind chills smacking you in the face as you walk down the same tunnel as Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, Reggie White and Brett Favre.

My photo staff at the Green Bay Press-Gazette was given all brand new Nikon to test out at the game (and possibly the Super Bowl) by Nikon Professional Services. Unfortunately, all the beautiful D3 cameras failed the cold test. Upon kickoff I realized that NEITHER of my D3 camera bodies were working. I had one driving a 400mm lens and the other on my 80-200mm lens. Both cameras starting flashing “err” messages and when they would fire they would fire black images. Some of the images were half-black…similar to when you sync your flash at too high of a shutter speed and part of the shutter curtain casts a shadow on your image.

Uh oh. Not a good sign at the start of a huge game. What the heck am I going to do?

My boss came down to the field and gave me one of his D3’s that was operational. I quickly mounted that to my 400mm lens. Our ‘runner’ for the game also brought me one he’d had slung over his shoulder. Okay, I’m reloaded and ready to go. Well, one of those quit and I got frustrated. So now it’s the second quarter, I have basically no images, and I’m headed for our media workroom upstairs for reinforcements. I darted upstairs, as the Packers had the ball on offense, and grabbed my older Nikon D200 body. I only brought this for a spare! The batteries that were in it were all I had for that camera too! I’m actually sweating in a bit of panic at this point.

That camera lasted into the second half until the shutter literally froze in mid-burst during a key drive. Another one bites the dust (or ice). Our ‘runner’ brings me yet another D3 to replace my D200. He believes this D3 is operational…for now. It actually held up pretty decent, except for replacing a battery in the fourth-quarter. It held up long enough for me to get legendary quarterback Brett Favre slinging a cape over his head as he ran off the field after a 23-20 overtime defeat. Is it the last image of Brett Favre ever at Lambeau Field? We’ll see. Personally, I don’t think so.

So the biggest game of my life was filled with much frustration. I enjoyed the opportunity but trying to stay focused while cycling through SIX camera bodies was the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced while shooting an NFL game. So what’s my opinion of the D3? Beautiful. The images were drop-dead gorgeous and needed no toning at all. Just don’t plan on having much success with a D3 in the Frozen Tundra! I learned another sobering lesson? Turns out the Good Lord makes things better than we humans make things. Here he designs a human body that with proper planning (using the brain he gave us) can survive the most wicked cold temps in the United States. And we humans can’t even design a piece of ($5,000) camera equipment that can last 15-minutes in the same elements. Truly amazing.

For more images from the game, please visit The Press Gazette photo galleries from the game.

Photos copyright Corey Wilson, the Green Bay Post-Gazette. The opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect those of the Press-Gazette or The Decatur Daily.

Once in a while a small town guy gets to play with the big boys. Sunday was just such a day for me. I relish these days. I had the assignment to shoot the Tennessee Titans game with the San Diego Chargers. The reason for this luxury is the Chargers’ quarterback, Philip Rivers, grew up in Decatur and played his high school football at Athens High, about fourteen miles up the highway. So really, my job was to shoot Philip Rivers regardless of the outcome of the game.

I certainly earned a new appreciation for the job of NFL quarterback and am very thankful that Philip was the one taking the pounding and not me. The Titans spent the day in his face, wrapped around his legs or on top of him. He took a real pounding. Kyle Vanden Bosch practically lived in the Chargers’ backfield and he ended up pounding on Rivers more than any other player.

For me, the job was really different. I had never been assigned to shoot a single player. It was both challenging and liberating. I didn’t have to worry about missing the big play unless Philip was involved in it. It was challenging too because I am so accustomed to shooting the game I found myself missing pictures of him because I would be following the play. Thanks to the good folks at Nikon I had the use of an excellent 400mm f2.8S lens. You guys can’t believe how nice that thing is and how absolutely tack sharp it is.

I shot three lenses; the 400, an 80-200 f2.8 and a 17-35 f2.8 at the end of the game. I shot with the D2Hs with the 400 on it and the D2H with the 80-200 on. There is not really a lot to it technically. The main thing I wanted to be conscious of was being in a place to see Philip’s face as much as possible and being in position for the sacks which seemed to happen all the time. Even when he wasn’t being sacked, Rivers was under intense pressure was hit often after throwing. My choice was whether to stay behind the line of scrimmage or in front of it. I did a little of both just mixing it up based on what the game felt like and what my gut was telling me.

Here is an important note that relates to anticipating the play. Watch the momentum of the game and position yourself accordingly. For the first three and a half quarters, the best place for me to be was behind the Chargers offense because the Titans were really putting the pressure on the quarterback. Late in the game I got just a little ahead of the offense after the momentum shifted in the Chargers favor. That way I could see Philip’s face as he was throwing. It’s one of those small things that adds up to nice pictures.

You can check out my Sportsshooter member page to see a ten shot show. Later on I will post a lot more pictures on the Decatur Daily website and I will post a link to it when it is up.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Okay, one more Iron Bowl post. I know you are probably tired of hearing about it by now. I know I am and would not post anything else were it not terribly instructive. Every game has its key plays. When the key play in a big game is made by a young man from your newspaper’s town, you really want to have the shot. It’s not always possible but if you have the shot then it is double bonus time. Local kid makes big play and local photographer is right there nailing it.

That is exactly what happened in this year’s Iron Bowl. Jerraud Powers is a cornerback for Auburn and he made the play of the game on a potential touchdown pass to D.J. Hall late in the first half. Bama quarterback John Parker Wilson threw a fade to Hall in the corner of the end zone and Powers was defending. He just got his finger tips under the ball and was able to flick it up into the air. That was a huge play in itself but then he intercepted the pass to end the scoring opportunity. And I nailed the whole sequence with the key play being the exact moment when the ball landed in Powers’ hands. I rushed back to the workroom to do my first half pictures and saw I had the photo and cropped, toned, captioned and saved the image. Unbeknown to me, I saved it in the wrong folder. A complete accident. My complete accident meant that I thought I had transmitted the image to the newspaper when, in fact, I had not. Even after the game reviewing the take with my co-worker Jonathan Palmer, I didn’t notice the picture was not in the folder.

Sunday morning I get up to see an AP photo credit under “MY” photo. I was blustering but I had to go to church and teach my class. (That is a bad way to go to church. Three hours sleep and upset over a photo.) After church I had one of those revelation moments and realized what I had done. Sure enough, upon checking my laptop I found the photo in another folder. I was banging my head. I am still banging my head. I showed the stuff to our sports editor and he said to give him a sequence and we may be able to use it for a bowl game preview or something else later on. I am still banging my head! Take a lesson from a knuckle head and check, double check and triple check to make sure you did everything right. It is great to have the photo but it is better to have the photo and actually transmit it so your paper can use it!

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own (except the part about me being a knuckle head. I am pretty sure everyone here agrees with me on that one!) and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.