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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My schedule this year had prevented me from covering Arizona State football games all season, thankfully I had a free day which enabled by to cover their last game of the season against home state rival University of Arizona. It is always their biggest game of the year so that plus the fact the stadium is only 10 minutes from my house had me pretty excited for the shoot.
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Still tired from shooting the football game at BYU the night before, I landed in San Diego and was picked up by my buddy Rob Benson and off we went over to Qualcomm Stadium to shoot the San Diego Chargers home opener against the mighty Baltimore Ravens.
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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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With the United Football League (UFL) set to kick off their inaugural season in less than a month, two of the leagues four teams headed to the middle of nowhere (also known as Casa Grande) to begin training camp in preparation of the season.
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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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A few months back I had the privilege of shoot behind the scenes with NFL superstar Kurt Warner for an ESPN.com story. With ESPN writer Wayne Drehs in tow we got to work documenting Kurts life on and off the field.
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Due to my main laptop deciding to die on me last week I am super late with the posting of this blog. But anyways the Texas Longhorns came to Glendale, AZ to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes in what promised to be a great game. And boy was it! Lets get started…
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As 2008 began, it would end with me on the sidelines shooting a college bowl game. Although the Insight Bowl is a small game few care about it is one of my favorite games because if the sun is out (which it usually is in Arizona) there is great light to take advantage of. And take advantage of it I did.
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