7A State Tourney

I shot the Class 7A state tourney in Conway on Wednesday. All shots were available light at 3200 ISO and 2.8. The lights in the new arena in Conway are pretty good....a heck of a lot better than any of my home gyms

1/2 a game

Cabot and North Little Rock played a half of girls basketball on Tuesday. The game was called at halftime because of the violent storms which hit Arkansas and caused lots of damage and killed a few people.

I was able to get a really good shot of Cabot's Jenna Bailey getting fouled by NLR's Malaya Leggs. Bailey hit the shot for a three-point play. I shot the pic with a Canon 40D and Alien Bee B400. 1/250 sec, F 4.5 at 650 ISO. I was extremely happy with the shot.

HS Wrestling

I shot my first amateur wrestling and I really didn't know what I was doing. Luckily, it was only practice for Cabot HS and I had some decent images. It was also the first time I had used my Canon EOS 40D, which rules! I love WWE wrestling but these kids are working hard in learning the rules and techniques for wrestling.

New update, finally

At the "urging" of fellow coworker Marc Henning, I decided to put up some pics from last week.

I shot a basketball game on Thursday, Nov. 29. I used an Alien Bee B400 with direct flash. There was no way to bounce in that gym. On Nov. 30, I shot the Carlisle-Mount Ida Class 2A state semifinal football game. Carlisle is my alma mater and they came up two points short, which really stinks because I was looking forward to going to the state title game at War Memorial Stadium.

Also, one reason I haven't updated in a while is that I've been doing extra duty at work with my mom not feeling well with her cancer, then she fell a month ago and did three weeks of rehab. Luckily, we got the Carlisle paper each week. I don't know how but we did.

Let me know what you all think.

Mark

Football, football and football

It has been a busy couple of weeks with football games, homecoming events, and of course, more football. I've had some good luck with my action shots lately after reading and re-reading Scott Varley's article on flash football. Most of the time, I'm using my Sigma flash on 1/16 power and the camera on either 800 or 1600 ISO. (I'd love to get a 30D, 40D or Mark II so I can use 1250 ISO). I do, however, get some overexposed photos when the play comes to the sideline but I'm sure all photographers get that at some point or another.

On Friday night, I covered the Lonoke Jackrabbits as they scored 31 unanswered points in the second half to win 45-14. Lonoke quarterback Rollins Elam, #10, passed for 443 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran for 2 touchdowns. Lonoke receiver Clarence Harris (1) caught 14 passes for more than 200 yards. He even ran some plays at quarterback, ala Darren McFadden of the Razorbacks. On the photo near the pylon, Harris was trying to score on a two-point conversion but he stepped out of bounds before diving to the end zone. On one photo, he tried to catch the ball but was interferred with by a Bald Knob defender. He still almost caught it.

Several other photos include shots from Cabot's win over Conway on Sept. 28 and one from the Junior Bison's win over Palestine-Wheatley this past Thursday. With all these games, I'm also keeping notes and stats so I can write stories for my newspapers -- the Cabot Star-Herald, Lonoke Democrat and Carlisle Independent. So, I'm multi-tasking!

Mark

Variety of sports pics

The last week has been a fun one. I missed my first ever high school football game because I was sick on Friday. I shot some volleyball and tennis and jr. high football as well as an NCAA Division I-AA game in which Don Chapman broke Tennesse-Martin's all-time rushing record.
For the NCAA photo, I was shooting with my 20D, 70-200 2.8L and 2X on 3200 ISO. Chapman was only 10 yards coming into the game and I was hoping to get the shot early so that I wouldn't have to shoot 3200. The game started at 6 p.m. and he didn't break the record until after 7 and it was starting to get dark. In fact, after dark under the lights at 2.8, I still had to shoot 3200 to even get a good shutter speed.
The junior high football pics are okay but nothing outstanding. The tennis was shot on Monday and I had some decent stuff but nothing award winning. I'm also including one volleyball pic shot with an Alien Bee B400. Let me know what you all think.

Lonoke vs. Beebe 9-7-07

The Lonoke Jackrabbits played the Beebe Badgers on Friday night at Lonoke's James B. Abraham Stadium. Lonoke is one of three teams I cover for our newspapers and they did not play well, committing 7 turnovers.

However, Beebe is coached by John Shannon, who was an assistant coach at Cabot, one of my other main schools. I consider John to be a good friend and one of his assistants is Shawn Robertson, another former Cabot assistant. In fact, I shot Shawn's wedding, which was one of the last weddings I shot on film! Yeah, film. Here some images from the game, including cheerleaders, band and the game.

Mark