On Tuesday evening I was over at Lehman High School in Kyle, covering the spring football game for the Statesman.
The story, other than the team taking shape, was about the new head coach, Todd Raymond. I was supposed to get action shots from the game and photos of Raymond coaching.
Spring football games are scrimmages. Lehman’s team split in two and played each other – blue team and white team in this case. Regular season rules about staying on the sidelines don’t apply, so I was free to walk all over the field with the coaches during the game.
That made the coach easier to photograph, but action was a bit harder. It was a change of perspective. Being that close to the action, I had to watch where I was standing or I might have gotten tackled. It was a bit harder to maneuver around players, rather than standing on the side with a 400mm lens. I used 2 bodies – one with a 24-70mm f 2.8, and one with an 80-200mm f2.8. Neither need a monopod, so I could run around a bit.
Coach Raymond did plenty of interacting with the players, so it would seem like there were plenty of opportunities for me to capture him coaching. But Raymond, as many coaches are, is very good at staying out of the path of my lens. Camera evasion must be something they teach in coaching school. I didn’t give up, though. Here are some shots of Raymond.
Now for the action. Here are a few shots from the field.
