Redlights and Redeyes

Man, ever since I left Colorado, I think my blood has thinned and I have absolutely no tolerance for the cold anymore.

I was sent up to Dover to photograph the freezing temps here in Florida for The New York Times at 5:00am, pretty crazy watching the sun come up over a completely iced over G & F Farms.  Sprinkler sprays to the face when it is 26 degrees outside will wake you up in a heartbeat - trust me.  The farmers had been up all night repairing sprinkler heads and watching the temp drop number by number.  As I understand it, the tempura-ed layer of ice that covers each plant seals in the berry and saves it from being cooked by the ice.  Fortunately for me, it was just one morning of this.  Unfortunately, the strawberry farmers in Dover and Plant City, which is ground zero for those strawberries you eat, have been dealing with this all week.  It only looks to get worse over the weekend.  There’s even talk of snow.  It will be a media armageddon if that were to happen.

Here’s the link to Damien Cave’s story that ran today on A1 on The New York Times front with my photo.

Pretty sweet (awful pun intended).

Photos from New Years tend to be nothing new:  fireworks, kisses, glowing (enter year here) glasses, wide crowd shots, confetti, half-drunk people mugging for the camera, etc., etc., etc.  That is all well and fine, but when you have to do it at 7:00pm to make deadline, it makes it a little more challenging to say the least.  Either way, just made a couple frames I liked, sent, and went home to enjoy the festivities with some champagne, a flat screen, and my lovely wife and daughters (in no particular order).

I have a list of 10 resolutions.  I won’t bore you with them.  They’re the typical ones, which I’m sure to break in the next week.

Happy New Year everyone.

Merry Christmas to you all…see you on the flip side.

I never want the local teams to lose.  It’s part of covering these kids for so long.  You become attached.  You start to hope.  You cheer on the inside.  Then they knock off THE #1 team in the country and are sent to a championship game they were never supposed to be at in the first place.  Then they lose.

By literally an inch.  Or two.

I was sent up to the Citrus Bowl on Friday night to cover Manatee High School take on Tampa-Plant in the FHSAA 5A Championship game.  The game was strange to say the least.  Tampa-Plant scored all their 24 points in the first half, and Manatee scored all of their in the second half (ended 21-14).  Nearing the end of the game, I was beginning to stress I didn’t have anything of Manatee doing well and winning, because Manatee put on a show and nearly came back in the final minutes - short just a few inches on a 4th down spot.

Needless to say, we drew the short straw of having to shove cameras in their faces as they broke down.  It’s always easier in the pros, those guys are used to losing.  Losing doesn’t mean much when you still get paid millions to play.  These guys play for glory the rest of the school year.  For each other.  For fun.

These were my favorites from the night - especially the first frame - only because I had never seen this kind of moment between two players who had battled all night.  Ace Sanders, the star wide receiver on the team who had a few chances to make a huge play to win it was walking off the field in tears when safety Eric Dungy, son of famed NFL head coach Tony Dungy, came over to console the guy he’s assigned to beat all night.

This wasn’t a requisite, half-assed hug at midfield.  This was an embrace and a player feeling truly bad for another.  Made me smile.

Nice little write-up on an old photo of mine on Verve Photo…see it here.

Also, many thanks to Geoffrey Hiller and the running list of talent he has been producing over there.  Two of my favorite shooters, Ross Taylor and Matt Slaby were just featured as well.  Go check it out!

Oh, how I want that piece of paper gone.

Alas, another painted wall - albeit not red - and another imperfect frame…just trying to get some color back on this blog, because I don’t why I’ve been grayscale addict as of late.  This was from a recent shoot at a Boys & Girls Club up in Manatee County for a story on a mentor-shortage.