On Friday night, I ventured to south Denver to photograph a big group of people attempt to stand on their heads.
It was time for Friday Night Yoga Club, and Denver Post travel editor, Kyle Wagner, and myself were there to see what was what. She was brave and participated in the posing and head-standing. I opted to observe with both feet firmly planted on the ground. Party pooper.
Missy Franklin is a world-class swimmer. She is expected to not only make the Olympic team this summer, but to compete remarkably well in London. With the pressures associated with those expectations, almost anyone would be hard-pressed to think of much else.
But Missy is also a 16-year-old. She has high school classes, tests and papers. And though she could have taken a step back from her high school swim team some time ago to focus solely on her Olympic training, she made the decision to stick with the tight-knit group of girls who are in many ways more sisters than friends.
I had the remarkable opportunity to spend some time with Missy and her swim team last week and photograph their camaraderie for a New York Times story. A good friend, Justin Edmonds, was hired to shoot one part of the story – a championship swim meet – but the Times also wanted a photographer to capture the girls just being teenagers at their traditional pre-meet, body-shaving and pasta-eating party. They felt it would be best to have a female shooter for this “girls only” party, and Justin recommended they reach out to me.
And the next thing you know, I was standing in the dining room of one of Missy’s teammates, camera to eye, watching this humble, kind girl laugh and joke with her friends.
It is important to recognize your strengths and weaknesses.
In sports, each player has a specific task to complete that speaks to his or her strengths. Like the pitcher in baseball. He can throw a 90 mph fast ball, but when it comes to being on the other side of that ball, he can’t always hit it out of the park.
In photography, you have photographers who can shoot just about everything from sports, to features, to concerts, to portraits, and in the world of photojournalism, it is so important to have these dynamic shooters out there. Typically however, most photographers really excel at just one of those, like sports.
I am here to tell you today that I am not that photographer.
They came.
They went.
They came.
They went.
They came.
They went.
They ca— OK, you get the idea.
Six times they looped around this circuit.
I would have taken a picture of the field at the Rockies/Phillies came from tonight.
But what was going on down on that field was nothing short of dismal.
I don’t want to talk about it.
What was fun was being in the stands, eating hot dogs with good friends and admiring the bright, shiny lights.
What? I like shiny things.
Also, the splotch of light and specks in the upper right quadrant of the frame looks a bit like a picture of a far off galaxy taken with a fancy NASA satellite camera.
Sadly, my fancy phone, while certainly fancy, is not that sophisticated. (Make an app for that, Steve Jobs, I dare you!) It’s just a result of the filter used on the fancy phone photography app.
But a girl can imagine right?
These are the things I think about late at night, after a long day, while finally unwinding at home.
And after this kind of multitasking last night…
(Two-handed, two-computer editing for the win!)
…can you really blame me for some rambling imaginations?