Red and White Football

Last Saturday, I was scheduled to shoot the end of spring football practice, the annual Red and White game. The day was filled with activities for Ute fans and featured a MUSS and an Alumni game before the football team took the field. I went early to shoot the MUSS game in case we needed a feature photo for the paper on Monday, and to try to get used to the difficulty that came with focusing the 400mm lens. At golf I used manual focus because golf is not as fast a sport as football is.

When I arrived, some players were warming up so I started to get test shots and actually got one fairly interesting photo. It would have been better if the guy in the fore ground had not been there, but it was only a test shot after all.

Then I focused on the MUSS game. Flag football was different to shoot than tackle football. There is not as much contact or interesting tackles and photo opportunities, but I did get a few good shots when people would fall. I learned to watch for those moments that lead to some interesting pictures.
During the Alumni game I did not get any really good shots. They were having fun rather than playing to win. The one shot I was looking for came a few times during the game. The White team center would hold the Red team center’s head down, but I never got a clear picture of it. I tried to move with the play, but it was difficult to get positioned quickly enough.
Then the game started and the crowd began showing up. The Utes draw a fairly large crowd for their spring game. This year they had approximately 4,500 in attendance. To put that into perspective, Nebraska was expecting a full house of just over 80,000 for their spring game and the tickets, with a face value of $10, were being sold for over $100.

During the game, my goal was to get file photos of some of the important players and train two new photographers who had never shot football before. I focused on the freshman quarterback DeVonte Christopher, Brian Johnson and Coach Whittinghamn. I would have captured a good photo of Bo Hikila if it wasn’t for a hand that poked into the frame. There are a lot of great sports shots that have a hand or foot ruining the picture.
Former Ute and current San Diego Charger Eric Weddle returned to coach the White team and became a big part of the story. To get a photo going along with the story, this last set of pictures are when I try to find a good shot of Weddle. None of them turned out great because I accidentally cut half of the picture off when I was taking pictures of him.

The White team won and RJ Rice took the opportunity to rub it in the Red teams’ face.