2012 Scottsdale Polo Championships – Horses and Horsepower

I have never attended an actual polo match before, except for the polo scenes in the movie “Pretty Woman” so when I heard about this event to be held on October 20, 2012 at the Scottsdale Polo Fields I made the necessary inquires for a media credential. What a great event, all kinds of interesting things to photograph, although covering the actual polo match proved to be difficult and would require very long glass with very shallow depth-of-field to help with very, very distracting backgrounds. I didn’t feel like lugging big heavy glass around with me on a warm day in October, so I took an f5.6 lens which didn’t cut the mustard as they say.

I was a bit disappointed with most of what I got, with the difficult lighting conditions and me not having a long enough and fast enough lens I tried to capture some reasonably good images. Have a look and feel free to let me know how you think I did.

Covering a polo match is, as I said is all new to me, I sure had a good time and found the event very interesting. I look forward to the next event where I can apply what I learned at this event and try to capture more compelling images.

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PGA Golf — 2013 Waste Management Phoenix Open

I know golf is not hugely popular on my photo blog, but I thought maybe if I had some images of one of the most popular local players, Phil Mickelson and some brightly colored images I might get a few extra viewers. Here are a few shots from round 2 action, I hope you enjoy these.

February 01, 2013: Phil Mickelson on the 9th green during round 2 action of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at the TPC Stadium golf course in Scottsdale Arizona.

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Lucas Oil Off Road Series — 2012 Drivers and a buggy or two

For the 2012 season of the Lucas Oil Off Road Series racing (LOORS) I tried to mix it up a bit with my images and I found some personal gratification from producing images of some drivers in their trucks. The way the screening and window net as well as the dash configuration sometimes made fitting my wide-angle lens between everything difficult so not every driver is represented and some shots just came out better than others. Here are a few that I liked:

Todd LeDuc gives me the eye as I grab images through the window net.

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NCAA College Football – Oct. 18, 2012 University of Oregon Ducks vs. Arizona State Sun Devils

I am excited to see the Oregon Ducks play in this year’s Fiesta Bowl so I went back for a little look at the images I captured when the Ducks came calling on the Arizona State Sun Devils

18 October 2012: Sidelines are reflected in the helmet of University of Oregon Ducks CB Terrance Mitchell (27) prior to the start of the Pac-12 conference match-up between the Oregon Ducks and the Arizona State Sun Devils at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.

First off the Ducks had these really cool helmets that would make all kinds of great reflection images so I had to try to take advantage of that opportunity.

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Hawaii, on the big island you must stay

When I travel my primary focus is photography (no pun intended), but for many people photography is almost an after-thought when they travel. I don’t really understand the mindset of someone who takes random snapshots in the middle of the day while visiting some of the most amazing locations around the world. I have traveled many times to a location for the specific purpose of making photographs, and when I say “making photographs” I’m not talking about “taking pictures” or “grabbing a few snapshots” what I’m talking about is the very deliberate act of getting up before sunrise to make sure to be at a location for the sunrise light or arriving at your shooting location hours before sunset to allow yourself time to set up your tripod and plan out some images you are interested in capturing.

For me the joys of carefully crafting beautiful photographs is a challenge to my “creative self” and has a degree of therapy to it that helps feed the never-ending drive to exercise my “creative” muscles.

Hawaii seems like just the place to push my photographic skill set because I currently live in a desert environment and tropical beaches and rainforests are just about polar opposites from what I am familiar with.

There were certain iconic shots I was specifically looking for on this trip and much to my dismay mother nature would not always reward me with perfect blue skies and golden sunlight. I think one of the challenges of travel photography is being able to “find your shot” even when the skies are cloudy and grey, or when the “shot” you envisioned in your head just doesn’t present itself.

To see more beautiful images from the big island of Hawaii, click on the continue reading link below:

NCAA College Football – Aug. 30, 2012 NAU at ASU

There are some general guidelines on how to photograph college football, but sometimes you just need to be lucky.

I know, I know nobody likes to read too much text so I’ll use fewer words and more images for everyone out there with attention deficit disorder (ADD). Also, just so you know, NAU is Northern Arizona University, and they are the Lumberjacks and ASU is Arizona State University and they are the Sun Devils.

30 August 2012: Arizona State Sun Devils WR Rashad Ross (15) completes a 50 yard reception against the NAU Lumberjacks during the PAC-12 season opener at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.

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PGA Championship Golf, wait . . . What? Really?

Yes, PGA Golf is a thing, and a big deal thing at that, well at least for some people.

Photographing professional golf is so much different from photographing something like football, it’s an entirely different skill set, but many of the same concepts apply. I like the challenge of photographing professional golf tournaments because of the rules involved with not firing your shutter before the player strikes the ball and dealing with challenging lighting conditions out on the course.

Golf is an exciting sport to a great many people, well at least that is what the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) would like us all to think. I don’t know a whole lot about golf but I enjoy the challenges of trying to make nice photographs during the tournament, so off I went.

02 November 2012: Jay Don Blake hits up onto the 18th green during the second round of the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on the Cochise Course at The Desert Mountain Club on November 2, 2012 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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NCAA College Football — September 8, 2012 Illinois at Arizona State

I haven’t posted any college football this season and I’m not sure why, so I thought I would show you some stuff from a few of the games I covered. I’ll start this with the September 8th, 2012 game between Illinois and ASU.

When one of the coaching staff holds up a sign that says “Nasty” you know this is going to be fun to watch.

To see the rest of the game photos, click the continue reading link below.

2012 Tour de Scottsdale bicycle race — First Set

First let me say that these images have big watermarks on them, the reason for this is image theft. Yes, I used the word theft as in stealing something you are not supposed to steal. There are some individuals who don’t believe they should pay to license images or purchase prints, and for some odd reason road cyclists seem to think either because of their status or just some other reason that they are immune to copyright laws. The only other group that steal more images from the internet are high school age kids.

OK, now that is out-of-the-way let’s get down to business. I am selling prints to help pay for the cost of the fancy cameras, my photography skills and the time and effort to cover these type of events. If you think I should give you photos from this event for any reason, including you were just diagnosed with some incurable disease and you only have 3 days to live, well I’m sorry but you can find more information on purchasing prints here: Request Prints.

If you would like to see and inquire about prints from the 2009 and 2010 Tour de Scottsdale you can find those here: 2009 Tour, and 2010 Tour 1, and 2010 Tour 2.

Ref. 1067

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A Landscape Photographer’s Dream — The Changing Color of Light

Post on my blog dealing with landscape photography or travel photography are more popular than my posts on sports photography or Motorsports photography and I wonder if landscape and travel photography’s popularity is because you don’t need fast glass or fancy camera equipment to capture good landscape images. If you want to photograph sporting events you need access and often times you also need special lenses and expensive gear, which may be the reason it is not as popular as landscape or travel photography.

Landscape photography seems simple enough, and with the technology available in today’s modern digital cameras I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t find capturing stunning landscape images easy as pie, and yet a quick search on Google for landscape photography will yield literally millions of examples of poorly composed and incorrectly exposed “so-called” landscape photographs.

I will admit that I am still learning things about landscape photography as well as all other types of photography every time I pick up my camera, but some of the landscape photography examples I have seen out there on the internet just baffles me at how bad it is.

I would say one of the first lessons a landscape photographer should study and learn is “how to see the light” and by that I mean going some place and just sitting and watching the sun set. Don’t take your camera, just sit there and watch the light change as the sun goes down and how that makes the world around you appear. Face the sun and watch the colors of the sky change, see how the setting sun reacts with the clouds if there are any and take note of how the light changes. Take some time to face away from the sun and watch as the colors and shadows move across the scene in front of you. You should do the same thing for sunrises as well, but that can require a larger investment in time to get up before the sun rises. Once you can get a sense of how the light changes and what is possible then it’s time to break out the camera and try to make some photographs.

There is a moment in time as the sun is going down where the sky and any clouds in the sky turns all pink and everything around gets this great pink-ish glow, that is when the shutter should be clicking.

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