Sad Day in Charlottesville
Today’s news from Charlottesville is very sad indeed. Yeardley Love, a fourth-year on the #4 ranked UVA women’s lacrosse team was apparently murdered overnight. She is pictured above from a game March 2009. What makes this story even more shocking is that fellow Wahoo George Huguley has been arrested and charged with her murder. Hard to believe this happened at UVA.
George Huguely – Images by Jason O. Watson
NFL: Washington Redskins at Oakland Raiders
December 13, 2009; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Raiders running back Justin Fargas (25) leaps over Washington Redskins defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin (96) for a touchdown during the second quarter at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Washington defeated Oakland 34-13.
The first half of the Redskins/Raiders game was pretty enjoyable — the teams were evenly matched and the score was close. Then Oakland’s quarterback Bruce Gradkowski was knocked out the game for the entire second half with injuries to both knees. The Raiders brought in JaMarcus Russell who, despite throwing 10 for 16 for 80 some yards, was intercepted once, fumbled, and was sacked SIX TIMES in the second half. As such, the Redskins rolled.
This game was particularly fun because of the on and off rain showers that kept falling before and during the game. It would rain, and then the sun would come out (and I’d take some of the rain gear off) and then it would rain again, put the rain gear back on. So far, rain out here, compared to back in Virginia, is light and misty, which makes shooting tolerable. Regardless, the weather was MUCH BETTER than the 20 degrees and negative wind chill the last time I shot the Redskins last December at FedEx field.
20091213 – Washington Redskins at Oakland Raiders (NFL Football) – Images by Jason O. Watson
San Jose Sharks NHL Home Opener vs the Columbus Blue Jackets
The San Jose Sharks hosted the Columbus Blue Jackets at HP Pavilion in San Jose, California on October 8th. This was my first NHL game shooting, and the first since I watched the NY Islanders play the Pittsburgh Penguins at Nassau Coliseum over a decade ago. I was impressed with the crowd – it was the home opener for the Sharks and the 17,000+ fans were certainly very much into the game. This game pretty much had a little bit of everything – lots of goals (the Sharks won 6-3), a hat trick by Dany Heatly, a couple of good fights in the second period, and a penalty shot (where Heatley netted his third).
I shot the entire game from above in one of the video booths, almost entirely with my 400mm f/2.8L. The Sharks are reconfiguring their ice level photo sports, and There were only three holes to shoot from and they were quickly taken by other shooters. All in all, very fast paced and a lot of fun to shoot.
More images from the Blue Jackets at Sharks game
20091008 – Columbus Blue Jackets at San Jose Sharks (NHL Hockey) – Images by Jason O. Watson
Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics – Major League Baseball
The above image is of Oakland Athletics infielder Daric Barton (10) sliding into home plate during the second inning against against the Texas Rangers at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on September 22, 2009. This was my first major league game — after shooting several years of NCAA baseball, it was nice to cover a late season MLB game. The A’s dominated this one, and won 9-1 — pretty much eliminating the Ranger’s hopes of a wild card playoff birth.
20090922 – Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics (Major League Baseball) – Images by Jason O. Watson
San Jose State at Stanford – NCAA Football
The nice thing about early season evening / twilight games is that there are often a few select spots in the stadium where late afternoon sunlight sneaks through the stands and on to the field. This image, taken on September 19, 2009, of Stanford fullback Owen Marecic (48) being tackled by San Jose State Spartans linebacker Travis Jones (14) and defensive end Carl Ihenacho (95), is one such example. The light here doesn’t even hit the field, but is just enough to highlight Marecic. Pretty cool. Here’s another example with Antonio Appleby from the 2007 season when Virginia played at NC State:
In the Stanford / San Jose State game, I was pretty impressed with how Stanford handled the Spartans. Definitely a different crowd atmosphere than what I’m normally used to. Stanford’s band has certainly taken the eclectic pep band genre to a new level and the students, while fully into the game, seemed a little more civilized and polite than the alcohol-fueled student sections at certain ACC and SEC schools. Regardless, Stanford won easily, 42-17.
20090919 – San Jose State at Stanford (NCAA Football) – Images by Jason O. Watson
Boise State at Fresno State – NCAA Football
The #10 ranked Boise State Broncos came to Fresno State for a Friday night NCAA football game under the lights. This was my first game since moving west, and I drove the three hours from the Bay Area for this game. Really glad I wore shorts because it was over 100 degrees at kick off (6pm). Fresno State really loves their Bulldogs and it was a lot of fun to shoot this one as there was absolutely no defense on either side of the ball (Boise St. won 51-34). There were multiple 60+ yard touchdown runs on both sides and lots of pyrotechnics whenever Fresno St. scored. Cool stuff.
Gallery of images from this game
20090918 – Boise State at Fresno State (NCAA Football) – Images by Jason O. Watson
Sherlock arrives on the West Coast
After two trips (one by air, one by land) across the country, Sherlock and I finally made it out to California. I took him to Poplar Beach / Bluff Top Coastal Park, near Half Moon Bay, yesterday for a couple of hours. Sherlock met his first California Sea Lion — I guess it was a little different than the white tailed deer he’s used to chasing through the woods behind Redfields in Charlottesville, but the over effect was the same — Mr. Sea Lion was pissed, made a lot of noise and went back into the ocean. The fishermen in the background thought it was good entertainment. This was Sherlock’s first trip to the ocean since a trip to OBX several years ago, and his first sight of the Pacific. More photos previous trips are in the slideshow below…
In other news, I’m settling into the new job and am very much enjoying the change of scenery. Missing Charlottesville, but it helps that I’m in an amazing place working with and surrounded by top-notch folks. It may take a little while to re-establish regular photoblog updates, but I plan on doing so as soon as possible.
Sherlock and the Beach – Images by Jason O. Watson
A great night in Charlottesville – Dave Matthews Band
Tonight was a night that I was looking forward to for a long time. Putting objective photojournalism aside, I have always wanted to photograph Dave Matthews and his band. I’ve been a fan since the early 1990’s, following DMB all over Virginia, DC, NC, NY, and points in between. I’ve missed that last few opportunities to shoot Dave and the guys in Charlottesville and tonight was special (at least for me).
I’ve watched Dave and Co. at least a dozen times — but none since 2003 (front row seats at Madison Square Garden). Tonight was the first time the band has performed in Charlottesville since LeRoi Moore’s tragic passing in August 2008… and from what I was able to photograph (the first 3 songs of the set), the band still continues to entertain. LeRoi’s presence is certainly missed (I can’t imagine anyone replacing him, especially on songs like “Don’t Drink the Water”). Much to my delight, instead of starting with a fresh batch of new songs from the latest album, the band opened the show with old-time favorites “Rapunzel”, “Satellite”, and “When the World Ends”. Here are a few of my shots from the show… I’m going to buy a ticket and sit in the stands for tomorrow’s show – it was that good. 
Dave Matthews Band, Charlottesville 2009
20090417 – Dave Matthews Band (Music) – Images by Jason O. Watson
2009 Jefferson Cup – Charlottesville’s Premier Cycling Road Race
This past Sunday, was the annual Jeff Cup bike races run on the rural roads of Albemarle County south of Charlottesville, VA. This road race has been going on forever and is hosted by the Monticello Velo Club and run by a bunch of cycling friends of mine. I raced in this a few years ago and had a wonderful time – I’ve also photographed the last four editions. This year’s weather looked iffy for the morning races (wet pavement, etc) but it cleared out and the day ended up being glorious.
The one thing I was really disappointed by this year was the behavior of the locals whose houses line the roads that the 10 mile course loops traverses. Apparently someone, the night before the race, broke glass all over the roads – resulting in numerous flat tires. Not only is this really disappointing but it’s pretty damn dangerous for the riders — there were several that had flatted and were rightfully pissed off. The second issue I had was with the farmer who threatened me with trespass charges for photographing on the side of the road — I had a really nice view set up, with great lines (see below)
Then a guy rolls up directly facing me / blocking the road with his Ford pick up truck and insists that I and the others near me leave. We tried to explain that he doesn’t own the shoulder of the public roads but he was having none of it. It was clear that he was going to do whatever he could to ruin my shots and not wanting a confrontation, I moved to the other side of the course – a nice spot but not as scenic as this — it would’ve been really nice to have the peloton stretched out along that hill. Oh well.
My Cycling Photography page… with photos from races since 2006
The Longest Lacrosse Game Ever – UVa defeats UMD 10-9 in 7OT
Yesterday’s NCAA Men’s Lacrosse game between UVA and Maryland was epic. Not because these two rivals were playing or because UVA is undefeated and ranked number 1 and Maryland is #9… but because the game went on forever. Virginia was down 9-6 with 6 or so minutes left in the game when they went on a three goal rally to tie the game and force sudden death overtime. The game seemed over 9 seconds into the first OT when Maryland quickly won the face off and put the ball in the net. UVA got a gift from one of the officials who blew his whistle (twice) just before Maryland shot the ball. The official thought Maryland wanted a timeout as soon as their player entered the box — apparently they didn’t. That then started a long afternoon – Virginia fought of several man-down penalties, while their GK Adam Ghitelman made tremendous save after tremendous save. Finally, in the 7th overtime, a NCAA Division 1 record, UVA’s Brian Carroll scored and ended the game. There were ~5,000 people in attendance — and it was a nice (long) afternoon of lacrosse.
Cavs crush Big Red… sweet save by Ghitelman
Adam Ghitelman made this ridiculous save in the fourth quarter as the #1 ranked UVA men’s lacrosse team dominated #4 Cornell in the second half to seal up a 14-10 victory. I’m still in awe of how UVA’s goalie was able to pull this off — he made the initial save off a Cornell shot, was on the ground and was able to throw his body/arm up enough to keep the ball from hitting net and/or bouncing back off the cross bar. A pretty sweet athletic move.
This was one of the more enjoyable sporting events I’ve covered in the past month or so — mainly because it was sunny with some clouds, a nice wind, and about 80 degrees. I got my first rays of sun for the year, hung out with just about every sports photog in town, and just enjoyed the afternoon. Spring sports are much more relaxing for me than Fall and Winter versions — in the fall football is very stressful (and fun) and in the winter basketball takes a large portion of my life (7 hours+ per game for set up, shooting, tear down, etc… but is still fun)…
Hopefully the weather will stay like this (my pear tree has started to bloom) and the snow of last week is behind us until next year.
Amazing comeback…
The #2 ranked Virginia women’s lacrosse team was down 11-5 with about 15 minutes remaining in the game… it looked like Penn State was going to walk out of Charlottesville with the upset. The UVA ladies battled back, scoring several goals in the final minutes… it was 11-10 with 15 seconds left when the Hoos scored to tie it up and force overtime. Then first-year Julie Gardner (4) scored the go ahead goal in the second overtime period to wrap up the 12-11 win. The cool thing was that there were already several thousand folks in the stadium because the men’s team was due up next to face Cornell. The above shot was the celebration, taken after the tying goal.
Men’s Basketball… having some fun
Today’s UVA v UMD basketball game was the last of the season for me at the John Paul Jones Arena… there’s still the ACC tournament in Atlanta later this week, but as far as home games in the place where I probably spend as much time between November to March as I do my own home, this was it. Maryland came into the game at 7-8 in the league, very much needing a W to keep their chances of a NCAA tournament bid alive. Virginia’s had a pretty rough year with only 3 conference wins prior to today’s 68-63 victory over the Terps.
This shot is of Calvin Baker, who was pretty happy once UVA took the lead over UMD in the second half. After trailing by 13 in the first half, the Wahoos clawed back within one at halftime and built a sizeable lead in the second half… only to have Maryland tie it at 61. Then, on senior day, Mamadi Diane swished a three pointer to seal the victory. That and he had 23 points — not bad for a guy who spent most of the season on the bench.
I was surprised at the number of Maryland fans that invaded the UVA-spring-break-absent-student-section… they were loud and impressive for a road crew. Lots of red clashing with orange in some parts of the stands.
Lots of fun all around….
Snow Day… photos from around Charlottesville
It took until March, but we finally got a significant snow here in Virginia. I spent my morning and parts of my afternoon driving around Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County taking photos. It’s pretty rare that we get a good snow around here (maybe a couple times year) so there were a bunch of places that I had on my list to cover. First I headed on Grounds to UVA where I did a quick shoot of the Lawn/Rotunda areas. The clouds had cleared and left nothing but sunlight and blue skies — pretty cool.
I then headed towards Monticello and stopped at the mill next to Michie Tavern — not much there as everything was closed off. I then went up to Ashlawn-Highland, home of President Monroe, where I took the photo above at the entrance. Took a quick trip up to Afton to see if Skyline and/or Blue Ridge Parkway were open… nope.
Most of the major roads were cleared by this morning, but secondary and some spots of the big roads were covered in snow/ice. Glad I had my Jeep Grand Cherokee instead of a two wheel drive rental car this time.
Shenandoah NP: White Oak Canyon
Today I decided to get a jump on the approaching winter storm and go for a hike with Sherlock, my Irish Setter, to Shenandoah NP. Problem is that because of snow/ice last night Skyline Drive was closed. This left a few choices — the best of which was White Oak Canyon, just south of Old Rag Mountain (my favorite hike). I was hoping that the moderate dusting of snow that I had in my front yard was an indicator that there would be a little bit more up in the park… not so much – only traces here and there.
Unlike the last “hike” I took, I decided to bring plenty of food and water, and was quite warm with appropriate gear. Sherlock wore his backpack and carried his own water. I just brought my 1Ds w/ 24-70mm lens and took mostly shots of Sherlock. The weather was less than ideal for getting any spectacular shots, so I considered this as mainly a scouting hike to wear the puppy out and determine whether or not it is worth a return trip later in the spring/summer/fall. It absolutely is.
About a mile and a half from the trailhead are the lower White Oak Falls — pretty neat. I was surprised at how tall they were and how much water was flowing. A truly beautiful place. The hike is pretty much an out and back — up hill the entire way and down hill back… there are several amazing falls on the way up each providing really sweet views. Near the top of the falls it started getting colder and the sky got a couple of stops darker, so I figured the snow storm was getting close and turned it around. 15 minutes later it started snowing — my dog enjoyed it and the downhill hike made for a speedy return to the parking lot. I look forward to heading back soon!
Night Lacrosse in February… brrrr
I usually avoid wearing my winter coat to any sporting event — mainly because it makes switching between camera bodies cumbersome if not down right impossible. This is particularly true for lacrosse which is extremely fast paced. By the end of tonight’s NCAA Lacrosse game between #2 Virginia and Mount Saint Mary’s, the temperature dropped to a balmy 26 degrees — and dudes on both teams were running around in shorts. Even though UVA is ranked #2 in the nation, I quickly began to realize why I was the only (still) photographer there — it was a night game in middle of the week and it was downright cold. Virginia seems to always play Mt. St. Mary’s this time of year… in 2007, there was a night game against MSM and it was actually quite nice — “71 degrees, somewhat overcast, and breezy“… heck, 10 days earlier the official weather for the game was listed as “50 degrees, Sunny, Glorious“… yeah, umm, not tonight.
I actually had a great time covering this game — Virginia dominated with 60+ shots and won the game 10-2. Mt. Saint Mary’s goalie deserves a lot a praise — even though he let in 10 goals, he stopped a bunch of others and was under constant pressure. Virginia dominated the entire game and it looked as if they were headed towards a shutout, but in the 4th quarter MSM scored on a 2-man advantage… they then scored again at even strength a few minutes later.
This shot (above) is of Danny Glading (9) running past Ryan Shewell (14)… I’m particularly pleased with how my post-production is ending up — thanks to fellow photog Andrew Shurtleff and a lot of tweaking, the color is getting very close (I was having a bunch of issues with colors fading — particularly oranges and reds — in the conversion from CR2/RAW to JPEG) and with the help of a few tricks (aka Noise Ninja and a 1DM3) I’m able to shoot at much higher ISOs that I would have been able to in the past. Below is an example from the March 13, 2007 UVA/MSM game:
Hopefully, I’ve improved in the last two years 
UVA WBB Senior Day vs Boston College
This shot is of Carolyn Swords from Boston College — she dominated the interior with a game-high 31 points, but that wasn’t enough for BC as they fell 90-70 to Virginia on senior day. This was taken with a remote on the backboard — I usually shoot these remotes in a horizontal position and crop vertically, but this particular remote was vertical and then cropped horizontally… just mixing things up. This was pretty much one of two usable images from my 4 remotes that I placed for this game. Kind of a bummer, but that’s the way it goes — either there’s a ton of stuff or there isn’t. Also have noticed much more consistent firing of the strobes now that the flash tubes have been replaced – fewer misfires and it seems the remotes are synced much better and are hitting the light when they’re supposed to.
The past couple of games I’ve been using the 15mm fisheye on a 20D as a floor remote (the cropping of the 1.6x sensor takes out a lot of the distortion) and when working produces some sweet images. This frees up my Mark IIN to use either with the 70-200mm in the stands or with the 24-70mm on the back of the goal padding (I’d just really rather put a 20D on the court than a IIN, plus the 15mm fisheye is much more distorted at 1.3x vs 1.6x). Only problem is that the 20D only sometimes works with lagging with the fisheye — sometimes it’s either half on half off, or all the way off, or like 2 games ago, always working. Strange things possess these cameras sometimes.
It was senior day for the women’s team at JPJ, and it looks like there won’t be home post season action (a la NIT) for the ladies as the #21 ranked team is headed to the NCAA tournament after the ACC tournament. That leaves three regular season ACC games for the men’s team before wrapping up the 08-09 hoops season at the arena.
Watching the party from above… #12 Clemson at Virginia
UVA’s men’s basketball team had a pretty rough stretch before the #12 ranked Clemson Tigers came to town — losing eight games in a row. Clemson entered the game as heavy favorites over the Wahoos — I remember last year’s 82-51 blowout and was hoping that the game would at least be close. Much to my surprise Virginia took a solid first half lead into the locker room. In the second half, Clemson went on a 14-0 run to retake the lead and it looked like the game was over. UVA didn’t give up, and pulled back and the last 10 minutes of the game was about as exciting as it gets with back and forth lead changes all the way to the wire. UVA freshman Sylven Landesberg hit this floater in the lane with 13.4 seconds to go to even the score at 74-74… overtime.
Since Clemson was a highly ranked opponent, there was a chance, if UVA won that the students would rush the court. I was hoping that they would, as this usually makes for pretty sweet photos, so I headed up to the catwalk in hopes of a repeat from the 2007 Duke at UVA game where an amazing Sean Singletary one-handed fade away won the game for Virginia. The appropriate magic was in place, as Sean Singletary, now with the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, was on hand as he became only the 7th player in UVA men’s basketball history to have his number (44) retired. While the celebration was somewhat muted by security folks and ushers doing their job, a few students did manage to make in the court after Virginia finished off the Tigers 85-81 in OT. This image worked for me because it had the scoreboard, the stats of the game, center court, the UVA V-sabres flag, happy players/students, and Cav Man… lots of elements that just came together at once.
On the advice from fellow photog Andrew Shurtleff I swapped out the bulbs in my strobes as they were becoming extremely dull. What a difference this made — 2 stops improvement and *all* of my remotes, etc worked flawlessly. It was a good game to shoot… finally.
Getting some lucky light… Death Valley National Park
I left Lake Tahoe earlier than originally planned because of a series of snow storms that were headed that way. Given my propensity to find disaster with snow, I decided to head south via US 395 and make it down to Death Valley National Park, one of three NPs in CA that I had yet to visit (Joshua Tree and Channel Is. being the other two).
I really hauled it in the morning to get past the mountains in and around Mammouth Lakes, and relaxed a little bit once I hit Bishop, CA. I made a planned stop at Manzanar National Historical Site just south of Independence and got some pretty nice images (forthcoming at a later date). Then down to Lone Pine for a Black Rock Burger (chili + bbq and some other good things), and I stopped in the interagency visitor center to see if I could purchase my 2009 interagency public lands pass (national parks, etc.) — they didn’t have any, but the lady suggested I might want to visit the nearby Alabama Hills before heading to DVNP. I’m glad I did — pretty neat landscapes, including a couple of famous arches (photos also forthcoming).
Then I headed down towards the national park and was treated with some really nice light. The image above is from Father Crowley Point, just inside the park near Panamint Springs. Storms were rolling between the mountains and provided rainbows and some pretty dramatic late afternoon light. More from DVNP in the coming days…
Sam’s Club
So, tonight was the #5 UNC v UVA men’s basketball game. Probably the biggest game of the season for UVA’s John Paul Jones Arena… all the local media and photogs were there, plus a bunch of others from NC and around the country. Students showed up which was nice after shooting a dozen or so games over winter break with no students around. This shot is of a group of students who were wearing Sam’s Club vests in honor of Virginia point guard Sammy Zeglinski.
I was pretty happy with how things turned out. My remotes worked. My lights worked.
