Next up in my Best of 2011 series is my favorite football images of the year. While I did not get to shoot near as many football games as I wanted to this year, it would still end up being a solid season of images. Enjoy!
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My favorite part of the college football season is without a doubt the end of the year and all the bowl games. Living in Phoenix is a perfect location during that time, and no not just because of the fact that I can wear shorts while everyone else around the country is shoveling snow! With several bowl games being played within a few hundred miles of my location it enables me to do several bowl games. This year I would have three bowl games within 40 miles of my house, including the most important bowl, the BCS National Championship.
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The last few weeks I have been blogging like crazy with all my Best of 2010 categories. We are almost finished (thank god). Here is an assortment of some of my favorite football images of 2010. Enjoy.
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December is typically a pretty slow month for me so I decided I would do the New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque, NM. With it being a day game the light would be amazing and make for some fun photos.
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Living in Arizona is a great place for sports photography because there is a lot of sports to shoot. The bad thing is due to the heat, games are either played in domes or at night. Both of which rob photographers of getting to shoot games with cool sunlight and light pockets. Every once in awhile though we get rewarded with some day games.
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The best thing about the end of summer and beginning of fall (even better than below 100 degree temps) is the beginning of football season. Unlike baseball, even the most boring football game will feature athletes colliding and flying through the air on nearly every play. Plus its a good workout running up and down the sidelines keeping up with the action. Outside of motorsports I gotta say that football is my favorite sport to shoot. Ok, lets get to the game. Hike!
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One thing I am always keeping an eye on in my job is the next up and coming superstars. Getting good quality images of athletes before they’re famous typically will lead to sales of the images for many years to come. About a year ago I read a story about a high school baseball player, Bryce Harper, who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. After reading the story I made a mental note to cover him before he went to the majors.
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I had planned on spending the weekend in San Diego shooting drag boat racing on Mission Bay with Jennifer and some friends but as things tend to go in my crazy life as a sports photographer, the original plan took a back seat to a last second shoot. That last second shoot was a college football game in Utah. Initially I wasn’t very excited about the change of plans but once I found out the game had a late afternoon start with the chances of great light I somewhat warmed up to the idea.
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Last Friday, less than 24 hours after getting home from Amsterdam I was sitting at Chilis relaxing and working on some photos when I got a call to see if I would be available to fly up to Seattle to cover the season opener for the Washington Huskies where they would be taking on football powerhouse LSU. I had planned on a nice relaxing weekend at home where I would shoot Arizona State opening their season against Idaho State. I took a few seconds to think about it, sure the ASU game is 15 minutes from my house and would make for a much easier weekend, but the chance to go up to Seattle (where I spent my last few years in the Navy and have several friends still there) was too much to pass up.
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Last weekend I went up to cover tryouts for a new football league set to kick off this fall. The United Football League (UFL) was something I had honestly never even heard of until about a week prior to this shoot. Perhaps I had heard a year or so ago about a new league trying to begin but as with most sports fans I quickly dismissed it as something that was doomed to fail (like me taking a 10th grade algebra test). One of the cool aspects about the shoot I was looking forward to was that I would be shooting for the UFL so I was promised some good access for shooting. The hardest part of the shoot would be to not get drunk the night before on the strip!
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