Going out to the Hickory Crawdads baseball game often opens up more photo opportunities than the normal sports targets.  I was in the dugout this evening and noticed a rather large group of kids sitting directly behind me.  Every one of them was eating, so I took aim and fired a few frames in their general direction.  This little girl was really going to work on this ball park hot dog.  The cute factor was off the scale. 

I haven't blogged here much lately.  I am going to fix that because I miss doing it! 

Today was media day at L.P. Frans Stadium, which marks the first day that the media and public are given access to the 2010 Hickory Crawdads Baseball Team.  This is my absolute favorite time of year as a photographer because I love photographing baseball, the people, and events associated with it.   It also hammers home the idea that spring is actually here.  Today, with the mercury topping out at nearly 90°, we had a great afternoon in the park. 

I got my photo assignments finished up with the players and field staff today, so I just walked around at field level for a while with my camera in hand looking around to see what sorts of visitors had found their way into the park.  The two young men in the photo above were camped out at the third base dugout field gate to watch from the closest possible vantage point as the 'Dads went through some on-field drills.  These two also managed to collect a few autographs as the players came to the field. 

I plan to focus my spring and summer this year primarily on Hickory Crawdads baseball.  I'm looking forward to it and my personal objective is to be at a minimum of 60 out of the 70 home games this season.  We'll see what happens... Come on out to the park and enjoy some professional baseball with me this summer!

Today is February 27th. It's not the time of year one traditionally thinks about baseball. However, the local high schools and college teams are firing up the activity on the diamond.  The Bears of Lenoir-Rhyne University played a double-header at home today.  In the above photo, Lenoir-Rhyne RHP Ben Goldston fires to the plate against Seton Hill during the first game of the day. 

I'm ready for Minor League Baseball to invade Hickory once again.  The Crawdads begin what I consider to be a cruddy home game schedule on Friday, April 16, against the Kannapolis Intimidators.  The 'Dads first AND last 8 games of the season are on the road.  The 4th of July game is also on the road this year.  In my opinion, that's a cruddy schedule, but we don't get to pick and choose.  It happens this way sometimes.  No matter how we slice and dice the home/road schedule, there are still 70 games at home between the first part of April and the end of August. 

Maybe I'll see you at the ball park...

Today is January 20th, 2010. It got up to 65° outside this afternoon and the weather was relatively nice.  Tonight, I attended the annual Hickory Crawdads Hot Stove Banquet where Jon Daniels, the General Manager of the Texas Rangers, gave the key note address (pictured above).  I got to see a lot of the folks from L.P. Frans Stadium... team owners... staff... and quite a few of the regular fans and season ticket holders at the park.  It was great!  The only problem is that baseball season is still about 3 months away. 

The Crawdads schedule this season, in my opinion, is about as bad as it gets as far as season schedules are concerned.  I know these rotations happen occasionally, but we start the season and end the season with 8-game road trips.  We are also on the road on the Fourth of July. 

I think I'm gonna change my seats this season and move from behind the third base dugout to a new location... I'll let you know how that goes.  I need to stop by the stadium one day next week :)

My first photo assignment of the new year and decade was a couple basketball games at Lenoir-Rhyne University as the men and women hosted the Pioneers of Tusculum College.  There was a rather decent crowd at tonight's game considering the fact that the students are still on Christmas break. 

I don't really have any photography objectives for the new year, even though I wish I did.  I have seriously fallen off the wagon when it comes to my art photography, and I really have no excuse for it.  I'm finished with school and I'm only working part time so I really should be digging back into the interests that got me started in this hobby to begin with.  I think I need to set some goals...

As always, I have my 1000 Faces project.  I only added 40 faces to this collection in 2009.  I need to work on increasing that if I ever hope to finish the project.  I got some new software that I have been wanting for Christmas.  SoundSlides Plus is a great tool for photo slide shows and storytelling, so I intend to play with that some in the coming months...  I think I might pursue the storytelling avenue just a bit in the near future if I can come up with a couple good project ideas...

I went down to Bandys tonight to cover a basketball game between the Lady Trojans and the Lady Red Devils of Newton-Conover High school.  This was definitely one of the better high school games I have seen in a while.  The Lady Trojans battled back from a hefty first period deficit to take the lead, but ultimately couldn't hold on in the end. 

I'm curious to see how a lot of things pan out this year in girls' prep basketball.  The all-powerful Hickory Lady Tornadoes aren't what they used to be, and some of the local teams are chomping at the bit to get a shot at them this year.  The Lady Red Devils of Newton-Conover lost to the Lady Tornadoes by a mere two points last week...  There will be some great competition in this year's Holiday Classic.  Holiday Classic play stars on Monday, December 28 and ends on Wednesday, December 30. 

Here we go again with another installment of the constant bichin' from me about having to photograph wrestling.   In my area, wrestling gets almost the same amount of coverage as basketball.  Or at least it has in past seasons, because I got stuck with shooting most of it.  Hopefully this year will see some balance in how much basketball vs wrestling I photograph each week since we have one new photo stringer and a second one on the way.  Since I'm not a fan of individual sports, I just have a hard time getting into wrestling personally.  You can call wrestling a team sport all you want, but until they put more than two kids on the mat at a time and let the last man standing get the win, its an individual sport. 

The above photo is a sample of what I can get at a couple of the schools around here.  The wrestling powers that be want to create 'mood' and 'atmosphere' for the fan base (parents and girlfriends) that attend these events.   That mood and atmosphere is created by turning off all the lights in the gym except for a single merc vapor directly above the center of the mat.  I can make some nice high contrast photos in that environment, but none that could possibly be used in the newspaper, so I have to pop my flash and flatten out any potentially interesting photographs and have no chance at excellence in natural lighting. 
 

It's always a nice feeling when the sports seasons change.  I don't dislike any of the sports I shoot... except for one or two... :)  It just feels good to have a change of pace.  Today, I got to shift gears just a little and shoot my first basketball game of the season.  Oh.. and I forgot to mention that it was pouring down rain.  Football season isn't over for me yet though.  We'll see how far our local teams go in the state playoffs...

I really do enjoy football season, but this season has been absolutely disastrous from a photographer's standpoint. Today wrapped up the first 11 weeks of the season of local high school and college football. I'm absolutely ready for this season to END. We have had so much rain on Friday nights this year.  I'm actually sick of it.  Last night I was sorta lucky.  It rained before the high school game started but quit right at game time.  Today, however, I got dumped on during Lenoir-Rhyne University's last home game of the season. 

I'm finished with LRU for the season, but next Friday is the last week of the local high school conferences regular play.  The following week begins state playoffs.  Normally we have teams go up until about Thanksgiving, which is three rounds into the tournament, so the end is actually in sight.  With any luck, I'll have less than 4 more weeks of football.  We have several local teams that look fairly strong within the conference, so we'll just have to see how they fare in the state...

After the rain cleared out this morning, we had an absolutely beautiful afternoon with blue skies and a few white puffy clouds and about 70° on the mercury to make it all good. I made a trip down to Maiden High School to watch the Lady Blue Devils tennis team play a state championship playoff round.  The above photo is of Kaylyn Key returning a volley during one of her games of the afternoon. 

Tomorrow I'll be back on the volleyball court at Hickory High School as the Lady Tornados continue their pursuit of a state championship...