Robert Hanashiro

SPORTS SHOOTER v.96

15 November 2006

LEADING OFF. Lakers "Lights Out" Puts The Light back On The Court.
By Robert Hanashiro, Sports Shooter

"Backgrounds. Backgrounds. Backgrounds."
Brad Mangin
Sports Shooter Workshop & Luau 2002

In this age where every stadium and arena looks like the starting line at a NASCAR race or the arrivals line at a Hollywood premiere, what the Los Angeles Lakers have done at Staples Center this season has defied sports marketing logic.

At the Lakers regular season home opener against Golden State, fans and photographers found the team's promotional campaign "Lights Out" was a misnomer ... the lights were out all right, over the seating areas ... and they were ON over the court.

Describing this new look as actually a nostalgic look, the team said that owner Dr. Jerry Buss missed the way the game looked when the Lakers played at their old home, the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood. Having worked games at the Forum for many years, I didn't think anyone really missed the place, other than the exterminator or car jackers that hung out in the outer parking lots at nights.

Buss said that he wanted a "more dramatic look" and actually paid to have temporary lights hung just along the edges of the court, with the light focused almost like spots onto the playing area. The lighting is so focused, that there is nearly a stop falloff on the courtside "Jack Seats".

The Lakers said a survey of fans and players after the first game indicated that dimming lighting over the seating area made "the game the center of the action." Wow ... it seemed for the past several years the "center of action" at NBA games was what celebs were at the game and the advertising plastered all over every open area in the arena.

A colleague said that on opening night agency shooters took a look at the "Lights Out" in the seating areas and complained that the Lakers were costing them money because they couldn't shoot their usual head shots of celebs with a 400mm from the baseline photo spots.

Score one for "Lights Out"!

At a recent Staples doubleheader --- Clippers - Hornets at 12:30, Lakers - Grizzlies at 6:30 --- the difference between the photos shot at each game was very noticeable and as Buss wanted, dramatic.

Shooting at basically the same exposure for both games, ASA 1000 1/500 @ f/2.8, the photos shot during the Lakers game had a real pop to them. Down court with a long lens was like shooting against a black velvet backdrop.

I also think the auto-focus is a little snappier because the entire court is so contrasty. I'm sure there will be some techno-geek that will argue that it's not possible, but my photographs seemed sharper... like the ones I shot on strobes in the old Forum.

The "Lights Out" promotion was suppose to be just for opening night. But the team announced this week that the new look was so "popular with fans and players" they are continuing it for the remainder of the season.

During a time out in the Lakers game last Sunday I asked a TV cameraman if he liked the "Lights Out" look and he exclaimed "it sucks!" He went on to say that producers like to see the crowds, especially celebrities at the Laker games. The difference in light between the court and the seating area is so great that the cameras take a bit to adjust when swinging from action to the fans ... I guess it means less TV time for celebs attending games (usually there to promote a new movie) and fans waving stupid foam fingers...

A SLAM DUNK for "Lights Out"!

* * *

Sometimes you can teach an "old dog" new tricks ...

Sports Shooter Academy III was recently held in Orange County and the experience was educational, enlightening, inspiring and a little exhausting.

Putting on educational programs is my way of "giving back" to a profession that's been pretty good to me. But I also have a selfish reason for doing them: I get a heck of a lot out of them myself.

Working with a fabulous faculty ... Matt Brown, Wally Skalij, Donald Miralle, Michael Goulding and Myung Chun ... is motivation enough. But what I get out of working with the students and working pros that attend is a real kick. I learn a lot from ALL of them as well.

Watching the hustle of students Daryl Peveto, Carlos Delgado and Will Godfrey ... the steady improvement made in three days by Marcus Yam, Tiffany Isreal, Steve Kashishian, Kristen Nichols, Jon Malis, Melih Onvural, Scott Mussell, Kirk Irwin, Jeff Conner, Gabriel Gonzalez, David Pardo, Talya Arbisser, Grant Morris, Charlie Litchfield, Tommy Whitcomb, Chad Ryan, William Hallstrom, et al ... made the long hours and sleepless nights planning the workshop worthwhile.

I even learned a lot from the questions they ask me...it made me reexamine why I do something a particular way. They all really made ME think!

Seeing the photographers at swimming, soccer and basketball search around the venues for that different, interesting place to shoot from gave me pause and I started to think about places in Staples Center and Dodger Stadium I should be looking at to shoot from.

I preached: "A photo position is not just the baseline at basketball or the outside first box at baseball... it's where you see a cool photograph". I have to practice what I preach.

As Matt likes to say at The Academy: "It's REAL WORLD experience folks!" The intensity of shooting 2 or 3 events a day and having your worked evaluated each night is about as real world as a workshop can get. The critique sessions were hectic and fast-paced. I roamed, watched, listened and LEARNED as the faculty and workshop students talked about their work ---what they were thinking, what they were seeing and discussed how they could improve.

We did something new for SSA III, the instructors each had to shoot at least one event and we had the participants critique our work. Needless to say there was a little pent up hostility released! The comments were lively, funny and often stinging ... but for the most part right on. I think we will keep that as a regular feature in any future Academy workshops!

An event like this is definitely a labor of love. But it doesn't just happen with a wave of a magic wand. Canon, USA, Think Tank Photo, Samy's Camera and Apple Computers provided us with tremendous support.

Each night Canon's Jim Rose and Michael Nadler worked late making prints for display around our workspace. Each morning they distributed equipment and helped participants with their questions about gear.

Doug Murdoch and Think Tank generously provided our prizes for the top photographs made during SSA III. They also provided lots of goodies for each of the registered participants and the faculty.

Louis Feldman and Samy's worked behind the scenes in OC giving discounts for rental equipment and providing us with an LCD projector so we could conduct the classroom sessions and have a slideshow each night to showcase the day's best work.

Both the participants and The Academy staff put the iMac workstations Apple sent to good use each day.

Thanks also go out to SSA II alum Jenn Jedynak for giving everyone a very COOL Sports Shooter Academy III "Go Bold Or Go Home" t-shirt. Her support for this event is not just to be acknowledged and thanked ... but also admired.

We had two "assistants" --- Jordan Murph and Crystal Chatham --- that worked tirelessly and with a smile. They are both Academy alums and now an essential part of what makes this workshop as good as it is.

Kirk Baker from CameraBits helped us with our basic digital work flow class ... and spent time with many participants one-on-one giving them tips and advise on using their editing software Photo Mechanic.

The faculty of this workshop are all great photographers, but it's their good cheer, vision, desire and dedication to improving our craft that inspires me and puts them at the top of this profession.

USA TODAY's involvement in my Sports Shooter projects cannot be overlooked. If my bosses at the paper ... Richard Curtis, Frank Folwell, Mick Cochran and Julia Schmalz ... didn't have the same vision I have for helping students and improving photojournalism, none of this would be possible.

A big thanks to my SportsShooter.com family for their help and support ... Brad, Grover, Jason and Joe.

And lastly a big MAHALO to my real family, my very patient wife and daughter Deanna and Emma.

* * *

We have a double issue of the Sports Shooter Newsletter! Because of the Sports Shooter Academy I had to delay work on this issue. But to make up for it, we have packed it with a lot of cool features and articles.

Megan Lovett from the Beaufort Gazette writes about her project on female marine recruits and David Leeson of the Dallas Morning News issues a wake up call for photojournalism.

Our World Series coverage includes a wrap up by Brad Mangin and Elie Gardner writes how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch incorporated various techniques for their online coverage.

Michael McNamara tells us why stitched panoramas are his new passion and the Fresno Bee's Tomas Ovalle walks us through his trip on the John Muir Trail. Tim Mantoani writes about a nightmare trip but reminds us "...this was the life of a sports photographer, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, I love this job."

Patrick, Murphy-Racey ponders "Bagger Vance" and Michael Jordan; Paul Myers contributes another "Preaching to the Choir" column; Chris Detrick tells us how he made Utah Jazz players "float" and Bob Deutsch discovers the "Chris Lee Button".

We start a new regular feature on technology for photographers by Zach Honig, "Batteries Not Included". George F. Lee of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and freelance photographer Aaron Nagata recounts the recent earthquake that shook Hawaii.

Wow!

So sit back, relax, adjust the contrast on your monitor, crank up the volume on that Eric Burdon & the Animals disk ... and enjoy Sports Shooter v. 96!

* * *

Boot Camp An Experience For Recruits and Photographer
By Megan Lovett, Beaufort Gazette

At midnight during a July thunderstorm in South Carolina, I was getting cut down to size by an 18-year-old Long Islander on maybe the worst night of her life. She had enlisted in Marine Corps, had just been told she could no longer say "I" or "me," and most of her possessions had been taken from her. When she called her family for the final time before three months of boot camp hell, she heard her mom cry and say "I love you" and was not allowed to reciprocate. Except the crying -- she did a lot of that. And what did I do? Stood 5 feet away and took her picture.

Removed from her the drill instructors, the angry recruit snapped that I was making this grueling experience worse. She clearly hated me. I'd waited years for this, and only a few hours into it, I felt like I wanted to stop. Immediately, I had lost my observer status and become part of the story. This was way more hardcore than I expected when the idea of a female Marine recruits story first hatched in my brain.

The first thing I noticed about Beaufort, SC when I moved here three years ago was the coastal scenery, so photogenic that dozens of movies have been filmed here. The second thing was the Marines. F/A-18 jets buzz our homes with "the sound of freedom," rifle fire can be heard echoing at a local beach and half the cars on the road feature Marine Corps stickers, "support our troops" ribbons, etc. The Marines are a huge part of our economy and our culture and are impossible to ignore. But behind The Beaufort Gazette's consistent military coverage was a story that hadn't been told. It was the story of the young women of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.

The Marine Corps splits its male enlisted recruits at the Mississippi River, sending eastern recruits here and western recruits to San Diego. But all enlisted women come to Parris Island. Female Marines are common enough, but the recruits were few and always just out of reach. They were like rare birds begging for documentation. How do they learn to stifle their emotions, endure the pain while keeping their hair pristinely groomed? How do they become 110-pound warriors?

I was fascinated by these questions, but the story went nowhere. The base wasn't cooperative and the newsroom was busy with other projects.

One big lesson in this is that things can change with patience. I finally reaped the benefits of staying at one paper while nearly all my coworkers jumped to the next opportunity. After more than a year of pitching the story, The Beaufort Gazette hired a new military reporter, Mizzou grad Lori Yount. I had underestimated how much could happen by teaming up with a female journalist. Lori immediately got the concept and was totally committed. My idea was suddenly being taken seriously.

Lori handled the bulk of the base negotiations, which was a huge job. It seems like you have to ask for everything at least three times and still won't always get it. We wanted to visit two or three times a week and experience a mix of training and personal time. The Marines' counter proposal was scaled back to one visit a week, with a rare second visit thrown in. Only one of our 18 visits would be on the recruits' personal time and it wouldn't come until they were two-thirds of the way through boot camp. And we were absolutely not to single out individuals repeatedly. Recruit training, we were told, was about breaking down the individual, not building up celebrities.

It was the opposite of insightful journalism, but it seemed wiser to make do than abandon the project. Lori and I added some wiggle room and tried not to be too pessimistic.

And so it began on that rainy summer night, with crying teens and screaming drill instructors. And it went on for a few weeks, the recruits still out of reach and I was panicked and mad. We showed up at our pre-negotiated times (often a mind-crushing 6:30 a.m.), watched the training for a couple of hours and went home. During interviews, Lori would get stories of things we were not allowed to see: Friendships and conflicts blooming in the off-limits living quarters and challenges at events we weren't scheduled to witness. Injured recruits would just disappear, and we couldn't follow up with them. While Lori could tell the stories through the interviews, I felt completely shut out. I was trapped shooting a training manual with no personal insights.

Again, patience. I made a silent bond with the recruits through eye contact, an occasional shared joke or short greeting. I let them know we would not scold them for smiling. Lori teased out a narrative, and I would watch for evidence of these inner lives. The public affairs staff's fear that the women would become celebrities was offset by the fact that we held the stories until October, when the major events were over.

We stuck with about two-dozen recruits of the 60 in our platoon, watching for any little details that would illuminate their story. Our one and only "personal time" visit was awesome. Without a drill instructor barking orders, their full personalities emerged and they briefly stopped calling me "ma'am." We pieced together a lot of information that day to bolster our narrative.

I shot more than 3,000 images and we ran the story in a four-part series every Thursday in October. We had a section front and a double truck for each installment and what didn't run in the paper was put in web slideshows. I tried for sound, but unfortunately we're just not ready yet.

We called our project Sisters of the Corps. The name referenced the bonds they forged and their place within the Corps, but it easily could have summed up how I feel about them. I am protective and proud. These young women have graduated, not from some tough summer camp but from warrior training. But that means they'll be sent to war with guns.

With the same enthusiasm that I cheered their boot camp victories, I worry about their safety. Women aren't sent to the "front lines" of combat, but they do man security posts and drive convoy trucks. And they still have a minority status in a mostly male fleet, with dangers of harassment and the difficulties of having a family. I have many more questions, many more project ideas.

On graduation day, the crying recruit from our first day approached me. She'd finally seen our stories, and I was scared she'd rip into me again. But instead, she apologized for snapping at me. I apologized for embarrassing her. Both of us made it to the end.

(Megan Lovett is a staff photographer with the Beaufort Gazette. You can see her work at her SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=5874.)

* * *

Preserving Our Vision
By David Leeson, Dallas Morning News.

Six years ago I began work on a philosophy designed to meet something I perceived as a threat to our profession - the demand for rich content, primarily through video.

I knew that still photos would remain forever - the undisputed champion for visual reporting. Actually, it could be the victor of ALL forms of journalistic reports. But, of course, I am prejudiced to the eloquence of the unmoving image that seems to move hearts and minds better than any.

But I also knew that we were about to be overrun by hordes of reality: circulation drops, declining reader demographics, bloggers kicking the ass of traditional media, iPods and podcasting, YouTube, MySpace - the list seems endless. Our best answer at that time seemed to be no answer at all.

As we buried our heads in the sand, our industry continued naively down a road marked with signs that said, "Bridge Out." Warnings of future peril didn't stop our presses, still cranking out newspapers from a gazillion sacrificial trees so we could print news everyone else was reading on the web before it even reached a TV newscast. Undeterred, we sent out our aged missives each day to be tossed over the roof of someone's burdened car onto the curb where another member of a fading demographic waited to smell the newsprint. In other words, surely you've considered that the cultural shifts have pitted us in a battle we can't win using traditional means of journalistic "warfare."

Somewhere along the way we became outdated. The word archaic seems fitting. Most of us still are and consider still images combined with audio as something highly innovative even though folks like Shelley Katz, a former Time magazine photographer, was doing that in 1970 for TV broadcast on WFAA in Dallas. Audio and stills can sometimes be an effective storytelling mechanism. All too often it is not.

Some of the older newspaper photographers remember the battles fought against authoritative newspaper designers. Our mantra was that design should follow the efficacy of the image and not the other way around. We fought type on top of our photos. We fought the cropping of horizontal images into verticals at the whim of "outsiders" who always screamed about page layouts and better design. Our response was to use our cameras to best their argument day in and day out with images that demanded respect.

Today, legions of us scrape together an extra 20 or 30 images that would have never been selected for publication a decade ago. Then, we string them together to create a (shudder) multimedia package. Here's some news for you - audio won't make bad editing any better. But what really disturbs me is a nagging question - has design finally won? It would be just like those slick designers to sneak up on us like that. Sigh.

Some of you have heard rumors and whispers of the work I have been doing in video since 2000. I'm grateful that a fair number of my colleagues apparently respect me enough to not tell me exactly how they feel about my "new" role in photojournalism. So, let me clarify what I've been doing. I've been fighting to preserve your vision. I've been waging war against a myriad of personal agendas while at the same time questioning my own.

I've agonized over my purpose and feel positive that I can declare myself purely motivated by preservation of photojournalism. Still images will remain but video has grown. Sometimes my beloved industry reminds me of a distant aunt visiting a reunion for the first time in 25 years. Last time you saw her you were sitting in a booster seat. Today she appears a tad smaller than before and marvels at how big you've become. Video was a child when most of us first picked up a 35mm. Now, video is all grown up and on its way to becoming a powerful storytelling tool.

The 35mm SLR is slowly being replaced by HDV cameras at places like the Dallas Morning News but the tradition of powerful photojournalism remains through our frame grabs. Why? Because we approach video reporting in the same way we photographed essays. Video isn't just video anymore, just like your photos stopped being "snaps."

If you had the skills in video today - there would be a very long list of opportunities before you. To move forward in life requires a measure of risk. There is no greatness outside of risk. The future of the traditional newspaper is looking pretty risky these days but the health of solid visual reporting is getting stronger every day by those of us who value visual journalism and ethical storytelling above and beyond a 35mm.

If you're still struggling with this then take a look at your average construction worker paid to build a house. Imagine showing up at the job site with only a circular saw. You walk around discussing RPM and torque. You talk about a recent seminar you attended about proper saw techniques. But, then, the boss approaches and asks you to hammer a nail. Unfortunately, you don't have a hammer and your beloved circular saw won't do the job. The moral of the story is that the purpose of the job was to get a house built and not to cut some wood.

The same is true for us. The purpose of the photojournalist is to visually report with honest and ethical stories - and, hopefully, change lives. It's the people that matter - not your photos. Your 35mm has always been nothing more than a tool for getting a job done. You may love it (and I assure you that none of you love it more than I do) but it isn't your purpose in life as a journalist.

(David Leeson is on the staff of the Dallas Morning News. To see his work, check his personal website at: http://www.davidleeson.com/.)

* * *

The 2006 World Series: From Greektown to The Hill
By Brad Mangin, Major League Baseball Photos

When I made the 800-mile drive to cover spring training in Arizona way back in February of 2006 I never would have thought that I would be covering the World Series eight months later in the first and second most dangerous cities in the United States: St. Louis and Detroit. 2006 ended up being a funny season for me to cover. The first pictures I shot on February 28 in Scottsdale were of Barry Bonds dressed as Paula Abdul and the last pictures I shot on October 27 in St. Louis were of the Cardinals celebrating their first World Series title since 1982.

Sure, Tony La Russa's Cardinals are perennial contenders in the National League, but the last time I remember shooting the Tigers for a story it was about how bad they were. However, after new skipper Jim Leyland led his Tigers past the Oakland A's in the ALCS, ruining a chance for us in the Bay Area to enjoy hosting a few games of the World Series, I knew I would be heading off to the Motor City to shoot the first two games of the Fall Classic against the winner of the Cardinals vs. Mets series.

I had not been to Detroit since I shot a few games at Tiger Stadium way back in 1994. I LOVED Tiger Stadium. Being on assignment for Upper Deck back then I was not allowed to shoot on the field and had to settle for working from the overhead baskets- but it did not matter. Tiger Stadium was the coolest old park I had ever seen. This trip would be different as I would get the chance to cross a new ballpark off my list and work at the Tigers' new yard: Comerica Park, which opened in 2000.

I traveled to Detroit a day early, on Thursday October 19. Game 1 was to open the Series a few nights later on Saturday. We still did not know who would be playing the Tigers until the National league pennant was decided at Shea Stadium in New York that night. When the Cards beat the Mets in a thrilling Game 7 classic, punching our tickets for St. Louis for Games 3, 4 and 5 of the World Series I knew I would get to cross a SECOND new park off my list: the NEW Busch Stadium.

I was lucky to be working my seventh Series in a row with the Major League Baseball Photos team led by Director of Photography Rich Pilling and Photo Editor Paul Cunningham. Joining me as a photographer on the team, as usual, was Chicago White Sox team photographer Ron Vesely. Our foursome has spent a lot of time together the past seven Octobers in ballparks, airp***s, hotels, restaurants, bars and rental cars and somehow we have all lived to tell about it. Barely.

Following are some observations and comments after spending several fun-filled days covering all five World Series games (and a rain out) in Detroit and St. Louis:

* Detroit had the best post game party since the Mets in 2000 (ice sculptures, sushi and cooked-to-order pasta)- at least that is what Vesely and I think. The Tigers hosted their VIP's and us media freeloaders upstairs in the Tiger Club after Games 1 and 2. The wonderful atmosphere, great food and huge selection of beverages at the bars made all of us cold, tired, hungry and thirsty photographers VERY happy. Just when you think that the ball clubs don't care about us media-types an organization like the Tigers steps up to the plate and treats us right. I think Sporting News intern Matthew Kutz is STILL fetching Sporting News staffer Robert Seale and I Chocolate Devotion Cold Stone ice cream and Getty Images staffer Jonathan Daniel (more on him later) is probably still wandering around the Tiger Club at Comerica Park telling hilarious tales about Indiana Hoosiers' familial dating habits.

* 2006 might go down as the year the World Series press pins jumped the shark. This years offerings from both the Tigers and the Cardinals were so cheap and generic looking that when we first got our Tigers pins in Detroit we thought they were a joke. Really. We thought someone at MLB gave these pins to us just to pull a joke on Pilling. We were wrong. The tradition of the press pin goes back over 100 years when the pin actually acted as your credential to cover the Series. Over the years they have always been highly sought-after and later sold for big piles of cash at memorabilia shows or on eBay. This years pins are both going for over $125 apiece on eBay. Maybe that is because they are scarcer than in the past? I know I sound like the classic whiny photographer- but that is OK because it comes with the territory! We all love to piss and moan when the parking sucks, the food sucks, the light sucks, the weather sucks, the backgrounds suck, the game sucks and the pins suck! But there is some good news: despite the best efforts of guys in suits, it seems like most of the working shooters covering the Series were able to get their pins thanks to the above-mentioned Mr. Pilling who had to fight for a few boxes to hand out to all of us.

* If you are ever in a strange town and want to know where to find a good bar make sure you check with the local photographers. St. Louis freelancers Dilip Vishwanat and Tom Gannam turned our group onto a great place a few miles west of Busch Stadium called The Scottish Arms. This place turned out to be a great place to unwind after marking photo positions at Busch Stadium on the travel day before Game 3 and after a few of the ballgames. How can you go wrong with a place that pours thick porters and allows you to smoke cigars? I knew this place had to be cool when Haight Ashbury-dwelling Getty staffer Jed Jacobsohn dropped in after Game 3 for a pint and a smoke.

* It isn't a World Series for our group at MLB Photos unless we get to dine at an Italian restaurant with legendary photographers Mickey Palmer and Johnny Iacono. This year was no different as the pair joined the Sporting News crew and us in St. Louis for a wonderfully entertaining meal at Charlie Gitto's on The Hill. Getting the chance to hear these lifelong friends argue and tell stories is worth the price of admission alone. Hearing Johnny Eye tell stories about guarding the ORIGINAL and ONLY copy of the Zapruder film in the early 1960's as he showed the film to various law-enforcement agencies, including Scotland Yard, was off the charts. If you are ever at an event with Mickey and Johnny you must offer to take them out and buy them dinner- ANYWHERE they want to go. You will not be sorry.

* Jonathan Daniel is the funniest man on the p***t. OK- I might be exaggerating a little bit- but trust me. Getty Images staffer (and now Cheesehead) JD is the type of guy you want to be around when you have four hours to kill before a ballgame- or SIX hours to kill in a tunnel during a rain out, like we had before Game 4 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I do not get to see JD much as he never works in the Bay Area and I never get to the Midwest- unless there is a World Series there. Therefore- it is always a highlight getting the chance to hang out with shooters like him at events like this and JD provided us with one of the funniest "you had to be there" moments many of us have witnessed in a long time during the rain delay. JD was taking a nap in the Busch Stadium tunnel around the corner from the photo workroom when FOX Sports reporter Chris Myers awakened him. In front of many of us who were waiting out a long rain delay Myers woke JD up and shoved a FOX microphone in front of his face while jokingly asking him "Is this a union job?" JD wasted no time by replying, while laying down with a deadpanned tone in his voice, "Why don't you go eat a bag of dicks." I know what you are thinking. You just had to be there. You really did as the horrified Myers scurried away amid howls of laughter.

* The fun continued for me (and after all that is one of my highest priorities at the World Series- trying to have fun. Thanks V.J.!) when Game 4 was finally played the night after the JD incident and I had the amazing opportunity to shoot alongside the above-mentioned Mickey Palmer and Johnny Iacono from a first base overhead position at Busch Stadium. Ron Vesely had shot in our MLB Photos position in Game 3 and had to juggle his feet and monopod on a few milk crates to see over the fans in front of him. That did not sound like much fun to me so I hung out with Mickey and Johnny before the game a few feet to the left of our assigned spot. I was then invited to join them in their own little standing spot to shoot the game in front of a TV camera that was not blocked too badly by the fans.

These two are always fun to hang out with and shooting a World Series game in between the two of them is something I will never forget. I have the unique pleasure of getting the chance to have lunch and shoot several times a week with Mickey during the regular season in the Bay Area, but I only get the chance to see Johnny at special events like the Series. During the game I had weird heat wave problems making many of my images appear soft and mushy. Johnny Eye didn't seem to have any problems and didn't let me forget it the next day when I was making excuses for having lousy pictures from Game 4. Maybe Johnny's Nikon glass does a better job of cutting through the heat waves coming out of the Cardinals dugout below than my Canon glass. I don't know. All I do know is Johnny made some great pictures that night that were TACK sharp and most of mine sucked. But then you know what they say- it's not the equipment it's the photographer. In this case I am happy to take a back seat to Johnny- just for the memories I will cherish for the privilege of shooting between these two sports photography icons.

* I had heard the stories. I could almost picture it in my mind. However, until I had the pleasure of seeing the home of Sports Illustrated staff photographer David Klutho in suburban St. Louis I could not appreciate it. Wow what a place! Klutho was kind enough to host many of the local shooters and us out-of-towners for a BBQ lunch before Game 4 of the Series and were we ever thankful. Klutho's parties are legendary and this little BBQ he "threw together" was pretty amazing. Between the food, (brats, burgers, toasted raviolis and more) the air hockey and the spectacular showing of his 3D photography it was an afternoon that will not be soon forgotten. I still can't get over the fact that people in the Midwest do not have backyard fences. I guess I have lived in California too long!

* Congratulations go out to St. Cardinals team photographers Dan Donovan and Scott Rovak who celebrated their first Series victory with the club. Dan and Scott were wonderful hosts in St. Louis and I hope to see World Series rings on their fingers the next time I see them. I also want to mention how nice it was to meet Tigers team photographer Mark Cunningham who made his Series debut this year. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of Mark in the coming years.

* As usual the best part of covering the Series is getting the chance to see so many old friends and getting the chance to make new ones. The worst part of the Series ending is saying goodbye to everyone at the final post game party. I know it sounds crazy, but I would not have minded if the Tigers would have won Game 5 and forced us to drive all night to Detroit right after the game so we could be there in time for Game 6 the next night. Then we could have had one more crack at the Tigers post game festivities in the Tiger Club and Kutz could have fetched Seale and I some Birthday Cake Remix.

It is only about 100 days before I begin my annual drive to Scottsdale for Cactus League baseball. My hotel room was booked in September and I can hardly wait for the first big group dinner at the Italian Grotto with all my friends. Until then I will have to spend the dark and rainy days editing and archiving the 100 or so big league hardball games I shot during 2006. Anyone out there want to help me caption this stuff?

(Brad Mangin is a San Francisco-based freelance photographer. His many clients include Sports Illustrated and Major League Baseball Photos, for whom he shot the 2006 World Series.)

* * *

No Squeeze Play with STLtoday Coverage Of Cardinals World Series Run

By Elie Gardner, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Early in the baseball season, jokes about the Cardinals making the World Series were plentiful in our newsroom. But, as we know in the news business, nothing ever turns out the way we predict, and planning often becomes everything. Our plans for baseball playoff coverage at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch started well before the first pitch was thrown in San Diego.

World Series coverage is a prime example of why the Internet is important for news. With five photographers and three editors at the stadium, others covering the series in the community and a multitude of reporters, we were producing more quality content than newsprint could hold, even with our special sections. The Web allowed us to showcase many photos and stories that would otherwise have been stuck archived on a hard drive, waiting to be used as file art or put in a book.

This football season, STLtoday.com started producing Game Day Replay - a recap of every Rams' football game by online sports columnist and blogger Jeff Gordon paired with photos from the game, usually by photographer Chris Lee. Sports content on the Web drives traffic, so when the Cards made the playoffs, it was a no-brainer to produce a similar multimedia package recapping each playoff game. Playoff Replay became the name.

How it Happened, Technically

Jeff Gordon had a portable recorder. He recorded himself giving the recap and emailed it to our online staff. >From there, I took the audio and converted it to MP3 format. I listened to the audio carefully. If specific players and/or plays were mentioned, I looked for the corresponding images as I edited. With that said, the marriage of words and pictures wasn't always so easy. For example, if Gordon decided to talk about pitchers for the entire two minutes, I didn't want to bore the viewer by editing only pitcher photos. Sometimes I took liberties in order to use the best images, but I always tried to keep the word/picture relationship in mind. I also worked against the clock. We aimed to have Replay up within an hour to an hour and a half after the games' completion. Consistency and speed is important to viewers on the Web. If Replay didn't get updated until the next day, it would get hits, but by then it's old news.

Making the Series
When the Cards made the Series, we knew we wanted to produce more than Playoff Replay - which morphed into World Series Replay. Photographer Huy Richard Mach, who I like to call the wizard, immediately volunteered to work his time-lapse magic.
(He produced a time-lapse video for opening day at the new Busch Stadium: http://graphics.stltoday.com/online/buschopen)

Director of Photography Larry Coyne, Mach and I met to discuss exactly how to cover the Series visually on the Web. The original plan was to produce two time-lapse videos from the same game - one of fans and the other of the field - that would then be used on the Web side by side synched up. This didn't go as planned, and we learned the secret to time-lapse video is positioning the camera high and wide.
Expressions on the fans' faces didn't translate when the frame changed so rapidly. Instead of the original plan, Mach produced an overall time lapse at Comerica Park and also, for something different, mounted a camera in the dugout. He also produced an overall time lapse at Busch Stadium. We wanted at least one time-lapse project from each stadium and, when we realized Game 5 could be the clincher, we knew it was the one we wanted to cover.
Lesson Learned: Be flexible. If something doesn't work the first time, don't give up. Learn from the experience and find a way to make it work.

More then Replay
In addition to Replay and the time-lapse videos, we wanted to provide fan color. This was a method of giving voice to the community and making them part of the coverage. We coordinated the feature pieces as well as we could with the feature articles in the newspaper. For the most part, they coincided, or, at least, related. In addition to taking photos, Mach recorded interviews with his subjects using a Marantz audio recorder.

When in Detroit, he FTPed the audio and photos to me in St. Louis, where I produced the pieces. When the Series came to St. Louis, I was on site and able to gather and edit the audio so that Mach could have more shooting time.
We also found a way to get the community involved on the Web and took that back to print with I Witness, STLtoday's reader-submitted photo zone. We created an album for the community to submit photos of their Spiezio soul patches. We used the paper to promo the album and received 60 photos of Spiezio in a couple days. From there, we edited a few of the best shots and used them in the paper, accompanied by a short article about the red facial fashion. All sixty photos are viewable on the web, and you can still submit your Spiezio: http://iwitness.stltoday.com.

Wear More than One Hat

Vital in our coverage was the attitudes of the photographers and editors involved, as many wore multiple hats. One of our photographers shot features pre-game and edited during the games. Mach shot, edited and programmed the entire World Series package for the Web. I was able to gather audio, edit and produce multimedia when the Series came to St. Louis. In addition, I covered a shooting spot at the end of Game 5 when we wanted to nail everything - the jube on the field, the fireworks in the sky and everything in between.

In planning for World Series coverage online, it was important for our online staff to know what the paper was doing and best translate that. But coverage didn't stop there, as we produced the multimedia extras and provided items online that there was no room for in print.

Other components of our online World Series coverage included downloadable desktop wallpapers made by our graphics department, a slideshow of archival photos from the 1968 World Series between the Cardinals and the Tigers, news feeds from the Detroit papers, interviews with our sports writers and columnists in our weekly Podcast (Inside St. Louis), blogs updated live during the game, downloadable PDFs of pages and much more, made possible by a dedicated online staff at the newspaper that was willing to work around the clock.

At the Post-Dispatch, I believe we are trying to make the Web a friend to the visual journalist. We all must continue to try innovative ways of using the Internet to best present and share our images.

We need to think big, think different and think for the net.
See our World Series coverage online: http://graphics.stltoday.com/online/cardinals_ws

(Elie Gardner is Online Photo Editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

* * *

Panoramas Fill Void In This Photographer's Heart
By Michael McNamara, The Lincoln Journal-Star

Since this is my first piece for the newsletter, I feel like a confession is in order: I'm pretty sure I have ADD. I think I've always known. I think everybody close to me kind of knows, too. So while I really like shooting sports, I'm never really satisfied with what I'm doing. I always want to be doing moreŠI feel like I bore myself easily. Trust me, when you have trouble entertaining yourself, you try new things.

Okay, where was I?

Shooting stitched panoramas has always been something I've toyed with, and it's always been like a best friend; I can play around with it and have a lot of fun, but we disappear from each other's lives for a year or so, and then when we meet up again, it's like we were never apart. (Light painting is like an ex that I go back to every once in awhile when I'm in a funk -- it's a little sexier and much more seductive Š but that's another topic.)

So, back to feeling a need to keep myself entertainedŠ The first time I did a panoramic that was more than a few 4x6 prints together was a 360º image of Columbia, MO. I was doing an assignment at a building in town, and I asked the maintenance guy with the keys if it was in fact the tallest building in the city. He said it was, and I could go check out the roof if I wanted. I went up, walked around the edge and made photos looking out over town. I shot about 20 separate photos and stitched them together back at the office, and made a quick laser print that I put on my locker.

Then, Trent Nelson's montage of John Stockton showed up on his member page, then in my mailbox in Sports Illustrated, and then finally in this very newsletter. "Hey, there might be an actual use for these," I said to myself. But around this time I was having a very gratifying affair with light painting, and I had no room for panoramas in my photo life.

Last year, I felt a void in my heart, and I decided it was time for a quick drink with my friend the panoramic. I went to Busch Stadium a couple weeks before it was going to be torn down. The Cardinals were playing the Padres in the NLDS and Albert Dickson and I were shooting the games in St. Louis. During the final day game at the old stadium, I did a couple panoramas from the top row, knowing there was a spot for one in a book Sporting News published last year.

This season, I wanted to do a follow-up to last year's panoramic in the new Busch Stadium -- I was inspired after seeing Huy Richard Mach's time lapse video from opening day -- but I never made it over for a game when I had enough playtime. Then in mid August, I accepted a new job with the Lincoln Journal Star. I knew this meant I wouldn't get my chance to shoot the Cardinals again, but in the middle of packing, Albert called and said he had a credential for me for the NLCS, and I could come shoot if I wanted to. My better judgment told me to keep packing and watch the game on TV, but remember my first paragraph? I shot the game.

Originally, I planned on doing a panoramic with a 50, but there wasn't one available. Instead, I took a 16-35 and kept my fingers crossed that it would work while set on 35. As I was panning around the stadium, it was painfully obvious that I was fighting a losing battle. It was too loose. There was too much distortion on the corners. There was ghosting all over the place from the lights. There was no detail (which is why I love doing them in the first place).

The only other lens I had with me was a 600mm, so I figured I'd give it a try. If I kept my monopod in the same place, I could probably do something cool off the infield. In all the other panoramas I've shot, the p*** of focus was always the same, so I could see everythingŠI knew this one would be different, and since things would be very separated, I decided I wanted to accentuate the focus jumping around, and wanted all the seams to be visible.

The Cardinals took the field for the next half-inning, and I started blasting away. I decided my left edge would be the batboy, and my right edge would be a little beyond the dirt. So I started at the batboy, and made my way across the frame.

I immediately went to work putting it together when I got home from the game, and spent about eight hours getting it finished. The results were great, and I wished that I'd spent the entire game just working on it.

Since I took my new job at the Journal Star, I got lucky and got to shoot another panoramicŠthis time for the paper. ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to town last week, and because it was such a micromanaged situation, I took my tripod to shoot a couple panoramas during downtime. I showed them to Ted Kirk, the photo editor, and he liked them enough to have me go back and shoot one during the show's finale, when they "move that bus," because we wanted to show the readers what the entire scene looked like, instead of just showing the progress on the house. I took the lessons I learned from the NLCS and applied them on the Extreme Makeover set. I spent about 45 minutes just shooting for the panoramic, using my tripod and making small jpegs (the final print was still 80-inches wide). I did all of this with my 70-200 zoom set at 70mm. First, I shot a background panoramic, and then I dropped in things I wanted, like a fire truck, a street sweeper, lots of spectators and the motor coach.

Now for the geeky part. If you don't care to know how I did this, just stop reading now. I set a huge canvas size that I thought would begin to hold the images I wanted. I opened images about 20 at a time, and dragged them all onto the new canvas. I took one that seemed like it was in the middle, and put it off by itself. Then, I took one that overlapped it, and made sure it was arranged above the layer of the first image.

At that point, I changed the opacity of the layer I was moving to 50%, so I could see when things were lined up from image to image. Then, I put the opacity back to 100%, and started the process over again. And when I wanted to tweak the look, I would move the new layer further back in the order (so the newest images weren't always on the top). Because I really like consistency, when I do a panoramic, I usually set the white balance manually in the camera so it always stays the same. But this was the first time I'd done a panoramic at night and I set the white balance to auto in order to get some variation from image to image; I wanted inconsistencies within the final image. And I didn't flatten the image until I was completely done. I didn't want to lose any potential data by downsizing the image. When you have a ton of layers, the file size will be huge and saving will take a long time. Be patient and don't take any shortcuts. The results are worth it.

(Michael McNamara, formerly of The Sporting News, is now the Assistant Photo Editor of The Lincoln Journal Star. His work can been seen on his SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=715 )

* * *

In The Footsteps of John Muir
By Tomas Ovalle, The Fresno Bee

Standing 14, 447 feet above sea level, Mount Whitney is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states. Reporter Marek Warszawski, two hikers, Jim Hurley and Emily Franciskovich, and I climbed to the summit as part of the Fresno Bee's John Muir Trail Project, which sought to trace the footsteps of the eccentric conservationist John Muir, all the while recording the experience.

John Muir concluded that many of the Sierra Nevada Mountains were formed by the movement of giant glaciers. These glaciers also carved Yosemite Valley and many other breathtaking peaks and valleys. Inch by inch these massive sheets of ice cut granite out of Half Dome, El Capitan and Mt. Whitney.

Jim and Emily planned to hike the whole 211 miles of the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to the Summit of Mt. Whitney. Four teams of reporters and photographers documented their journey with photos and daily blogs for the Fresno Bee's web page.

My journey started at Roads End in King's Canyon where we hiked about twelve miles a day for six days up the granite staircase that is the Sierra Nevada. The landscape was tremendous as we climbed over three passes, several streams, and past many lakes filled with cool pristine water from the melting snow pack.

The light of the Sierra in the morning is yellow gold like straw. It bathes the trees, rocks, and mountains in this filtered light. It caused me to skip a breath. I felt humbled by the beauty that lay before me, and fortunate to be the one in the wilderness to interpret it.

On the trail, the food was sparse and I didn't bring enough. However, this was a time to cleans the body and fill it with more than caloric sustenance. It was time to dine on nature's visual delights, which were enough to stop the pangs of hunger. It was time to listen to the sound of life as it was before the arrival of any explorer.

I was given a Canon S-80, which has an 8 mega-pixel CCD with a wide-angle 28-100mm* 3.6x Optical zoom and a high-resolution 2.5-inch LCD screen with wide viewing. This is a versatile camera that is light and packs easily. I just wore it around my neck in a case that I kept open. I carried four 1-gig cards which was just right for seven days on the trail. I also carried a satellite phone and PDA. This is a far cry from a view camera but it was mobile, quick, and easy to use.

In my external frame backpack I had packed a headlamp, a one-man tent, sleeping pad, water filter, two nalgene water containers, 20 degree sleeping bag, bear canister containing freeze-dried dinners, oatmeal packets, beef jerky, Gorp, PowerBars, and Gatorade powder, Jet-boil stove, coffee, cup, knife, , lighter, spoon, fork, clothes appropriate for the wilderness, toiletries, sat phone, PDA, batteries, for a total of about 45 pounds.

To prepare for the rigors of carrying the pack for such a distance I carried my pack around the neighborhood. I cycle upwards of 200 miles a week and race my road bike frequently. I was generally fit, but carrying the pack (which was about a third of my total bodyweight) took a couple days to get used to. I took the advice of experienced hikers and adjusted my pack throughout the day. This helped shift the load to different muscles and eventually I had it dialed in. If I had to do it over again, I would have walked with a loaded pack three hours a day for five days before I left. That would have been enough to establish some good muscle memory in preparation for the grueling 8 to10 hour days.

Hydration and caloric intake are critical to hiking successfully. I opted to carry nalgene water bottles, which require stopping to unscrew the cap and drink. A better option is to carry a bladder, which holds more water, which is accessed by a plastic tube, connected to it on the fly. Many backpacks have a special sleeve that a bladder fits into.

Energy is necessary on the trail. Any energy bar such as Cliff Bars or PowerBars, plus some peanut butter for protein will keep you going. I would suggest about four energy bars per day along with some Gorp, and for lunch some beef jerky.

The night came fast and with it the cold. Our reward was the starlit sky with the Milky Way shining brightly. Two miles below the summit of Mt. Whitney, Jim and I laid our packs down at a place on the trail. This is a tradition for backpackers so they can hike the last two miles unencumbered. Like a kid without any cares I began racing Jim to the summit.

On parts of the open trail I sprinted over rocks and up granite stairs. The cold crisp air was invigorating. I felt like mercury on wings speeding up the mountain and I could hear Jim laboring for breath behind me. With a backpack on Jim could move quite a bit faster than I, but without it, we were pretty even. We both agreed to stop and wait for Emily as we got nearer to the summit. As we reached the summit we were in awe of the beauty around us. The Kaweas, Mt. Hitchcock, the White Mountains, lakes, tarns, the Sierra was set like a feast on a table before us as we dined to our hearts' content.

The photos and stories ran for a month on consecutive Sundays. The plan was for the reporters' blogs and photographer's photos to run daily but this depended on the satellite phone and if there was a signal available. Not all satellite phones have satellites directly overhead and in the Sierra with many peaks over 13,000 feet it was crucial to have a line of sight with the satellite. Our website is run by a different department than the photo department. The coverage from the trail and posting of photos even after the trip has been inconsistent. The photos and stories ran on four consecutive Sundays. The photo department is currently making a standalone slideshow to post with voice-overs by the photographers to better display the work.

It was great to be part of a large project that was ambitious in scale. I still remember the smile on my face when I would see a picture on the trail waiting to be taken. We have one of the most beautiful wilderness areas right in our backyard and it was a pleasure to share it with our readers. Perhaps, you are near such an area in your region and maybe it's time to go make some tracks of your own!
(Tomas Ovalle is a staff photographer at the Fresno Bee.)

* * *

P***s, Rain and Automobiles
By Tim Mantoani

To many of my friends and family, going out of town for a photo shoot with an NFL quarterback is like a rock star going on tour. They conjure up visions of me, a crew of stylists and art directors jet setting off into the sunset, staying at 5 star hotels and hanging out with athletes and their agents. For you sport shooters out there, you know if couldn't be further from the truth. Here is a recent travel story that was too crazy not to share with my fellow Sports Shooters. I knew you would appreciate it most.

I picked up a shoot for DJO, the company that makes the knee brace that Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer has been wearing. They inked a deal with him and needed to get some portraits and action shots for an upcoming ad campaign. After several weeks of juggling schedules, they picked a date for the shoot that would take place on a Tuesday in Cincinnati. We were to arrive at the stadium at 11:00 AM for a 12:00 shoot and would have two hours with Carson. "Two hours", I thought to myself, we will be lucky if we get one and I planned my shot list and "game plan" on 30 minutes.

My assistant, Luis Garcia, and myself left San Diego early on Monday mourning. With six cases of lighting, a grip in tow and two bags of cameras as carry on, our check in at the airport was seamless. We were headed to Chicago (I know several of you right now are saying "Chicago, never go through Chicago!") and had a 4:00 PM connection to Cincy. We would get in about 6:00 PM, meet the client at the hotel, go out for a nice dinner and get a full night of sleep.

As we approached O'Hare, the weather took a turn for the worse and we did donuts at 15,000 feet for about an hour. I wasn't too worried since it was early and we had couple of hours to catch the next flight. Finally the lightning backed down and we dropped in. We had about 50 minutes to make the next flight and as fate would have it needed to trek about a mile to another terminal. I broke a good sweat was we picked up the pace to ensure our seats wouldn't be given away and we arrived to an empty desk at our gate. I quickly checked the monitors and our flight had been cancelled. Next, we piled into line at customer service to see how we would be rebooked. Luis stood in the line of angry patrons and I jumped on my cell figuring I could get answers a bit quicker.

It appeared that were in luck and another flight would leave out of our original terminal at 6:30. So we headed back, dropped into Starbucks for an extra boost and I let my client know we would be in late and could meet for breakfast.

So, 6:30 PM turned into 7:30 PM. Once on the p***, we were notified the pilots were coming from another flight and it would be a bit longer. I didn't care that the A/C wasn't on or that the guy next to me was spilling into my center seat or that he might of missed putting on his Right Guard that morning. I was just happy that I was on my way and would make it to the shoot and hoped my gear would as well.

Finally about 8:30 PM a man with a blue cap appeared through the doorway of the p*** and a common sight cut through the air. Just then, as if it was the end of the dry season in the Serengeti, the p*** began to move as wind and rain struck with a violence that you don't get in SoCal. The pilot announced his arrival and told us that we would wait out the storm and that we would get off the ground but it might take awhile. As 10:15 rolled by the storm had not lifted and the announcement was made that the flight was cancelled and everyone would be rebooked for the morning.

This time the line at customer service, which consisted of eight self serve computers and one employee, was 10 times longer than the men's room during the 4th quarter at Qualcomm. Again, I went to my cell phone and quickly found out the next flight we could get on was at 1:30 PM the next day with an arrival at 3:30 PM. I started asking around if anyone knew the driving distance from O'Hare to Cincy and got answers from three to seven hours. Not convinced I had any real information, we headed down to baggage claim to see if we could even get our lighting gear. Not to our surprise there was yet another line at baggage. We managed to find out quickly that we couldn't claim our bags in Chicago and that they would "most likely" be on the first flight out in the a.m. arriving at 9:30.

With the clock hitting 11:30 PM we started to dial rental car companies to see if we could find a one way ride. A little better than A-Rod in the post season, we struck out the first six calls and drove one out of the park, aka Dollar Rent-A-Car at midnight. So with a long night ahead and what would later be discovered as bad directions, Luis and I headed out into the Chicago night with the wipers blazing in the downpour.

I told Luis I would take the first shift and drive as long as I could. He napped from time to time when the sound of the rain wasn't too deafening. I lasted four hours of white knuckling it down the interstate as lighting bolts danced around me. At times the rain was so bad, I could only drive about 35 mph and had a steady trail of 18-wheelers fly past me in the night. It was just past 4 AM and I stopped for gas, we were somewhere outside of Indy and I had no real idea of how much longer we had to go.

Luis took the wheel about 4:30AM and the next thing I knew the sun was coming up as we crossed into Ohio. It was 7:30 AM and the rain was finally starting to break up. With the time change it was 8:30 AM and then almost 9:00 AM as we rolled through morning traffic to the airport in Kentucky to pick up our luggage. I was greeted by a chipper agent who had clearly had gotten his eight hours of shut eye who informed me that only one of my bags was coming in on the first flight and that the rest would arrive at 1:30 PM.

With little time to spare we started calling around to local camera stores to see who might have any strobes to rent or even purchase. A bit of karma came our way and we found some strobes for rent and it was only about 10 minutes away. After picking up the lights, a seamless background, a monopod and some stands, we headed to the stadium and arrived 15 minutes early. After, greeting my client, who couldn't believe our story, we checked in with security and waited for the Bengal's PR director to show us to our shooting space. The set-up went quick and I breathed a sigh of relief after I plugged in power pack and got a flash as I test fired the camera.

As I predicted, Carson was about an hour late and gave us enough time to get in all our shots. It was good to see him again, the last time I had photographed him was when he was a senior at Rancho Santa Margarita High for the first issue of ESPN The Magazine. I showed him a few of the old images to break the ice and then we got to work. While Carson was very accommodating, it was clear he had another shoot after ours and the sooner we got it done the better.

It was 2:30 PM by the time we packed up and headed back to return the rental gear and we headed to the airport. Our luggage had just arrived, and we rechecked it back to San Diego. Unfortunately, we were on our way via Chicago. Our flight left on time, but we quickly came to a halt on the runway and were told we were delayed one hour. I was so tired, I really didn't mind, but they put us in the last seats on the p*** and they didn't recline. To top it off, in front of us was a screaming two year old that was clearly unhappier than us.

The hour flight had us touch down in time to meet our connection, but then we came to a stop and were told we were waiting for a gate to free up. After 30 minutes we began to move and taxied for what seemed like forever. Next, we were told that there was no one to move the jet way and it would be a few minutes longer. A few minutes turned into a 15 and we got off the p*** last since we were seated in the back. Not to our surprise we missed out flight to San Diego by about 15 minutes and knowing about the curfew in San Diego, I knew we were not getting on another flight there that night. Again, I called the airlines and they let me know we were booked on a 1:30 PM flight the next day. Unfortunately, I had a shoot he next morning in the studio at 8:00 AM with a client that had flown in from Detroit and had a stylist and six models booked. The next option was to find a flight to Los Angeles. To make a long story not any longer, our 10:10 PM flight was delayed to 11:10 PM, we got to LA at 1:15 AM, rented a car and I hit the pillow at 3:30 AM in the morning.

When the alarm went off at 6:30 AM, I pried myself from the sheets and psyched myself up for the day. As I drove to the studio in the early morning light to meet Luis at the studio, I laughed a bit to myself thinking, that my friends with 9 to 5 jobs had gotten two full nights of sleep, eaten dinner with their families and were not going to have to wait 30 days to get their paychecks. Yep, this was the life of a sports photographer, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, I love this job.

(Tim Mantoani is a freelance photographer based in San Diego, CA. You can see samples of Tim's work on his website: http://www.mantoani.com or on his SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/mantoani.)

* * *

"Bagger Vance," "The Zone" and Shooting Sports

By Patrick Murphy-Racey

In one of sports great movies, "The Legend of Bagger Vance", Will Smith plays the caddie for Matt Damon's character, Rannulph Junuh. Junuh's character is a former amateur golf champion that goes to war and comes back a broken, alcoholic man who has given up on everything in life. Vance walks out of the mist one night as Junuh, in a drunken stupor, tries to drive for the first time in years in the darkness. Bagger Vance encourages Junuh to try "to find his one true and authentic swing," one that is unique to him alone. Then Vance spends time with Junuh and continues to spread this "good news" to Junuh, which spills into all aspects of his life.

Junuh gets teamed up against golf's greatest icons of the day in SC in a moment in time when everyone wanted to forget the great depression for a long weekend round of an historic exhibition game.
Each weekend, many of us on SportsShooter.com suit up and head out to the field or the court. We set our apertures, shutter speeds, we shoot warm-ups as we try to warm up ourselves, and then the whistle blows.

Michael Jordan once spoke about finding "the zone." He spoke of this as not a place but of a state of mind where his body and all its senses converged into one thing that was in sync with the game in which he was participating. He's talking about mystery; that is to say the mystery and potential in each of us that is there but is ever elusive.

We sometimes pull our face away from a play that is impossible to capture, and yet there it is on the LCD. Or we look somewhere down-court and for some reason we check out the bench just when a coach goes nuts, and just like that, we've captured a moment that is special.

Like Junuh's character, we each step out onto the field of sport to capture something unique and special. Competition starts when we try to out-do our competitors or the people we work with at the paper. But a deeper more mystical competition is a far greater endeavor: to shoot against ourselves. Trying to cover sports day after day can become rote and even tedious. But when you dig down deep, take risks, and begin to think outside the box in terms of what and how you're shooting, things happen.

Back in the 90's, I had the humbling privilege to shoot football with some of the greatest contemporary people of our time in my seven-year rush of working for Sports Illustrated as a "B level" guy in the South. I won't mention their names because you already know them. I tell you, walking out onto the field of play knowing you're part of a team of three other photographers all trying to shoot at the highest level is a rush. Because of the web, it's now possible to see virtually everyone else's great stuff from a game. But do we take the time to do that? We should.

Next I'll be shooting Tennessee at Arkansas football. On Sunday evening, I'll sit down at the computer right after editing my own take from that game, and I'll jump on Google and find at least five newspapers back in AR and look for new media slide shows, and their best images from that contest. Part of this process simply keeps me honest. I'm not omnipotent and I can't be in two places at once in a game. But I'm desperate to see what others shot. I want to learn something from every game as it will help raise my own stock as a photographer. It's been said by many that "it's all been shot before." That's true but have I shot it all?

We should all be trying to find our own authentic swing each time we walk onto the field of play whether we work for a weekly community paper, or even Sports Illustrated. None of us exist in a vacuum, we are a communal group who spend a lot of time together. When one of us excels, it helps the rest of us do the same.

We each have a responsibility to our employers to do a good job, but a far greater responsibility to ourselves will yield better performance for both us and them.

So, as the ebb and flow of sports photography moves from football and heads towards hoops, let's take an extra few seconds each assignment and try to imagine taking some risks and allowing ourselves to stretch and grow more each day. Each of us has our own unique and authentic swing. The whistle is about to blow...

(Patrick Murphy-Racey is a freelance photographer based near Knoxville, TN. You can see examples of his work at his SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/pmrphoto and his personal website: http://pmrphoto.com.)

* * *

PREACHING TO THE CHOIR: Unlearning Photography
Paul Myers, Brooks Institute of Photography

As a photojournalist there is a tendency to see photography in everything and everywhere. Everyone is a subject, every life experience a potentially new way of seeing a scene and telling a story. While it is true that this is the case as so many of us feel in our hearts, it can also be overwhelming. The advice is constant: look for stories everywhere in life. Mostly photographers give the advice with a unique twist in relation to their success in the field.

My learning process as a photographer is based on listening to the gifts of these devoted men and women. Yes, I utilize the sponge approach and soak up every word they say. And it can be highly effective; indeed, I owe many steps of my career to the advice of other photographers.

While I don't imagine that I will ever leave this learning method behind, right now there is a twist in the path.

So, what is the next step? Lately I am inclined to evaluate all that contributes to my photography that I have either learned and appreciated or critiqued and avoided as a photographer. Now my goal to unlearn photography so that I might learn photography.

The set of practices, beliefs and life experiences that I have learned are somehow related to photography include...

Researching multiple stories at the same time, covering one community over time, compiling equipment, learning the latest technology, planning vacations where there are disasters or civil unrest, taking leave from a job to work on a project...

Understanding how exposure works, making snoots and flags out of gaffer's tape and cardboard for the next big assignment, knowing all the apertures and shutter speeds and ISOs and how they relate to one another, mastering manual focus and auto-focus, working on color balance, charging batteries...

Taking the time to visit photographic exhibits at every museum within reach, studying art history, scouring every book that has ever been produced on a given subject and then searching further on the internet, learning how to publish images on the web or in a book, cultivating sources over the years, interviewing specialists in the field, creating a clip file, understanding the history of a given topic in relation to other issues that seem unrelated, speaking to the legends in the field and being able to imagine all that they encountered and all they hope the field will become, questioning ethics on a daily basis...`

Cutting caffeine out of the diet so hands won't shake, becoming a health nut and exercising everyday, planning annual hiking trips, renewing the prescription on eyeglasses, enrolling in a medical insurance program, quitting smoking, attending alcoholic's anonymous, throwing away the crack pipe, sleeping eight hours a night, periodically having a physical at the doctor, cutting toenails and nose hair, practicing safe sex, respecting the boss...

Donating to charity, practicing monogamy, going to church, believing in God, lending a helping hand, volunteering in the community, respecting your elders, starting a book club, registering to vote, enrolling in a 401k program, opening a savings account, settling down, settling for a relationship, having a five year plan, wanting grandchildren, being loyal to your corporation, encountering happiness in your work, buying a house, reporting your taxes on time and honestly, never undercutting another photographer, never stealing another's ideas...

Writing complete captions, always getting names, key wording images, seeing the difference between purple and blue, knowing how to perfectly tone an image, meeting deadlines, exposing for highlights, consistently archiving your work, writing stories to accompany the pictures, cleaning the camera, sending equipment in for periodic assessments, washing the car, wearing the right clothes to an assignment, saying "thank you," dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s, never fantasizing, having a press pass, respecting the law, joining professional organizations, entering competitions, being a "nice guy," growing up, entering anger management classes, visiting a psychologist to deal with childhood...

Loving the smell of laundry hung on a line to dry, listening to the wind, watching the corn grow or the leaves change color, calling people back, answering emails in a timely manner, cleaning the office, saying grace before meals, working hard, believing in yourself, pushing yourself beyond your limits, admiring the masters of the field, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, buying new shoes, wearing contact lenses, respecting personal space, seeing a UFO, maintaining status quo, doing it for la causa, putting on a happy face, reading all the assigned reading all the time, finishing an educational degree, raising a family, loving life, loving yourself, having goals, loving to travel, seeing the old with new eyes, walking quietly, perceiving light, quick fingers, scoliosis, perfect posture, eating healthy breakfast cereals...

Making love instead of having sex, everything in moderation, respecting cultures, advocating for social change, fighting for social justice, never making inappropriate jokes, being everything that everyone wants you to be, caring about what other people think, running off in love, breaking down all the emotional walls, attending your children's extracurricular activities, calling friends on their birthdays, eating with a fork, knife and spoon at the dinner table, never having dessert for a meal, giving to beggars on the street, being a defensive driver, never driving when you have had too much to drink, never hooking up at a party just because you can, helping a stranger collect wind blown papers skipping down the street, never wanting anyone other than your life partner, swearing off porn...

Making a daily practice out of your art, washing your clothes, paying the rent on time, supporting local artists, surfing, spending time at the ocean because you live a block away, waking up to greet the sunrise, cherishing each sunset as the most spectacular of possibilities, going to graduate school to concentrate on a topic you care about, always completing everything you begin, studying your edit, studying unrelated topics to see how the creative process is manifest all around us, being polite, never talking to strangers, breathing, gambling your life savings on red or black, caring about politics...

Not tilting horizons, watching the background, using zoom lenses, never using filters because they might reduce image quality, always putting your equipment carefully away, being respectful of feelings people might have when they are confronted with a camera in their face for the first time, laughing with people and not at them, flossing, changing your underwear daily, drinking alone, snorting glue, running away from conflict, believing the criticism you are given, respecting the opinions of others, not holding a grudge, believing that the customer is always right, having a personal vision, "making it" as a photojournalist, winning a Pulitzer, going to a photography school, studying the technical aspects of photography, loving jazz, writing poetry, protesting war, being a conservative, respecting women's rights, championing the working poor, confronting racism in your community...

Having compassion for your subjects, letting your subject change you, having an open mind, keeping emergency supplies in your house and in the trunk of your car, arriving early and staying late, loving your job, remembering your anniversary, volunteering for work assignments, keeping your cool, playing fair, not spanking your children, always being a wonderful parent, loving small animals, mowing the lawn, mending the fences, giving advice, taking daily walks, reflecting on your life, praying, tipping 20%, watering the plants, recycling, carpooling, taking out the trash, using sun block, knowing someone high up in the business, playing video games, enjoying cooking, massaging your partner's feet for a half hour each morning, hating the scent of patchouli oil, hitchhiking across the country, being born again...

Appreciating all that you have been given in life, smiling at beautiful people, making eye contact when you shake hands, caring about the economy, driving a car that gets great gas mileage, remodeling the house, visiting every continent, filing for divorce, maintaining separate checking accounts, understanding compounding interest, having good public speaking skills, believing in yourself, keeping up on current events, having a personal interest in the story, being an objective photojournalist, understanding the people's truth, being in the right place at the right time, anticipating action, baking cookies for the new neighbors, respecting the environment, believing in global warming, believing that the world is flat, that men have walked on the moon, or that the world is only 6,000 years old, smashing spiders with a shoe...

Playing practical jokes, having the time of your life, using an internet dating service, marrying for love, believing in angels, acting out of fear, being free of credit debt, getting to work on time, living a simple life, having strong leadership qualities, attending ethics trainings, working at a newspaper, being culturally sensitive, taking one for the team, retaining the rights to your photographs, getting model releases, sticking to the topic at hand, finding the story, mourning the loss of a loved one, being an individualist, pursuing your passion, drawing within the lines, loving your country, connecting the dots, thinking outside the box, recognizing genius, throwing snowballs at passing cars...

Carving pumpkins, doing military service, going out on New Year's Eve, robbing a bank, never taking "no" for an answer, finding your way around roadblocks, compiling a list of top ten favorite movies, being a great conversationalist, being a renaissance person, embracing change, listening to music that no one else listens to, believing in stereotypes, being "self-taught," having a good sense of direction, respecting your parents, having a midlife crisis, using hair care products, committing suicide, dressing your age, speaking in tongues, winning the chili cook-off, living paycheck to paycheck, watching water droplets gather on glass during a rainstorm until they run down the window, taking the path less traveled...

Being a moral person, knowing your family history, speaking another language or three, advocating for world peace, offering a shoulder to cry on, having a daily regime of pushups and sit-ups, supporting the arts, whitening teeth, getting cosmetic surgery, stomping puddles, doing the dishes, living a life of conviction, planning to live until you are 100, looking both ways before you cross the street, always reading the fine print, jumping for joy, acting on principle, having "common sense," working less and playing more, never staring, never picking your nose in public, behaving like a professional...

Skinny dipping at midnight, putting down your favorite pet, working outside of your comfort zone, seeing the light, having a mentor, believing there are no dumb questions, finding true love, giving a shit, wanting to change the world, laughing, dancing, buying fair trade coffee, respecting traditions, following the doctor's orders, driving the speed limit, using a scanner, knowing when to say when, backstabbing your coworkers, taking control of your education, being passive aggressive, listening, "making" instead of "taking," eating an apple a day, saving for a rainy day, practicing what you preach, paying attention to the little details of life, being afraid of failure, facing yourself in the mirror and knowing that you are beautiful, saying "I love you," living a life in balance, trying...

On and on, in and out, with each breath we take the list keeps growing as life rises to greet us...

... And none of this will ever make a single photograph.

Only in the moment of exposure is a photograph made.

The rest is life experience and is not photography.

Life is beautiful. Life's complicating and confusing nature affects a human being and leads to the infinite possibilities of photography. Within these possibilities lies the joy of photography. This is the privileged view of a photographer and specifically a photojournalist, interacting with humanity and asking questions of it on a daily basis with the camera.

But photography, photography is simple.

Photography is photographing.

(Paul Myers is a faculty member of the Visual Journalism Program at Brooks Institute of Photography in Ventura, CA. Prior to his arrival at Brooks, Myers worked for a variety of publications including newspapers in Freeport, IL and Marysville, CA.)

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BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED. Build your own website
By Zach Honig, University of Missouri

(Editor's note: This is the first of a series of columns on technology for photographers.)

If you've been keeping up with the SportsShooter.com message board, you may have seen a thread or two on the subject. Or maybe you've checked out the occasional classified ad, posted by a member hoping to find someone to do the work for them.

If you're looking to create or update your own website, even if you don't have a clue where to begin, I have great news: You can do it yourself! For the purpose of keeping this short and sweet, I'm presenting a laundry list to get you started.

Register a domain name
If you pay for Internet access, chances are your provider already has web space set aside for your personal use, but the address may be too complex for even you to remember. How do you make your "http://www.internetserviceprovider.net/webspace/~username/homepage.html" address more accessible? I'll be getting to choosing a host in a bit, but for now, let's assume you've already got that covered. The first thing you'll want to do is search for a domain name that hasn't already been registered. Even if a domain name appears to be open, someone may already own it. Many people go around collecting domain names hoping to resell them in the future at a profit.

Let's say, for example, Zach Honig is a really well known photographer but hasn't yet evolved into the digital age. Johnny domain collector may see this as an opportunity to make a buck in the future, assuming one day I decide it's time to create a website. The best way to see if someone already owns your domain is to do a "whois" search. For this, I use Better-Whois (http://www.betterwhois.com).

Making it your own
If you own your own business, this step shouldn't require much thought. Let's say when it came time to print your business cards, you weren't feeling creative and decided to use your last name and the word "Photo" as the name of your photography business. Choosing your domain name can be just as thoughtless, assuming it's available. Let's say you're the only Honig with a photography business; then if http://www.honigphoto.com happens to be available, you're in luck. If you're not as lucky on the first try, don't give up; you can try different variations of the domain name. Search for honigphoto.net, honigphotoonline.com, honigfoto.com, or zachhonigphoto.com - you've got the idea. You're bound to find something still available.

Register your name, without breaking the bank
A domain is a domain; I've found that it really doesn't matter where you register it. In other words, paying more really doesn't get you more. You can choose to register your name at Register.com for $35 a year; and if you're new to the world of domain registration that may seem like the deal of the century. But head on over to GoDaddy (http://www.godaddy.com), my registrar of choice, and you'll pay roughly a quarter per year of what you would have with Register.com. Once you have your domain (and I'd recommend paying for 3 or 5 years at a time), make sure all the contact information you provided is accurate. Your registrar can cancel your domain if they learn that any of the information you've provided is false; with this in mind, many registrars offer "private registration" - but for a price. Private registration will hide your personal information from "who is" searches.

I have my domain, now what?
After you purchase your domain name, you have a few options. Many people choose to pay for a host offering more advanced features than what you'll get from your Internet service provider, though you do have the option of simply forwarding your domain to your existing host. Forwarding your domain name would allow you to redirect anyone going to www.yourdomain.com to your existing, much more complex address. If you're feeling ambitious, I would definitely recommend buying space with a dedicated host.

Choosing a host
Choosing an inexpensive yet reliable host is not an easy task. I've tried several different hosts over the past few years, and I'd like to share a couple that have worked out well for me. When it comes to hosting, you really do get what you pay for, but you may not need much. Many hosts offer support for more advanced web features, such as PHP and MySQL databases. If you're just getting started, I'd suggest keeping it simple. Although you may want to explore these features in the future, you probably won't have any use for them right off the bat. If your host of choice offers them, that's great, but don't let it be a deciding factor.

S2f, Inc.
Being a cheap college student, I'm more likely to go for the host with the lower price than one that's always available to answer my questions and has an amazing uptime record. That said, if you can afford it, I'd recommend checking out S2F Online, Inc. S2F is known among photographers as a company that's great about customer service. S2F hosts many sites I'm sure you're familiar with including SportsShooter.com. As a frequent visitor to this website, I don't ever recall coming to the site and finding it down, which really says a lot about the host, as avoiding downtime is absolutely critical.

Hasweb.com
If you're on an extremely tight budget, you have several great options. One host I've been using to host several sites is Hasweb.com. Hasweb, the low budget division of parent company HostDime, Inc., provides yearly hosting for as little as $48. For less than half the price of S2F you'll get more than twice the amount of storage space and considerably more bandwidth. If 100% uptime and great customer service aren't as critical to you as a low price, then you'll probably be fine with a host like Hasweb. Keep in mind that while I've never come to SportsShooter.com and found the site to be down, I have experienced downtime with Hasweb. My site has been down three times last year that I can remember, sometimes several hours at a time.

GoDaddy.com
If you're looking for an even better deal, I'd suggest GoDaddy.com's "Economy Plan" starting at $3.99 per month. For less than 4 bucks a month you can get 5GB of storage space and 250GB of data transfer bandwidth. I'm currently using GoDaddy.com to host one of my sites and while I've found that you don't have as many features as with Hasweb, they're features I rarely if ever find a use for.

After choosing a host and paying for service, you'll receive an email with the host's DNS (domain name system) servers, along with a username and temporary password to access your site's control panel or FTP server. After receiving the DNS information, you'll want to login to the account you set up with your domain registrar and configure your domain to point to your host's DNS servers. After providing your DNS information to your registrar, expect to wait a couple days before you're able to access your site directly from your domain. In the meantime you should be able to access your site by an IP Address provided by your host. Here's a run through of the basic plans offered by all three hosts.

Host Package Monthly Transfer Disk Space Email Accounts Price

S2F, Inc. Package A 20 Gb 750 Mb 10 $10/mo.

Hasweb.com Average 50 Gb 3000 Mb Unlimited $48/yr.

GoDaddy.com Economy 250 Gb 5000 Mb 500 $3.99/mo.

Designing your site
Now that you've got the boring stuff out of the way, it's time to get creative. There are several great programs available to design your website, but for the purposes of this article, I'll be mostly focusing on just one. Depending on how much time you want to spend, one of the following options will be best for you.

Get it done today
If you want to build a professional looking website but don't have a ton of free time, I'd recommend using Apple's iWeb, a program that's included when you buy a new Mac. If you don't have a Mac, I'd suggest investing in one, but if you don't have the budget, or if you're a sworn Windows user, please skip to the next sub-section (and consider taking a trip to your local Apple Store).

If you know how to use a mouse, you should be able to use iWeb. After launching the program, Apple presents you with several themes to choose from, each with their own templates for an "About Me" page, photos, blogs, or even a podcast. For my website I went with the simple, highly customizable, blank webpage, which Apple has conveniently labeled "Blank".

After clicking on "Blank", you're presented with; you guessed it, a blank webpage. From here you can place a background image, text in multiple web-ready fonts, images, and even videos and audio clips. You can begin by dragging an image onto the canvas from virtually anywhere - a folder, email, or even another webpage. You're free to place your text and media anywhere on the page you please. No need to worry about coordinates, layering with z-indexes (I'll be getting to this in a future article), or even resizing images for the web, which iWeb will do for you in the export process.

After playing with iWeb for a few minutes, you should be ready to create your own website. You can create your entire site in iWeb, or just the main page as I have done with my own site (http://www.honigphoto.com). Once you finish creating your site, export it to the desktop using "Publish to a Folder" from the file menu. Keep in mind that because of its simplicity, iWeb has brought website creation to the mainstream, meaning you may see another site painfully similar to your own. If you want a website that's completely customizable, you'll want to read on.

Dreamweaver allows more flexibility
Like iWeb, Macromedia Dreamweaver is what many refer to as a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. Although Dreamweaver offers much more flexibility and control over the design of your site, the learning curve is much greater than with iWeb. I have little experience with Dreamweaver because before iWeb came along, I would code my sites in HTML. There are several decent Dreamweaver tutorials available online. See http://www.adobe.com/support/dreamweaver/tutorial_index.html for more information.

HTML offers complete control
Learning HTML can be extremely rewarding. One of the greatest benefits of knowing HTML is having the ability to code your own website without spending a penny. There's no need to worry about minimum hardware requirements and no software to buy. Some hosts also allow you to create and edit HTML pages through a web interface, eliminating the need to rely on an FTP client to upload and make minor adjustments to your pages.

Although all you need to create HTML pages is a basic text editor, some freeware programs make it easier to keep your code organized. I use Taco HTML editor for Mac OS X (http://tacosw.com/main.php). If you're a PC user, you may want to check out Amaya (http://www.w3.org/Amaya/User/BinDist.html), also available for Mac OS.

Although I won't be getting into the nitty-gritty of HTML coding in this article, I highly recommend checking into the HTML tutorials offered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). I first learned HTML by reading through the various tutorials offered by the W3C - I suggest beginning here: (http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp).

Getting it all online
Now that you have your site created, it's time to share it with the world. Most likely you'll need to use an FTP client to upload your pages and images to your web server. I use Cyberduck's FTP client, available for free at (http://cyberduck.ch/).

After opening the program, you'll want to click "New Connection" in the top left corner. In the server field you'll want to type your domain name or the upload server provided by your ISP if you're taking advantage of the free space they provide. The only other fields to worry about are username and password, both of which are case sensitive. After clicking connect you should be presented with several folders. The "www" folder is the public web space accessible by anyone with a web browser. Double clicking will open that folder.

Find the folder you exported from iWeb using "Publish to a Folder" (it should be located on the desktop if you followed the instructions correctly). Copy the entire folder to your "www" folder by dragging from the desktop directly into your FTP client. Assuming your domain and host have been setup correctly, after the folder finishes transferring you should be able to access your main page by typing your domain into any web browser.

You're done!

That's it! From here you can leave your site as is or continue adding pages till your heart's content. You've created your own website. Congratulations!

(Zach Honig is a self-proclaimed techno geek and is attending the University of Missouri. You can check out his work at: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=4063 and at his personal website: http://www.honigphoto.com/,)

* * *

Be careful what you ask for, you might already have it!
By Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY

A while back I was lamenting not having a button on the Canon Mark II that would instantly allow switching from one exposure set to another. Think about itŠ there are many situations where you would want thisŠ football or baseball with one side of the field in sunŠ shooting photos of players in a dark dugout and immediately switching to the bright field, or shooting pans and blurs of a pitcher and a second later there is a second base play or a great diveŠall shot at a 15th of a second. Ask Bert about shooting a speed skating pileup at a 30th at the Olympics! If only there was a button to set a different exposure as needed.

I was standing with Chris Lee of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at the World Series last month saying that exact thing, only to have him tell me that this already exists, and has since the first 1d. No way, I know this camera and it does not exist! Well, he pushes a button and viola, 125th @2.8 pops up instead of 500th@2.8.

So here's the scoop on the "Chris Lee Button":
You enable Personal Function#6 first by connecting the camera to a computer via Firewire, using Canon "Camera Window" software (for the Mark II N) or "Eos Viewer Utility" for the earlier Mark II.

After enabling the PF#6 option, go to the Personal Functions screen on the camera menu and turn it on.

The screen says:
"Register: Press (and hold) the "+/-" (exposure compensation on top of camera) button, then press "X/WB" button (assist/white balance buttonŠ third from right on back/top, next to back focus button).
Select: Press "X/WB" button (the same assist/WB button as above)"

If done correctly, a small black square pops up on the upper right of the LCD screen on the camera top when registering the exposure.

That's itŠ you are ready to go.

You set the "secondary" exposure first (like 1/30th @11), then press and hold the "+/-" button followed by the "X/WB" button. Let go, and then change to 1/500th@2.8 for example. Then, when needed, press just the "X/WB" button and the exposure will change to the 30th@11, and, here's the fun, it also auto focuses from that same button, so you don't have to press both that button and the back button auto focus! Works like a charmŠ

Now, some notes:
First you cannot set the ISO this way, so you must make do with Shutter/Aperture only.

Second, if you have Custom Function #11 set to "2", as I normally do, you have to set the registered exposure a bit differently: You first press and hold the "AF Point Selection/Magnify" button (first from right, next to back button AF button), then press the same "X" (assist/WB) button as above.

Also, CF#18 must be on "0" to register an exposure.
There may be other combinations of CF's one might have set that can affect the ability to use this feature, so some experimentation is needed in those cases.

ButŠ for me, the ability to instantly switch shutter and/or aperture and focus all on one button, and go back after release, is wonderful.

Thanks Chris!

(Robert Deutsch is a staff photographer with USA TODAY and a regular contributor to Sports Shooter. You can check out his work at his SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=26 .)

* * *

Creating Floating Jazz
By Chris Detrick, Salt Lake Tribune

I had the opportunity to photograph three of the Utah Jazz's stars players for the NBA preview section for my paper, the Salt Lake Tribune: Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams. The concept for this shoot was to show the trio "rising-up," with the expectations of them to lead the Jazz to their first post-season play in three years.

My photo editor Scott Sommerdorf came to me with the idea of shooting the players from below, to give the illusion that they were floating in the air. It was my job to figure out a way to accomplish this.

I had seen this type of portrait done before using a sheet of Plexiglas and other NBA stars, so I knew it could be accomplished. To get more advice and tips I searched the Sportshooter.com message board archive. I found a thread where a few shooters discussed their approach and gave helpful tips. The main thing I learned was the thicker the Plexiglas, the better.

The next step was finding a sheet of Plexiglas that could hold up the 200+ pound athletes. I called a few plastic distributors in Salt Lake to get price quotes on a piece of plexi that was 4x4 feet wide and one-inch thick. The sheet alone was going to cost almost $300 and I could not find a way to securely elevate it four feet above the ground, so I continued searching for other options.

My luck changed when I went to a local professional theater supply store and told them what we wanted to do. They just-so-happened to have a pre-made 4x8 foot Plexiglas stage available for rent. The one-inch thick sheet was reinforced with a four-inch steel frame weighed over 200 pounds. In order for it to be stable at four-feet high, we also had to rent two other 4x8' stages that would be attached to either side of the Plexiglas.

On the day of the shoot, Scott and I arrived at the Jazz practice facility at 9 am and started to unload the rental truck with the stage. Due to the size of the stage, this had to be outside. Thankfully, the weather was a comfortable 54-degrees, without a cloud in the sky. It took us about thirty minutes to assemble the stage and then another thirty-minutes to set-up the portable studio strobes and wipe down the Plexiglas. I feel like I could now be a roadie for Metallica.

I made a few test shots of Scott and Tribune Jazz reporter Phil Miller to make sure the lighting was correct and to fix any glare problems. After a few more final adjustments we were ready for the players. The only thing left to do was wait until their practice was over -- which gave my paranoid mind plenty of time to envision the worst-case scenario. I could see the headlines in tomorrow's paper:

"Kirilenko suffers career-ending Achilles Tendon tear after crashing through Plexiglas during photo shoot. Tribune photographer crushed in incident." Andrei Kirilenko, 6'9", 225 lbs., was the first to come out at 12:27 pm. He was cordial and did not hesitate to stand on the Plexiglas. We had two new synthetic game balls to use as props and I was surprised when Andrei said he could not palm the ball. Two minutes and 31 frames later, his shoot was over.

Carlos Boozer, 6'9, 266 lbs., came out next. I shook his hand and told him my name. He paused for a second and said, "Detrick. That sounds familiar." I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing that he recognizes my name, but for now, I will take it as a compliment. I managed to make 48 frames in the two minutes Boozer gave me.

Jazz guard Deron Williams was the final player to come out for the shoot. He was the smallest of the three at 6'3", 210 lbs. To further the illusion that he was floating in the air, I had him lift his right leg into the air while he passed the ball under his leg to Phil, who was standing out of the frame. Williams got into the shoot more than the others, and stayed out for an entire five minutes, in which I made 90 frames.

After the shoot, Scott, Phil and I tore down the stage and went out to lunch to edit the photos on my laptop. We picked the three best that would be published on the Sports front the morning of the Jazz season opener against the Rockets.

After weeks of planning and coordination, it was over. I made some fun pictures of NBA stars- and the Plexiglas didn't break!

(Chris Detrick is a staff photographer with the Salt Lake Tribune. You can see his work at: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=1411 and read more at his blog: http://www.chrisdetrick.com/blog/ .)

* * *

Paradise Shaken, 6.7 Earthquake Catches Islanders Off Guard
By George F. Lee, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

I suppose one is never really fully prepared for an emergency or a disaster, but mobilizing to cover one is another kind of challenge.

It was Sunday 7 AM, on what was supposed to be a quiet muggy, rainy day, when the silence was broken. Everything you've heard others say about earthquakes is quite true. What sounded like a freight train rumbling its way through my neighbored was really a 6.7 magnitude temblor.

About five minutes after the first quake, the power went off. The familiar splashing of my aquarium had been silenced. The face of a digital alarm clock dark. Soon after, the shaking of a second near equal magnitude quake rolled through. I wouldn't know it then, but this was not an aftershock.

Unlike other natural disasters such as hurricanes, where you would have some forewarning, there was no warning of this event. Even though this time of year is considered the end of hurricane season, the earthquake and resulting power outage caught many isle residents off guard.

Electrically powered telephones didn't work anymore so I made a quick cell call to my morning shooter to make plans for initial coverage. Early on we knew from radio broadcasts heard from our vehicles that most of the damage was sustained on the Big Island of Hawaii some 200 miles away, while we had an island-wide electrical blackout to deal with.

Feeling the lack of coffee, I gingerly started driving my way toward the office, through light traffic that nevertheless slowed in confusion at intersections. I stopped to photograph police directing traffic at a major intersection, food lines forming at a couple of supermarkets and a closed gas station. After the power went out, gas wouldn't pump, so many people, including one of my shooters, found themselves scrambling for gas or a ride.

Along the way, I got a tip from the office about a high-rise rescue operation: A man and woman were trapped in a 25th-floor elevator, and firefighters were on the scene. It was near the University of Hawaii, along my route, so I headed over. The captain gave me the OK to accompany the rescue team, and we all took off at a run up the stairs. It didn't take that long, but there was some heavy breathing at the top. I watched while the crew tried to get to them, then passed the trapped couple some supplies, after deciding not to break down the doors. Then I headed to the newsroom.

The newsroom was dark except for some basic emergency lighting. There was no air conditioning and no power. Sliding glass doors were opened to let in the muggy tropical air Oddly, our land line phones were working but would go down later that afternoon after backup power was drained. A quick thinking photographer had already unhooked equipment from the outlets, to be sure machines would not be damaged when the power came back up

Battery-operated laptop computers, cell phones and flashlights were the order of the day as our city desk coordinated coverage with our staff here and a Big Island correspondent. A power inverter plugged into an idling pickup truck would serve as our means of recharging batteries. Two or three at time, a round robin of writers and photographers would make their way between the newsroom and the nearby garage to refresh their equipment.

Early on, it was apparent that Honolulu International Airport was a mess due to the influx of passengers trying to leave and the power outage. Our team designated to leave for the Big Island would never leave that day due to flight cancellations. A couple of quick cell calls to SportsShooter.com members living near the epicenter of the quake would assure some unique coverage of the damage.

With our in-office E-mail, FTP and file servers down, photos were consolidated onto a laptop. A laptop computer with blue tooth telephone connection gave us access to the wire services and

off-shore e-mail accounts, which our freelancers would use to file their photos and staff writers their stories. Coverage included evacuated hospitals, damaged and closed highways, candlelit meals, bewildered visitors to Waikiki and businesses that continued to operate despite it all.

As the day continued editors, writers and photographers appeared for duty, sometimes with their children in tow. Features writers, sports writers and others stepped up to broaden our coverage of the quake and subsequent blackout. Some worked from home offices where they were close to loved ones. Junk food also arrived with coworkers from the few convenience stores that were still open. Trays of veggies originally intended for another event were put out alongside chips, peanut butter, Vienna Sausages, warm sodas and bottled water.

Night was approaching, and the power was still out. We prepared to implement our backup plan: to move key computer work stations needed to build pages and tone photos to a part of town that now had power. Our press, which is located on another part of the island, was also without power and was another problem entirely. The power company's estimate for restoration there was measured in hours. The best thing we could do was continue to gather and edit material and begin to build pages.

Minutes after the order for the move was given, however, normal office lights and power were restored. A cheer went through the newsroom as the lights went on - it sounded like a game-winning homer being hit. Now the real work was to begin, to deliver a Monday morning paper.

Because we had our pages and reporting ready to go and transfer to the now-restored systems, we were able to get that paper out mostly on time for Monday morning.

What were the lessons learned? Keep staffers updated about your back up plan, and remind them to keep their cars gassed up. A generator never hurts: While we made it through this crisis, the Star-Bulletin went forward to obtain one so we'd be more fully powered up next time around. When the unexpected occurs, be prepared to adapt and improvise, as we did this time.

See our coverage @ http://starbulletin.com/2006/10/16/

(George F. Lee is Photography Editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.)

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Sports Shooter v.96