I spent a total of 8+ hours at the local rugby tournament on 3-29-08 of this year. The blistering cold wind masked the suns rays and I ended up with a spectacular cocktail of windburn and sunburn. All in all it was worth it because the photos turned out great! The Winona State University Rugby team initially contacted me to come take photos for their team but during the down time I decided to shoot the other teams just because I enjoyed the game so much. In the past I had never really followed Rugby at all but as it turns out I love the game and the non stop action. A fellow photographer came to the game but wanted to watch the National Championship Basketball game as well so he brought a power inverter and parked his car right next to the field. I like to think that he drew a bigger crowd around his trunk than some of the fields at times. All in all it was an amazing day!

One recent assignment from Winona State put me and my new assistant in harms way as we attempted to photograph students playing on the racquetball courts during class time. Initially the instructor had us above in an observatory style overlook where the instructor could give feedback and watch from a safe distance. Photographically speaking it was very very uninteresting. Both Chelsey and I decided to hit the floor and see what we could come up with. The students were thrilled to have us there and some even put on a show for us. I had a few close calls with serves and spikes but we both managed to come out unscathed. A photographer on a forum I posted these images on gave me a little insight when he said ” It’s not the ball you need to worry about… It’s the racquet…”. After the fact I realize that it would be awfully hard to explain to the doctors at the hospital how I got the gash in my head… I hope you enjoy the image and please take the time to leave feedback if you care to! Thanks again!

This year the Gymnastics Team at Winona State University commissioned me to photograph and design their team poster. They were not happy with last years production and in my opinion they were quite frankly rather embarrassing. Photographically there were a few issues like high noise, underexposure, and redeye. Not to mention non team members in the background of the photo as well. This year they decided to go in a new direction and do something a little less formal and a little more fun. Hopefully the team members will see this post and comment on the final product. All feedback is welcome!

The WSU Womens soccer team ended up losing to No. 6 Seed Nebraska-Omaha on Sunday of this week. The game was 0-0 for the first two halves and the first two regulation overtimes as well. Regulation shootout was tied for the first 4 rounds as well until the warriors missed and Nebraska-Omaha advanced to the third round of the tournament.

In case you had not heard this year I was hired as the athletics photographer for Winona State University. So far this year I have covered events such as soccer, football, indoor volleyball and rugby. I am really looking forward to attending more softball, gymnastics and basketball now that the seasons are starting again. As I have the chance my portfolios online will be updated. I am trying to make sure that I keep updating content so people will stop back. As always I appreciate the support! Feel free to comment as well.

The latest images from the basketball games are up on Digiproofs. To access the images you can use the password winonabb.

I ended up missing coverage of the B Team game because of a location change but JV and Varsity both played wonderful games. If you have any trouble finding the images or accessing them please let me know so that I can help. My Articles are well under way and I will hopefully be launching the new section to my website within the next few days.