Hotel Room Fun

Okay Kids, strap in. This wont be pleasant. Time to vent more.

There's nothing like a nice 3:30 AM fire alarm to make you oh so wonder, bright and cheerful. Such was the state of affairs Sunday morning at the Hilton Homewood Suites in Omaha, Nebraska.

Thats right, some guest who was an outside visitor to a group throwing a party here at the Hilton Homewood Suites in Omaha, Nebraska, decided to pull the fire alarm up on 7, which sent us all scattering outside into the night. I grabbed the laptop and the camera.... everything else can be replaced easily but i need at least one camera and the laptop in case everything goes up in smoke. (Thats right, i left the 400. )



Overall everyone here has been really nice but the hotel has been a total pain in the ass. Complete pain. Nice rooms but for the amount of money they are charging, i expect more. A lot more. You charge Disney prices, i expect Disney service. That includes Mickey F'ing Mouse giving me my wakeup call. That includes not having little league baseball kids streaking through the parking lot, whipping each other with towels while I'm trying to park. That includes no midnight fire alarms unless it really is a fire. That includes a friendly staff that isn't hassling us at check-in. (And if you're going to give me a plasma TV, give me the HD channels. Really.)




And on a side note, my medium rare steak wasn't all that. It was seared too much, it was more like medium well. It had a warm-red center but it was overcooked around that.

Why You Shouldn't Work For Free

Matt Brown over at Sportsshooter.com has posted a great article on why you shouldn't work for free or give away photos.

Thanks to the rampant image stealing abilities of modern technology, people can just take whatever they want and post it on their sites. I know this, i don't like it and i realize that people are going to somehow try and take the 576 pixel deep photos on this site. (Yes, thats why they're so small)

That being said, If you want to use my photos and i actually have the rights to them (Non-newspaper shots), You will have to pay to use them on the web and anywhere else. Why you ask?

1 - Cost of cameras and lenses. These things are expensive. A Nikon D300 costs $1799 (body only), the nice 17-35/2.8 lens costs $1500 and so forth. The super-long glass that i shoot baseball with from the paper? That costs a used Ford Mustang.

2 - Experience. I have dedicated years of my life to learning how to make good sports action photos as well as how to manipulate lighting modifiers , studio lights, etc. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to use this equipment and get a good, daily image.

3 - Time. No, I cannot just send you a photo. I work on pressure deadlines. It takes time to download, tone and resize the photos and email it to you. My time is money. If i miss something, it takes money out of my pocket. Which leads to....

4 - Money. I'm a capitalist in this business. I'm in this to make money and enjoy what i do. Giving you something free doesn't put gas in my gas tank. Credit only doesn't pay the rent and put food on the table. "Getting my name out there" by giving things away doesn't actually lead to more (or any) business.

A car mechanic, a plumber, a house painter, an electrician, an airline pilot, a stock broker, a bus driver and lawyers certainly don't work for free. They don't just give stuff away or work in trade. And neither should you.

I implore any young shooter, especially those in college to listen and think. Giving photos away just hurts everyone and doesn't get your name out there as someone employable. It gets your name out there as someone who gives away free photos.

And don't get me started on the weekend shooter with the $90K a year job and the $100K Porsche who is just doing this for fun and just gives his stuff away because he wants to see his name somewhere. People like that are a lot more frequent then you'd think and they're taking money away from people who do this for a living. All it is doing is just teaching big corporations that they can always find it for free somewhere.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to.....

More Baseball.....

Robert McGee is greeted by his teammates as Oconee County beats Jefferson 11-10 in eight innings on Monday, March 10, 2008 at Foley Field in Athens.


Since UGA is taking off to go beat up on FSU for a 3 game set, Its time for the HS kids to play at Foley Field. I went to work the Cedar Shoals-Clarke Central game but the Jefferson-Oconee County game went crazy. Oconee blew a 5 run, 7th inning lead only to load the bases with no out in the bottom of the 7th and not score, gave up a run in the top of the 8th, but mercifully scored two in the bottom of the 8th to finally end the game an hour and a half late.



Jefferson's Jake Fields (16) is mobbed by his teammates after he hit a three-run home run to tie the game at 9 in the top of the seventh inning only to fall 11-10 to Oconee County in eight innings on Monday, March 10, 2008 at Foley Field in Athens.

I love shooting high school sports, bu i hate it when they put lots of games together. Like the times when they play mens and women's basketball back to back. One game always runs long and screws up a deadline. Same case here, Clarke-Cedar started at 8:40. Gave me a big 20 minutes before i had to stop and transmit. Yes i made some nice photos that worked for the paper, but I'd like to shoot the whole game or at least get something really good that tells the story.



Cedar Shoals' Levonte Wynn is hit by a pitch in the first inning as Clarke Central takes on Cedar Shoals on Monday, March 10, 2008 at Foley Field in Athens.



Clarke Central's Bradley West pitches as Clarke Central takes on Cedar Shoals on Monday, March 10, 2008 at Foley Field in Athens.

I hate Scalpers.

Just a quick note... St. Patty's Day is rapidly approaching and DKM is releasing a special, limited edition of their album "The Meanest of Times" on 3/11. More info here. I've heard a few things about the album, so you should take a good look at the photos in the CD artwork. Haven't seen a proof or anything, but i've heard some stuff.

We are planning to go up to Boston for two of the five sold out shows. Just for amusement sake, i looked up a "ticket broker" online. There are way too many tickets being scalped and the highest price i saw was $425/each. Average was about $200. This is flat out ridiculous. There has to be a way to keep concert tickets out of the scalers hands. Its a total disservice to people who are real fans of the band and live music in general. Its just wrong.

Softball for Two Innings

Alisa Goler is congratulated by her teammates after scoring a run on an error in the bottom of the first inning as Georgia beat DePaul 3-2.

Baseball will always be better than softball. Why? because baseball starts on time, and i've never had a softball game start on time yet, especially when there's a tournament happening. Georgia's season opener was delayed 1 1/2 hours thanks to the game before it. So not only did i have to leave by 6PM to get to a hoops game, but i was left with 1/2 an hour to make some photos. Great light for like 10 minutes but that was about it. The golden light left fast.



Freshman Jennie Auger hits the ball towards second base off of DePaul's Becca Heteniak on Friday, February 8, 2008 in Athens. Auger had the game-winning home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to lead Georgia to a 3-2 victory.



Shortstop Kristin Schnake celebrates a strikeout by pitcher Sarah McCloud as Georgia beat DePaul 3-2.



The softball field is reflected in the sunglasses of second baseman Sojourner Moody.

Random Equipment Complaining....

So in their infinite wisdom, Nikon has come out with a full-frame sensor camera that does incredible things in the dark but also costs $5000. No noise at ISO 3200, minimal noise at 6400 and 12,500. Finally we have a tool that is slightly better than Canon. Its taken 8 years but finally, its there.

The problem is, its $5G. Five large. Over ha;f my established credit limit. Takes amazing pictures that blow away anything else on the market. Its just expensive. And my employer can't afford them. Heck, our employer has us running around with 10 year old 17-35s and 80-200s. Its nice and i'm a big believer in making do with what you have and that a camera is just an extention of yoru own creativity but %$@# I'd really like to be able to compete on even ground with the kids coming out of college that only have a Canon 5D and a 28-70. Heck, i've got a 24-85 f/2.8-4 (its nice, really) but hey, a Canon kid drops $3500 and they get a Nice 5D (full frame camera) and a 28-70 while to get the same in Nikon, you're dropping $6800. Thats pretty much twice the price.

Our industry keeps getting the most out of people for the least amount of money. Its the New American Way (unintentional Murphys reference), i suppose. We nearly had layoffs at our paper and our editor did a little raindance and saved everyones jobs. When i tell people what i make, they're shocked given the effort i put in. (I take that as a compliment) I guess with the continuing desire for profit margins by my employers, i shouldn't be shocked by getting the short end of the stick. I suppose that's my the Murphy's music appeals to me. I just want to get paid for somewhere close to the effort i put into it.

So what are the odds of actually getting updated equipment? Slim. There's a chance, because it comes out of another budget. Really. I make do with my stuff and i supplement it with my own stuff. Lightstands, lenses, pocket wizards, softboxes and all the other sundry equipment. And i'll continue to make do. I'd just be doing much easier if my pay went up.

Tubariffic

Well, I figure someday that public high schools will find a way to work well with the press, what with their desire to have media releases and other silly paperwork on file before you even bring a camera into the school. In short, its this: it's not my responsibility nor my news gathering organization's responsibility to know whether or not the subjects of documentary photography in a public school have all of your required paperwork taken care of.



So after some skillful negotiating, I ended up going for some environmental portraits of the subject who is quite the tuba player. I lit it with two flashes, one acting as a fill and one acting as a rimlight and just asked him to play his tuba. I think the shots ended up better than him playing in band class.

Disney Trip 2008.

Main Street USA reflects in a christmas ornament.

So i took a brief vacation to Disney World. I'll spare the ugly details suffice that it was the worst vacation ever, highlighted by a 30-minute response time to a smoke-alarm activation. Anyone who has covered spot news or works in or around firefighters will tell you that a hotel room can be gutted in under 10 minutes.

Highlights: Champagne on the beach and taking a business phone call right after getting off of "Its a Small World."

I mainly stayed away from the camera, except for a few pictures here.



A dancer twirls two flaming batons.




Dancers dance under a blacklight.

Attn UGA Kids: DONT BE THIS GUY

Okay UGA kids. Time to eat one of your own. Don't be like this UGA video guy who's out on the field, shooting video of the Clarke Central marching band, in everyone's picture. No he wasn't working for the band (i asked) but i did find out he's a UGA technology kid who seems to think that the FOXsports way of putting a camera on the field from third to home is the right way of doing things.

Well guess what? Its not. Its rude. I was annoyed, the school was annoyed and the band wasn't happy either. (What they had to say was far more explicit then i tend to share here)

You simply don't belong on the field and you don't have any more of a right to go out and get that shot just for yourself then i do. So get off the field, jerk.

Whats Wrong with Baseball.

Two Words: Scott Boras.

I love baseball more than any sport. I love photographing baseball. I consider myself primarily a sports photographer. More and more media access is being controled for sports teams by either the teams or the agents. Its all about publicity and getting your name in the spotlight. And there's no man in the world of baseball who does more to disparage the sport (while maiking himself a crapload of money) than Scott Boras.

Here's the deal. Scott Boras is the Super Sports agent who's latest infraction against humanity is to announce during Game 4 of the World Series that Yankee Alex Rodriguez would opt out of his multi-zillion dollar deal. In the Mmiddle of the World Series, where Boston swept the Rockies, Boras steals the spotlight for himself and his player, showing zero respect for the Red Sox, the World Series, or even baseball itself, including Red Sox outfielder & Boras client J.D. Drew ($70 mil). Don't forget Red Sox captain Jason Varitek, who's Boras' client and got a $40 mil salary from John Henry and the Sox. Assuming that Boras gets a meger 10% of those deals, it sure looks like that even $11 million of the Red Sox's money isn't enough for him to keep his damm mouth shut until the Series is over.

In a rare show of restraint, the Yankees decided not to announce their managerial turn until after the World Series was over. Shame that Boras couldn't wait one day. At least the "Old guard" of Major League Baseball - Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago - still have some class.

Boars doesn't care. He's the one who got Red Sox CF Johnny Damon to turn traitor and go play ball for the Yankees.... for $52 million. And then there's J.D. Drew. As a rookie, he wanted $11 mil from Philly for the first round pick. Philly said "F off" and he eventually got redrafted by the Cardinals.

And since the BoSox won the series, here's some from Spring Training.