Every year it seems like something happens at Texas Relays that makes my job difficult.
One year it was rained out for 2 out of the 4 days, changing the event schedule. Another year it seemed like they switched field location for every event I needed to shoot. This year it was traffic and timing.
I was scheduled to shoot events on Friday and Saturday afternoon. Knowing that traffic would be bad, I left an hour and a half before the first event on Friday. I spent about 30 min. driving, 40 min. getting from the bottom of the parking garage to to the top media parking, and I had plenty of time to gather my equipment and make it to my first event – high school girls discus.
I was supposed to focus on New Braunfels Canyon’s Chamaya Turner. She was in the second group of athletes, so I shot a few photos of the first group, just to prep myself. Discus isn’t a sport I normally shoot. I came up with a couple shots similar to this one:
I used my Nikon D300, which has a cropped frame, making my 200-400mm f4 lens reach as far as 600mm f5.6. For discus you have to stand way out in front so you don’t get hit, or shoot from behind through the net. Anyway, I was pretty happy with this shot, so I tried to frame it again when Turner was up.
I don’t know what happened. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get a shot in focus and framed well. Maybe I just psyched myself out. Here’s my best shot of her:
I moved on to high school boys high jump, where I was supposed to focus on New Braunfels’ Dustin Oelson. High jump is not a new sport for me to shoot, and I’ve shot it enough times at that stadium at that meet that I knew where to sit to get a great shot of high jumpers with the Austin skyline in the background.
I came in a few minutes after they started because discus ran long, so I missed Oelson’s first jump. Again, I thought I’d fire off a few practice shots to prepare myself. The shot at the top was one of them and this was another:
Both shots have parts of the skyline with the athlete over the pole, and in both shots you can see their faces. I guess Oelson has a different technique because no matter where I moved, I could only get the top of his head.
Twenty-five athletes competed in boys high jump, which made for a very long competition. About two and a half hours, actually. High jump wasn’t over when I had to move on to high school girls pole vault.
I was shooting Sara Kathryn Stevens of New Braunfels. Out of the three events I covered, I liked her photos the best. They’re definitely not my best ever pole vault photos, but I was relatively happy with them.
Saturday I was supposed to cover two races. I left two and half hours before I needed to be on the track. Typically, it takes me about a half hour to get to the UT campus. This time it took a little longer, but the real problem occurred when I tried to find parking.
I couldn’t even drive down the street to get to media parking because all access points were barricaded at the edge of campus. I tried several times to park in lots that were walking distance from the stadium, but every time I was denied entry. Even after I showed my credential, told them which events I’d be covering (they asked, I guess that made a difference), and told them I had heavy camera equipment to lug around, they wouldn’t let me in.
I was told all media had to park across IH35 at the baseball stadium, and that a shuttle was not provided. I asked if I could just sit in a loading zone to drop off equipment at the press box and then park far across the highway, and they wouldn’t let me do that either. By that time, I had been driving around for an hour and a half. Even if I parked in the baseball stadium and lugged my equipment across the highway, I would have missed the races.
I had to call the sports editor and tell him I couldn’t get the photos. I hate doing that. I really hate doing that. Fortunately, this time they could do without the photos and they sent me home, frustrated and disappointed.
I don’t know what it is about Texas Relays. Every year it’s something. Hopefully I can post better pictures after the UIL track & field finals in May, and figure out some kind of bike system or teleportation device by then.