A Gridiron Weekend

I can’t believe we’re already on our 7th iteration of this project!  It has had its ups and downs, but it’s been fun!  Also can’t believe we’re already getting into football, but in the high school world, football starts in early spring.  As such, being on the Mountlake Terrace High School football booster club (and the resident photographer), I found myself in Ellensburg, Washington for the annual Central Washington University High School football camp.

The CWU Wildcat football coaches put on a camp each year for Washington high schools to come and hone their football skills, work out bugs in their plays through scrimmages with other teams, and break off into specialized groups based on position with college coaches.   It’s a long and hard weekend for the kids, but a good one.  It’s also a team builder for all.

I showed up in Ellensburg shortly after the football team did, all my camera gear in tow.  Three camera bodies, six lenses – including the AMAZING Nikkor 300mm f/2.0 VR II - and ready for some football.  Through the weekend I took over 3000 images, so picking out my favorite 7 was tough.  I decided to focus a couple on my own two boys, and some on the more ‘fun’ moments of the weekend.  The shots were filled with rain, sun, clouds, hard hits, blurred shots, sharp shots, nearly getting killed a few times….  Now, I’ve shot football before.  A lot actually.  But this is different.  These aren’t actual games.  These are scrimmages, with multiple fields and multiple scrimmages happening on each field.  A large area is sectioned off for these ‘games’ with 3-4 football fields marked off.  While I’m watching and shooting one scrimmage, another scrimmage is happening right behind me.  I had to stay on my toes!  At a normal game, my eyes are always on the one field with action, and nothing else to worry about.  At camp though, I had to go scrambling a few times else getting tackled with more than $12,000 in camera gear on my shoulder.

It was a fun weekend for sure, short of my last night really wanting a nice dinner in the small town of Ellensburg (a college town in summer) and finding nearly everything closed.  I DID find a store that had a FANTASTIC wine selection (and if you’ve read any of my blogs or FB, you know I love wine), but had a crappy food selection.  So, my last night there I edited photos with a 2008 L’Ecole Cabernet and Lunchables.  Good times!

Anyway… here’s a breakdown of the images below (click on an image to open up the large ‘lighbox’ browser)

• The JV team rallies after a great scrimmage and a solid offense
• My son, Justin, JV/Varsity QB calls for the snap in the rain
• My son, Josh, JV Wide Receiver growls in the rain at a missed pass
• Josh again, working in the WR specialty group with the CWU coaches
• Justin this time, in a pass series during the QB specialty group with CWU coaches
• Incoming Freshman get ‘initiated’ with a complimentary haircut.  Much better than what our boys got their freshman year.
• Evening ’4 to score’ festivities.  More scrimmaging and LOTS of testosterone

If you’re interested in seeing the close to 450 images shared with the team (of the 3000+ I took), there are three galleries up on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/MTHSFootball/photos

Now, take a tour on over to Iryna Yeroshko’s page to see what SHE has done for this 7th month of the 7 on 7 project:  http://rennesphoto.blogspot.com/2012/07/7-on-7-july.html