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Monday Night Football, at Arrowhead, on Halloween night….for the second straight season, the Chargers visited KC on a Monday night. On a scheduling quirk, I had a three-weekend break from the Chiefs so I was happy to get back on the sidelines. When I “left” the Chiefs, they were 0-3, reeling, with much discussion about the head coach getting fired. Cue up three weeks later and three straight wins and KC was playing for a share of first place (albeit very early in the season).
The crowd was raucous, the weather was unseasonably warm for October and following a slew of turnovers from both teams, the Chargers were marching towards a certain field goal and a win in the final minute. In one of those happenings that only happens TO the Chiefs, Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers fumbled a simple snap from center and even more improbable, KC recovered. The game moves to overtime (always popular among deadline photographers) and the Chiefs prevail, winning on a 30-yard field goal and move to 4-3 on the season. Chiefs defensive players donned “Scream” masks in a photo I never thought I would shoot in my lifetime. (The Chiefs have a sense of humor? Someone’s getting fined!) I’m still shaking my head as to how the Chiefs won.
Many kudos to Star staffer Mike Ransdell for his deadline editing skills and as always, John Sleezer for his prowess with the big glass…
Nov 02, 2011 | Categories:editorial, sports | Comments Off
Earlier in the season when the NFL schedule came out, the Chiefs drew a home opener against Buffalo and a road game against Detroit. That’s a pretty good way to warm up before getting to the meat of the really outstanding teams. Well, with a combined score of 89-10, the Chiefs are clearly the worst team in the NFL right now. And to add insult to (another) injury, in the first quarter, Jamaal Charles goes down with a torn ACL, out for the season. The only thing that was missing was the Angel of Death walking out on the field and shaking a scythe at the Chiefs, because they are DONE.
Hey, it’s tough to show how bad a team is playing. Here is my best from the 48-3 loss to the Lions (read that again, a 48-3 loss to the Lions!). Thing is, I have 14 more weeks to practice on exactly that.
On more positive notes, my Mark IV and 70-200 work much better after a week at the Canon repair shop. And Slows BBQ is legitimately good pulled pork.
Sep 18, 2011 | Categories:editorial, sports | Comments Off
Sunday, September 11, 2011. The tenth anniversary of the four terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. was remembered around the world on Sunday. One of those places was Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, prior to the season opener against the Buffalo Bills. Back in 2001, the NFL wisely postponed games for a week and in their return, the Chiefs hosted the New York Giants. I can recall Chiefs fans, generally fairly rabid about their team, gave the Giants a standing ovation on their entry in the stadium. Signs papered the interior ring of Arrowhead in support of New York and its citizens. Today, a ceremony featuring first responders, firefighters and police joined with players in holding a football-field sized American flag with a military flyover. It was a gorgeous summer day in Kansas City.
The game itself, well, the Chiefs were run out of their own stadium by the Bills in a 41-7 loss, a game that the Chiefs were widely expected to win. The Chiefs won the coin toss, chose to receive the kickoff…..and fumbled the opening kickoff of the season! Now that’s a bad sign. Of course, Buffalo marched in for an easy touchdown and the rout was on. The offense was nonexistent and the defense was porous to say the least. Chiefs fans were so few in the fourth quarter that they were easily countable in their seats. The season may be a long one after a performance like this….much like in 2008 and 2009, where the Chiefs combined for a total of six wins.
Sep 11, 2011 | Categories:personal work | Comments Off
Aug 21, 2011 | Categories:editorial, sports | Comments Off
One of my favorite things to photograph is football, so in order to do so, I have to get in training myself for the upcoming season. This involves drinking many, many Gatorades, fretting about getting a variety of pictures daily for nearly three weeks and not the least of which, standing in the broiler-ready sun in St. Joseph, Mo. for every practice of the Kansas City Chiefs summer training camp. At the halfway point of this year’s camp, I took stock of my coverage so far.
Due to the NFL collective bargaining agreement, players now can only be in pads for one practice a day, which has been a blessing, let me tell you (thank you NFLPA!). The challenge of covering a training camp for any team is overcoming the simple fact that every day, the team pretty much does exactly what they did the previous day. Rinse, lather, repeat. The other things you might notice is that every picture in this blog (and pretty much every frame I’ve made) is with a 600mm lens. I carry a 70-200 and a wide angle zoom but they go untouched nearly every day as still and video photographers at Chiefs camp are mixed among the fans. No inside the ropes access, no getting closer for anything creative….it’s all Hubble telescope photography. The Chiefs like to be insulated from the media, so we all make due the best we can.
As one of the few still photographers, I try to wiggle out a little access here and there but mostly I’m looking for the smallest of variety every day to leap open. At the end of practice last week, a fan gave a yellow flower to quarterback Matt Cassel after an autograph session. Thirty minutes after a hot afternoon practice ended, Chiefs center Casey Wiegmann brought his three-year-old son onto the field for a little instruction on how to hike the ball to Dad. Neither are important pictures for the sports department but it’s a little whimsy in the field of monotony of daily training camp.
Aug 09, 2011 | Categories:personal work | Comments Off
One photojournalist’s work I dig are the vibrant visual stylings of Florida-based Chip Litherland (www.chiplitherland.com) who really, really, really loves primary colors in his pictures. I had an assignment to photograph a concert in Kansas City last week and right when the light show started on the headliner band, Umphrey’s McGee, I immediately thought, “man, Chip would love this show.” So here it is in its’ bright Pantone glory, Chip. (The opening band, Quixotic Fusion, a combination of music and dance, was actually the highlight of the concert with some pretty cool visuals and sound. Who doesn’t love dancers spinning with fire??)
Jul 08, 2011 | Categories:editorial | Comments Off
A Wednesday in the summer. “Um, we need a metro feature” comes the call. OK, I’m on it. Hey, it’s the summer, I can find something without too much worry, me thinks.
After an hour, I’m not overly concerned except for my draining gas tank driving around. The second hour, ok, some self-doubt is starting to creep into my mind. Now, the third hour, I’m going to have to wait something out. I stop at a farmer’s market out of no short amount of desperation. It’s me and a dozen or so people. I look around, there’s nothing here, I’m wasting time here. Fresh flowers come out of the back of a van, a bystander stops for a scent sampling. DONE!
Jul 08, 2011 | Categories:editorial | Comments Off
If you work at a newspaper, you’re going to pull a holiday shift sooner than later. Not including football games, we at the Star get a holiday shift or two every year and while I technically didn’t work on the 4th, I had several shoots on the 2nd and the 3rd that were all about Independence Day. The annual fireworks purchasing photo was made after seeing a hand-painted sign in bright colors that I liked….all I had to do was wait until someone stepped into a shaft of sunlight. Of course, I had to stand in a busy street to make the photo, but you gotta do what you gotta do. A holiday riverfest celebration on the night of the 3rd was assigned specifically for the fireworks photo, but in the event of disaster and the fireworks NOT going off, I needed some deadline backup photos for the metro section.
The published photo of the night, the fireworks over the new Christopher Bond bridge, teased me with a start time of 10:05pm and a 10:30pm color deadline. My laptop was set up next to my tripod and thanks to the Verizon card, I could send my photo as soon as I imported it into my laptop.
Shooting fireworks is easy, it’s waiting for the show to begin that’s tough. The only wild card was the exposure issue, balancing the fireworks with the light on the bridge, so when the fireworks really started going off at the end of the show, the fireworks were TOO bright for the bridge exposure. I had a little assistance from a passing ambulance running with lights & sirens which gave me a nice horizontal light on the bridge. (Thanks 911 caller!) Deadline made it with 10 minutes to spare, easy as pie.
Jul 08, 2011 | Categories:editorial | Comments Off
Five days after opening Livestrong Sporting Park with a sold-out Sporting Kansas City home opener, the Gold Cup arrived in Kansas City with national teams from the United States, Panama, Canada and Guadeloupe for a doubleheader at the brand new soccer stadium in Kansas City, Kan. I’m starting to feel like soccer will catch on in KC with the new stadium (at least while the newness makes it the place to be.)
The first match between Canada and Panama was your typical soccer match….one goal scored on a penalty kick and it appeared that Canada would win 1-0 when the game entered stoppage time in the second half. Panama went on a blitz around the goal and forced a goal past the Canadian keeper and all hell broke loose with the Panama team literally mobbing their scorer by jumping all over him. A minute later, the game was over in a 1-1 tie.
Over 20,000 flag-waving fans greeted the US team as they entered the pitch (see, I’m getting all the soccer terms now) against Guadeloupe. Four minutes into the match, Guadeloupe nearly scores with a shot that hit the crossbar, which looked like it woke the US team up from its groggy start. The US had a ton of great chances for scoring but only got one goal in, but hey, in soccer, a 1-0 win still works.
The only really odd part of the evening was that security was more strict than I’ve ever seen it in any sport. I know soccer fans can be loco, but photographers weren’t allowed in the main hallway to exit until the team left the building. I’m still scratching my head about that as we had to leave through the loading dock.
Jun 15, 2011 | Categories:editorial, sports | Comments Off
