Some Favorite Photos

Browsing some of my photos.  Some I kind of like.  Thought you might like them, too.  

I love the battles going on in any football game.  Especially when an Outlaw is winning.  QT Preston is one of my favorite Outlaws, one who smiles a lot and works hard and takes direction.  Inexplicably I don't have many good photos of her on the field.  Here's one I like.

QT Preston controlling a Mustang defender.

 

I comment occasionally about the size factor in football.  I admire the way smaller players handle competing with bigger ones.  Marisa "Cookie" Rivas is about 5' 4" and under 150 pounds.  She is quarterback so often attracts unfriendlies.  She holds her own and keeps coming back for more.

 

 

 



Not sure if the straight arm worked.  The defender is
bigger.  I like Cookie's spirit, fighting to escape and
throw the pass.

Kind of cute?  But there is zero affection in that hug.
Cookie is smaller.  Cookie is fighting.

This is an illegal grab of the face mask.  I'll have to
ask Cookie if she remembers, if the penalty was called.
 

Another hug. 

Another of my favorite photo types is close-ups of anyone associated with the Outlaws.  I like when I catch them dealing with adverse conditions.  There were some cold days early in the 2012 season.  I liked the shot of Lily Messina and coach Kent Morris making notes and braving the elements.



Lily and Mo doing whatever it is coaches do with
pen and paper.

Another close-up I like is the face in the helmet.  This is one of my favorite Outlaws, linebacker Lucinda Benitez.  I've been planning to profile her in this blog but she lives waaaaay south and I won't travel that far, and I live waaaay north and she won't come this way.  So she'll never get the fame this blog affords.  I like this photo of her shot at a practice session this spring. 



Lucinda "Precious" Benitez.  She looks soft and
sweet but this young lady is one tough
linebacker. 

I've probably posted the following photo before.  I love the way football is a blue collar sport.  You have to get down and dirty and tough and determined and dogged.  The photo is Tiffany James grabbing a runner by the foot and hanging on until other Outlaws arrive to complete the tackle.  My kinda football.



Tiffany James playing the game the way
is is supposed to be played.

 

Before the Game

I arrive at the stadium about an hour before game time.  The Outlaws arrive a full three hours early.  I don't know what they do in the two hours before I get there but I do have some photos of that last hour.  Here's a little of what goes on before the game.

Shadana Hurd, former player, now volunteer worker.

Like volunteers arriving.  Like Shadana Hurd, former star and now volunteer.  I don't know her job during the game but she must have one because she's carrying a clipboard.  Looks serious, doesn't she.  Camera trick.  Shadana is always smiling or laughing and never serious.





And Alex Allen, another former player who is a volunteer. Don't tell anyone - I think it is a secret - she is Outlaw Annie. See the big sack she's carrying. That's Outlaw Annie apparel. In her other hand she has a sack of food and a soda. Being a mascot takes lots of energy.



Alex Allen, former player, now

Outlaw Annie

In my normal fashion I cannot remember the name of this volunteer. And I certainly don't remember her job at the game. This in spite of sitting with her on the bench watching pre-game activities. You can tell she did arrive and it was before the game started.

Somebody tell me her name and what her
volunteer role is.  So embarrassing the way
I don't remember important stuff.

I do know this volunteer's name. She is Dr. Tara Morris, the Team Trainer/Doctor. We always hope she won't have much to do at these games but football is a collision sport and sometimes medical care is needed. I can't recall the last time I've heard a public address voice ask "Is there a doctor in the house?" At Outlaws games the answer is yes.

Dr. Tara Morris, team trainer and doctor.

I'm going to post a couple photos and see if you can figure out the theme.  When I browsed my collection for before-the-game shots, I was initially stumped by these.  But then I remembered.  Hint:  The photos would make immediate sense if they included an audio track.

That's coach Bobbie with hand in the air.  She has noticed
something that coach Lance hasn't.  But you can see
he is getting some vibes.

Coach Lance joining Bobbie in the raised hands thing, while
others are taking notice.  What do you think is going on?

Figure it out yet?  They're dancing!  And why dance before a football game?  Because the public address guy is testing the equipment and blasting "music" for all to hear and some to enjoy. 



Everybody dance!  Come on Lucky, join the party.

Serious dancing going on here.

So before the game we have people testing the sound system and other people helping the testers by dancing.  We have volunteers arriving to help make the Outlaws a success. 

What are the players doing in this, their third hour, at the stadium?  Stretching.

Touch the left toe, then the right...

Bend that leg back, left first, pull on it, stretch those muscles.

Actually they've been going through pre-game warm-ups.  I don't get many photos of that because I get bored watching people doing exercises.  In fact, it is surprising I have these shots of the stretching. 

I do have a question.  In Austin, the temperature at game time is in the nineties.  That's warm.  Why would anyone have to "warm up" in that kind of heat?

There's a lot to do to put on a football game.  A lot of work.  A lot of coordination.  I have often expressed in this blog my admiration of Lily Messina.  She is team founder and has been officially the General Manager until she handed that title to someone else.  Now she coaches and she still makes things happen. 

Just a few minutes before the game starts the officials show up on the field.  In a future blog post I'm going to tell you all about officiating a football game. 

Actually there are six officials.  The sixth is time keeper and this close to kickoff he
is up in a control booth.

When an official is heading toward the field, when the scoreboard shows 0-0 with 15:00 minutes to play in the first quarter, you know the game is about to begin. 

I always love the countdown to kickoff. 

Ten Billion Pictures

I browsed my Outlaw's photos and selected a few to post today for your enjoyment.  First, though, I'd like to talk a little about being a photographer these days.

Photobucket.com is a photo-sharing website.  Anyone who makes photos can get an account with Photobucket.com and post your work there for anyone else to see.  Right now there are more than ten billion photographs on Photobucket.  That's billions.  A billion is a thousand million.  Unless you're talking about government spending, a billion is a big number. 

I believe Photobucket is the biggest photo-sharing site.   I think Flickr.com is most popular among serious photographers. It has five billion photos.  Webshots.com has been around awhile and has 693 million photos as of 10:00 a.m. today.  There are many others. I use Smugmug.com (dstostad.smugmug.com). I don't know how many photos are stored there but I have about 5,000 and I'm just one not-very-serious photographer.

I'm not that good a photographer.  It would be cool if
I had planned this effect, sharp focus on the player in the
foreground, fuzzy on my friend Tiffany.  There  must be some
grand philosophical point, the vague threats we face that may
become pain and frustrate our goals.

Everyone who has a cell phone has a digital camera.  With digital photography, there's no downside to making pictures.  In the old days we had to buy film and pay for processing.  I used to shoot a couple hundred photos at Outlaws games and it cost around $100.  Now I shoot 700 photos and it doesn't cost a thing. 

When I started this hobby I envisioned gaining great wealth in an after-retirement career as a photographer.  I'd shoot great action sports photos and sell them to magazines, newspapers, fans, players.  

As it turns out, that wasn't a really good business plan. 

First, people aren't buying "prints" - photos printed on paper.  They're enjoying on-line viewing.  They have billions of photos to view in all those photo-sharing sites.  Most on-line photos are free to view, easy to download to your own computer, can be stored on IPhones.  Why buy prints?  I've sold a few prints but not enough to even recoup the cost of film and processing from my film-camera years. 

The second problem with my business plan, I'm not all that terrific a photographer.  I get some good shots.  If I shoot 700 pictures with a decent camera I'm bound to get "some" good ones.  Some good ones.  Fewer "great" ones.  Even these good to great aren't finding buyers. 

So instead of selling photos I browse my collection for my own enjoyment.  I use Photoshop Elements and zoom in, zoom out, crop and cut, make lighter, make darker.  Just enjoying the action on the field in freeze-frame, in detail, days, weeks, months later.  From all of this browsing I find photos I like.  And I'm posting some here on the chance you'll like them, too. 

Why do I like "these" photos?  Well, I'll explain how I selected the ones posted today. 

I like the photos in the first series for a couple reasons.  One is my friend Tiffany "Crash" James is in them.  She is my kinda player.  Intense.  I always like it when I capture her making the play.  She wears jersey number forty-one and red sleeves.  The red sleeves help me find her even when she is at the bottom of a pile of players. 

It is difficult to make truly elegant tackles in a football game.  I like the inelegant tackles.  Like when you grab an ankle and hold on.  I love players who do whatever it takes.  Tiffany is such a player.  As illustrated in the three-photo sequence that follows. 

Tiffany grabbing a leg because that's all she can reach..

Tiffany hangs on while teammates close in on the runner.
It is difficult to run dragging a 135 pound Outlaw.

Tiffany used to have a bad habit of allowing the runner
come down on top of her.  She avoided that in this case.

The three photos that follow illustrate two reasons certain photos make me smile.  One  is stopping action in mid-air.  In the first photo of the following photos, Outlaw's number one, Toni Fuller, makes a leaping tackle.  And I have captured her in flight.  Cool.

Flying through the air, grabbing the runner.  Note the people
on the sideline.  A camera lady is missing the shot - I'm getting
it.  Even photographers are competitive.  Notice the guy with
paper in his hand, smiling.  His runner is being tackled.
Why does that make him smile?

When Toni gets hold of you you're finished.

Toni completes the tackle bringing the runner to the turf.  Cool.  But there's something else I enjoyed in this photo and that's sideline reaction.  You can see it a little in the second photo but just for fun I used my photo editor to focus in on the sideline faces.  That's the photo below.

Football can be confusing sometimes.  There are all sorts of individual battles going on.  Sometimes it is difficult to determine exactly who is on first.

 I use photos like this to cull photos of individual players so when I want to profile a player I can quickly locate photos of her.  In this photo I have a good shot of #55, QT, doing battle with Mustang #60.  I have a sorta shot of #33, Tara Andrickson, but it would be better if she were already being engaged by the blockers.  The red sleeves tell me that's Tiffany right behind QT.  I can't get the number of the Outlaw far left.  I suspect somewhere there's a football in there somewhere, probably behind Mustang's #23 and #73.

Sometimes I point the camera to the stands and photograph fans.  When I see a fan carrying a camera I like to check out what kind of camera it is.  I'm a Nikon guy but there are lots of Canon people out there.  She has a Canon.

I wonder if she posts her photos on Photobucket.com.  I wonder if she just gives them away to the players, reducing my market.  Or is she a pro, selling photos for big bucks?  Does she have a business plan that is working?  Is she smarter than I am.  Nah, she's a girl, I'm a guy...

Can you see what it is like to be me?  Hundreds of photos, nay thousands.  Browsing, zooming, trying to capture a glorious instant from the game, pondering imponderables. 

Maine Jackson

Intimidating, isn't she?

Her facebook.com name is Maine.  She is on the Outlaws roster as Charmaine. 

She recently posted a photo of herself doing chin ups with a boy on her back.  I don't know his relationship - possibly son, possibly one of the children she works with at the Austin Children's Shelter.  I do chin ups (pull ups?) are difficult using just your own weight.  If you can do the chin up with 50 added pounds on you're back, you are strong. 

Maine is strong.  She works out. 


She made a devastating tackle in the Houston game (see my posting June 17).  I started checking my photos for #22 just to see if she's as good as the Houston tackle would suggest.  She is.  I'm posting here a couple examples.  Expect I'll do more in future posts.  These were culled from just two games in the 2012 season. 

The first is a five-photo series taken from the Dallas game.  In my July 8 posting I selected a photo from this series to show Dallas' #21 Tiffany Hill making a play.  That photo, the fourth in this five-photo series, was picked up by the Dallas team and by a publication in Dallas, "The Dallas Voice."  (I think that's the name of the publication.)  What I didn't show is the rest of the story, the Maine Jackson story.

Blocker seems to have Maine contained.  Nope.

Shaking off the blocker.

Solid hit.

Jackson hits Hill forcing her off her route.  See MaryLou
in the background recording the action.

Hill driven out of bounds by Jackson.

The second is a two-photo series (are two photos enough to call it a "series"?).  You can only fully appreciate this if you've played football and attempted to bring down a swift runner who is trying to get away.  The first shot has Maine in the backfield with Brittany Satterwhite, star running back for the Diamonds.  She has outstanding stats and is one of the best in the league and is part of the reason Dallas is going to San Diego Saturday and, if they win, going to the league national championship.  She doesn't often get caught in the backfield.  And she doesn't go down easily.

Jackson penetrates the backfield and now just has to get
close to Satterwhite. 

Charmaine extending with power.  The next photo has Satterwhite on the turf.

The final photo of Maine is really a photo of the Houston blocker who is supposed to keep Jackson away from the ball carrier.  I just like the expression on her face.  Wonder if Maine is saying anything?  Or just putting on that serious face you saw at the top of this posting.

Houston Power player wondering if she is up to the job of blocking Maine Jackson.

Serious Fun

Laughing.  Or at least smiling.  I've always found practice to be drudgery.  Even more so now that I'm shooting photos.  Not much happening to photograph.  I commented to Lily, "Practice is boring." 

"Not to me." 

And not to the players either.  They're actually having fun out there.   I started checking my photos for evidence of fun.  This turned out to be one of my favorite projects.  If you're a little down someday, want to be cheered  up a little, come on over and look through my Outlaws photos for smiling faces.  After awhile, you'll be smiling, too.  I certainly was smiling to myself as I prepared for this post.  Happiness is infectious.  I got infected.

Coach and GM Lily Messina.  Enjoying
every minute of every practice. 

All these smiling faces.  Make you want to smile, too, don't they?  The ones above were captured during meetings or pauses in the action on the field.  The one to the right of this text - should know her name but I've explained my weakness, too shy to ask, too short a memory to remember even if I did ask - she has just received a pass and is returning the ball to the quarterback.

The next shot, below, is during blocking practice.  Power vs power, hit that blocking pad, knock the one holding it backwards.  If you can.  Serious action.  Serious effort.  Serious fun.

Smile,  You're on candid camera.

Some players love cameras.  I try to remain inconspicuous.  Have a long lens so I can shoot my subjects unawares.  These two were aware.  They're having fun at practice.

There's a positive spirit at Outlaws practice.  My memory of practice when I played about a hundred years ago doesn't include much fun.  Not much laughing.  Lots of yelling.  I learned words my mother never taught me as coaches urged us to do better, try harder.  Practice was serious business.

That memory influences the way I photograph the Outlaws.  I stay out of the way.  I try not to get in the way.  Try not to interfere.  Try not to be noticed.  I assume the coaches are serious and have not time for distractions.  I say hi to players, discretely, but rarely say anything to coaches because they're working and I'd be a distraction.

Outlaws practices don't match my memory.  Coaches coach - they don't yell and cuss and throw things.  They quietly explain how to pass or run a route or defend a pass or block or tackle.  They do a lot of "atta-girls" when players get it right, or "good try" when players almost.   The atmosphere is positive, up, professional.  Coaches helping players master the skills that will win ballgames.  

Wrapping up after practice.  Don't know what the joke but you can tell everyone is having fun.

The photo below was published recently.  I'm publishing it again here because it is right on point.  Coach is demonstrating how to cover a receiver.  He's the receiver and the player (what's her name?) is defending.  She succeeds.  The pass is incomplete.  You can't see the other players on the sideline cheering for her, celebrating her success.  You can see, in this photo, her "gotcha" poke to coach's back.  They're working hard.  They're having fun. 

When I've interviewed Outlaws for my player profiles, I've asked for highlights of their playing experience.   Practically everyone commented on the camaraderie of being part of a team, part of this family.  As I viewed photos of players genuinely having fun while working on conditioning and skills, I began to see what they've been telling me. 

There is a spirit of "team" that is hard to capture with the camera.  I'll keep trying.