On Fri. and Sat. of last week I spent the evening at Mike A. Meyers Stadium on the UT campus to cover the 2013 UIL State Track & Field meet for the Dallas Morning News.
Fri. morning I woke up to storms that I knew would set the track schedule back by at least two hours. Sure enough, the schedule was altered, but I didn’t need to be there until later that afternoon. By the time I arrived around 4 p.m. they were mostly caught up. The evening races didn’t start until 6 p.m., so I went down to the field to take in some triple jump. There were several Dallas area athletes competing.
Clouds were starting to roll in again, but the races started on time at 6 p.m. I shot two or three and then ran up to the press area (at the top of the parking garage next to the track) to send in a few photos. I try to schedule myself a little bit of time to get a few images in early, and this time I had about 30-45 min.
Well, that is until the announcer came over the loud speaker and said, “we have reports of bad weather in the area, so we are going to start a rolling schedule.” That means instead of keeping a minute-by-minute start time schedule, they were just going to run the races back to back as soon as the athletes were ready.
I immediately sent in the five or so photos I had ready to go, then grabbed my gear and ran down to the track. On my way to the finish line to shoot the 4A girls 100 meter hurdles race, I heard “on your mark…” Oh no! Not yet! I need to shoot that race! “Get set…” Run faster! “…Stand up” Whew! They weren’t ready to start yet. I kept running and they got ready again.
As I got about half way from the start to the finish, the gun fired. I knelt down on one knee, pointed my 200-400mm at lane 3 and fired off three shots as my athlete jumped a hurdle. I didn’t see shot 1, but I knew shot 2 and 3 jumped to back focus. Agh!
I didn’t have time to look at the back of the camera before a UIL official tapped me on the shoulder and said, “ma’am, you can’t stay here, you have to stand at the finish line with the other photographers.” I got up and moved. At the finish line I took a deep breath and pulled up the photos. Shot 2 and 3 were badly out of focus, just as I suspected. But shot 1? Shot 1! I got something! Whew!
I settled in at the finish line to shoot the next group of races, checking my list for lane assignments, when a UIL official turned and looked at the line of photographers. “We’re shutting down for weather,” he said. A few seconds later the announcer confirmed and everyone was evacuated from the stadium.
Everyone except the photographers, who sat under large tents with metal poles on the top of the parking garage, right next to a giant metal light pole. At one point a lone campus police officer made a mild attempt to get us to take shelter, but if you’ve ever tried to get a journalist to move from their computer during deadline, you know that it’s a completely futile effort.
I sent in the last of what I had shot earlier and packed up my laptop to keep it from getting wet. I put my 200-400mm f4 in my car and pulled the car under an overhang in case of hail, then took shelter in the crowded press box.
The storm was bad. At just after 7 p.m. it was completely dark outside. Not just storm dark, it was middle of the night dark. Take a look at the photo at the top of the post. That was taken around 7:30 p.m., which should be just about magic hour this time of year.
The rain came down in sheets. It was more rain than we’ve seen in central Texas in a long long time. I sat in the press box and returned some phone calls, checking in with my reporters and UIL officials regularly. At about 8:30 p.m. I got a call from my editor, who told me to go home. Oh boy, was I happy to hear that! The rain hadn’t let up, and it wouldn’t until about 10 p.m. They resumed events then and didn’t finish until after midnight.
Day 2
Sat. was completely opposite. It was sunny and nice and there were no delays. I got there early again, but no Dallas athletes were competing. I set up my computer and touched base with the reporters, then got something to eat and waited until the 6 p.m. race start time.
Like I said, everything went fairly smoothly all evening. Instead of giving you the play-by-play, I’ll just post some of my favorite images of the day.
It might just be me, but photos of running events just never have that wow factor that field events do. I prefer to shoot field events like pole vault and high jump, but this time was mostly running.
A lot of times when shooting running events, I end up with the same photos over and over and over again. If I camp out at the finish line, all I get are athletes running toward me finishing the race. Then most of them are rushed off the track as soon as the race is over, not leaving much time for reaction. It just seems very formulaic.
I try to find other places around the track to shoot to make a different image when I can, but sometimes, access just doesn’t allow for it. Like that hurdle shot I took on Fri. I got one shot before I was asked to move. It all just depends on the meet, the layout and how strict the closest official is with the rules.
Anyway, for you gear-minded people, I used two Nikon D700s, one with a 200-400mm f4 lens and one with an 80-200mm f2.8 lens. I had my 24-70mm f2.8 lens on my belt and used it when necessary. I also kept my SB910 speedlight on my belt, but I didn’t need it.
Click here to view more track images on the Dallas Morning News sports web site.
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