I see you...

For years I have admired the work of an Air Force photographer named Mike Kaplan.  We were stationed together at Barksdale Air Force Base until he retired and left the area.  I last saw him at his retirement but continued to follow his work as he took a position at the Academy  as a contractor.

I have been excited to run into him again and see more of the work that he is doing.  I was finally able to cross paths with him again last week and even bumped into him on the field at the AFA v BYU football game.

Little did I know that the hunter would be the hunted.  I received the two photos above from Mike today in an email.  Actually, these are the first photos i've had of myself taking pictures.  Now everyone else will have an idea of what I look like before uploading these to the website.

Thanks Mike!

New Perspective

I have to admit that despite being a boy, I am not the worlds biggest sports nut.  I used to have my favorite football team and religiously follow college basketball but life happened and some of that passion faded away.

Last weekend I had one of my first real tasks in my new office, and of course it would have to be covering a football game.  At first I was really excited because I would have field level and press box access, but I learned a few lessons from my first attempt at covering college sports.

First, I learned that I need to pay attention to the gear I am brining to the field.  I grabbed a camera and handful of lenses from work only to find out later at the game that the zoom lens I grabbed had a minor issue which caused me grief all night long.

Second, I learned that the sports writing I was used to doing was nothing compared to what I was supposed to do that evening.  To make matters worse, there wasn't a review process prior to filing the story, so I apologize to anyone who accidentally read it.

All in all it was a lot of fun and I look forward to the next game against BYU where I will be shooting and not writing.  I am excited about improving on both my writing and sports coverage during my stay here at the Academy.