Alamo Dressage Association - Spring 2009

Want to learn about dressage?  Try immersion...   I just spent two, intense, but fantastic days shooting a new sport for me, while trying to deal with less than ideal lighting situations.

The Alamo Dressage Association hosted their Spring show at the San Antonio Rose Palace the weekend of March 21-22, 2009.  Three rings, two days, over 90 riders/horses and me trying to figure how to shoot the indoor rings with low light (Nikon D700, 70-200/2.8, ISO 2500-4000), bad backgrounds, all while trying to learn what makes a horse and rider look great. You can read up on any new sport to get a sense of what makes a good photo, but I had the fortune to be able to pick the brains of top riders, coaches and trainers and a seemingly never-ending supply of riders to refine my technique on.  Three rings, a new rider every nine minutes or so and me with a camera.  Way cool!

If you ever get a chance to attend a dressage event, go with a sense of patience and appreciation for the nuances...and watch the top class riders.  They had their horses doing moves I'm not sure I can do with only two feet.

Alamo Dressage Association Spring Show 2009 Photo Galleries 

Baseball & Softball Season is back!

New fields, new tournament, new faces and great weather....a great way to start up the Boerne-Champion High School baseball and softball season.

Boerne-Champion hosted their first Champion Memorial Baseball Tournament this weekend (5-7 March). I spent Friday shooting a couple of baseball games and finished up the day shooting the Charger girls vs the Antonian Apaches late in the afternoon. Great lighting on the catcher and batters, but major glare with the sun setting in the outfield.

Boerne-Champion Chargers vs San Antonio Burbank Bulldogs

Smithson Valley Rangers vs El Paso Burges Mustangs

Boerne-Champion Chargers Softball vs San Antonian Apaches

The new fields look great to play on, but I knew it was going to be interesting to figure out how to shoot through and around all the new fencing and netting. With a long lens and shooting close to the net you can minimize the impact, but anything other than straight on is going to be an issue. All that said these were afternoon games with great light and great action so it was worth the eight hour day.

In between games I caught some of the Charger pole vaulters practicing. The Track & Field team has a home field meet coming up on 28 March, so that should be another fun day with a whole new mix of action shots.

2009 Hawaii High School Canoe Paddling State Championship - Maui

While on Maui I had chance to shoot the 2009 Hawaii High School Canoe Paddling State Championship. The Hawaii State High School Association has also been kind enough to present a small gallery of my images on their site.

This event has historically been held on Oahu, so this was pretty exciting for the Maui teams and provided them with a lot of home town support, with local canoe clubs providing the canoes.

The lighting at midday and distance to the canoes limited the quality of the action shots, but I really enjoyed shooting the candid portraits, friends, family and support teams. As a former/inactive whitewater and sea kayaker I could really appreciate what these eight-person teams were going through, particularly the boys and girls that paddled their own class and then had to turnaround and paddle the mixed events.

For those that are use to just seeing traditional Texas sports photography I hope you find these image enjoyable....and if you are visiting my site from Hawaii, Mahalo!, I had a great time.

Additional coverage by The Maui News and photos by Amanda Cowan:
1) http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/514611.html?nav=1
2) http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/514611.html

Race Results may be found here: http://www.sportshigh.com/sports/canoe_paddling/tournament/2009 edit

Maui 2009

Surfing at Honolua Bay or disk golf in an upcountry eucalyptus forest, these are some sports you don't find in San Antonio. 

 More Maui photos to come...

The Art of Frank Weir - Texas Beyond History

"A burial party lays a loved one to rest at Loma Sandia, about 2700 years ago. This interpretive painting by TBH artist Frank Weir accurately depicts some of the archeological evidence documented at this ancient cemetery site. Other elements reflect the local landscape and climate. The scene is set on a winter day, just as a "blue norther" arrives, an auspicious moment for a funeral."   (Artwork copyright Frank A. Weir, Text copyright Texas Beyond History) Click for full image.

I was at the San Antonio Menger Hotel last night and spent some time looking at all the old pictures on the walls. I started thinking how the rarity of old film based photos compares with the overabundance of digital images today, particularly as the future life of digital images depends on iterative updating of the media upon which they reside. For instance, if you have any images stored on 'floppy' disk or early CDs you might want to see if you can even read them on your current hardware.

This brings me, in a roundabout way, to the University of Texas website Texas Beyond History and the artwork representing the past. It's one thing to take a photo of a current event, but it's something else to dig the artifacts out of the ground and build a visual history from what you find.  There are a number of talented artists on this site that do just that, but I want to point to the works of Frank Weir, not only because they are evocative of what life must have been like back then, but also because he's my uncle and it's the least I can do for all the cool art work he's given me over the years. 

Please take the time to check out some of these links...

Texas Beyond History

Frank Weir Artwork on TBH

Other Work by Frank Weir

Now if I just had inherited a small percentage of his artistic skill.... ;-)

Boerne-Champion Soccer vs Abilene Wylie

I took the opportunity to shoot some soccer in daylight at the recent tournament hosted by Boerne-Champion high school. The team usually plays at 7PM, so even though it was an overcast day, it was better than being under stadium lights. Soccer is/was my sport so it was great to be there, vicariously wishing I was playing or even refereeing...yeah, even did that for 15 years at the amateur level.

A good tutorial on shooting soccer can be found on the Canon Professional Network by John McDermott, a Sports Illustrated soccer shooter for over 30 years.

Boerne-Champion Soccer

(backgrounds, backgrounds, backgrounds....ugh, clean backgrounds are critical to great shots and I think there's only one decent background at the Boerne High School stadium. ;-)

Boerne-Champion JV Football Selects 2008