And ONE!

My first job out of college was as a sport coordinator for Short Track and Figure Skating at the Olympics in Salt Lake. I could go on for days, and bore you to tears, about how much I loved that job. I will spare you tonight however, but I was thinking today about one of the fun things I got to do during the month of the Games. The Committee had hired a bunch of sport photographers, folks like John Huet,Tibor Nemeth,Sheila Metzner,and
Ian Logan to shoot the Games in a more intimate way than what you would have seen in Sports Illustrated or on TV. They were pretty much given all access passes and so in each venue, someone was responsible to play chaperone. On most nights in our venue, that task fell to me. It was really fun at the time to show them around and watch them shoot but even more fun to see what the Games looked like to them when I saw their work afterwards. I remember one of them being a touch irritated when I told her that no, I couldn't let her stand on the ice during the Short Track start. Seeing later what she did just standing against the boards, I almost wish we could have let her. I guess part of me thought that in sport photography, you just clicked the camera a bunch of times and something cool was bound to show up. There is definitely a difference however in just pointing a camera at something awesome, and being able to interpret that thing through your lens. Their work ended up in a stunning book that anyone who likes sports, the Olympics, or photography would love.

Anyway, I was thinking about this today because I went to an event sponsored by one of the other brands in my company. It was a street ball game and I took advantage of some unfettered access of my own and played "sport photographer" for the day.

I only had my little point and shoot digital camera and I don't have my sister's natural eye but holy eff I had fun. Here are some of my favorites from the day.















(he got up a few seconds later and walked off just fine)

Good times.