The Week In Sports

This was a weird week. As you read this I am photographing track and field. With the quick turnaround from the events yesterday to the events today I decided not to include Friday in this edition of the week in sports. It will show up next week. That will give me time to write about it. This week I photographed wrestling for the first time this year, and hockey for the first time in nine years. It was a fun week seeing if I still knew what I was doing with either sport.

Back In Holloway

I don’t get out to photograph as much wrestling as I would like to. The matches this year just haven’t worked out for me. The final one of the year on Sunday did though. I photographed quite a bit of the match on my stomach getting as low as I could get. Near the end though I went up top to make a couple of wide images, and to change things up a little bit. I was rewarded with the cool wide shot of the Purdue wrestler scoring. I really like all of the things going on around the frame here.

Figuring Wrestling Out

I will be the first to admit that I have no clue what is going on most of the time during a wrestling match. Sometimes I can tell what is going on, but most of the time I am just looking for interesting frames. For what I do now though it doesn’t really matter if things look good for one team or another. I am just there making photos hoping that they get picked up. It is always fun to make a photo like the one above though that makes you wonder a little bit about what is happening in it.

The Tie Up

For a couple of years now I had a hole in my lens inventory. I didn’t have a long lens for indoor sports. I have the Sony 300mm lens now that lets me get right in on the action. It is perfect to get these tie up photos. Laying down and having the lens on the ground also lets me get under the arms so that I can see the faces. It was cool to be able to make these photos again.

Trying To Fail

As I was leaving the arena I was kind of laughing to myself. I went to the match to try and fail a lot. I stayed on my 300mm lens far longer than I should have trying to get better. As of Sunday I had a chance to pick up some extra work in Indy photographing wrestling in the next few weeks. I wanted to sharpen my skills a little so by staying on the long lens I am forcing myself to get better. I would switch to my wide lens, but you can cheat and leave space for yourself with that one. With the 300 you have to really focus and keep with the action. You don’t have much room for error. I was failing a lot at the start, but by the end I was making some photos that I really liked. In photography sometimes you have to purposely put yourself in bad situations to get better.

A Familiar Name

I went to the match to see Matt Ramos wrestle one last time. I had a feeling he could, because it was senior day. He did not wrestle, but his replacement had a familiar last name. I had seen some people that looked familiar earlier in the night wearing LaPorte gear. When I heard the name and the hometown for Ashton Jackson I wondered if he was related to a couple of kids that I used to ski with back in LaPorte. Looking him up on the Purdue website I saw that he was indeed. Ashton is only a freshman so maybe I will get to see more of him over the years.

Back On The Ice

It was almost nine years to the date since I last photographed hockey. That was a conference tournament back before Notre Dame joined the Big Ten. My team won that tournament, and I thought that photographing hockey was pretty fun. I had no idea that it would be this long before I would do so again. During warm ups hearing the puck hit the sticks I realized how much fun I used to have playing/photographing hockey. I don’t know why it was so long in between, but I will not let that happen again.

The Fishers Event Center

This is a really cool venue. When I last photographed the Fuel they were playing at the Fairgrounds where I am as this post goes live. They now have this great venue north of Indy to play in. This is a cool place that hosts lots of events. I hope that I can get there and photograph a few more in the future.

Reflecting On The Delays

This game never actually happened. Both teams warmed up like it would, and then just after intros they started looking at two spots on the ice. They kept looking at those spots for over an hour with the players coming on and off the ice. At one point we were even given a countdown to when the game would start, but then it was delayed again. I never saw any game action, but I still had a great time. If they had actually played as scheduled I would never have made the photo above. My angle through the glass would not have allowed it. I could only make this photo because the door to the ice was propped open. I really like the way that it turned out. Not seeing any game action just makes me want to go back more. I will have to find a game coming up that works with my schedule.

Inspiring Intros

The reason that I was at this game was because of John and Kelly Wickman. They have photographed hockey in Indianapolis for years now. They were photographing hockey before the Fuel were even a team. I had seen their intro photos, and I really wanted to have a crack at them. I loved the idea of the dark glass reflecting the player. Early on the spotlights missed the players entirely, but I was able to make this photo. I went in with a lot of dead space in mind, but as I looked at the photos I realized that next time I would try to get in a little closer. I want to see the reflection of the player on the ice more. The fun part about things like this is that they are repeated so you can really refine your photos. That is just another reason to head back down to Fishers soon.

This was a fun week filled with some sports that I don’t photograph very often. It is always refreshing to get out there and try something new and different. As I said before as this post goes live I will be photographing track and field. I haven’t done that in quite a while either. It is always fun to photograph though, and the championships should provide a good setting to make some fun photos. I will have both days of action from there next week.