Looking Back on 2009
Here is a quick slideshow of some of my pictures from 2009. For lack of a better term I’ve titled them my best but that may not be totally accurate nor would calling them my favorites. I suppose when I think of my experiences in 2009, at least as far as the paper goes, these pictures come to mind.
Fxbg fireworks time-lapse
Fireworks explode over Fredericksburg, Va on Saturday, July 4, 2009. (Mike Morones/The Free Lance-Star)
Director of Photography Dave Ellis and I climbed up the scaffolding around St. George’s Episcopal church in Fredericksburg the other night to photograph the fireworks with the city in the foreground. The plan was to take several cameras up, each with a different lens, and trigger the cameras at intervals and then put all the pictures together into a time-lapse video. We got up there insanely early and began setting up the cameras. In the end, we had two mounted and firing intervals and each of us had a camera that we would trigger on our own. As it happened, Dave’s camera was in a less than ideal position as we miscalculated the position of the show in relation to the foreground. My frames were OK but with only one perspective, it is kind of a boring video. I wouldn’t say the thing is a total failure but it didn ‘t rise to the levels I had hoped. On the upside, from our vantage point we spotted a few locations around downtown that might serve as better positions to photograph from next year. Click on the image above to see the show.
AA Track
I spent last Saturday in Harrisonburg shooting the AA state track meet. Aside from surly meet officials and quite possibly the worst case of allergies i’ve ever encountered, it was a fairly uneventful meet. It was originally projected that the Louisa County boys team would win if their winter track results were any indicator. They blew away the compeition in the winter but it looked like they struggled on Saturday. It came down to the final event, the 1600-meter relay. They were in the fast heat and finsihed third there but placed 8th overall as a couple teams in the early heat posted better than expected times. I didn’t really have much of a reaction picture aside from some tired kids sitting around on the ground but the frame never really came together. That’s the trouble with trying to layer a complex picture; either everything comes together perfectly and you have a deep picture or something is out of place and the whole thing doesn’t work. Should kept it simple, I guess! Anyway, here are two frames, one of the girls 400-meter run state champion and the first handoff in the boys’ 1600-meter relay.
Orange County's Ashontae Jackson launches from the starting blocks in the 400-meter run at the AA state track meet at Harrisonburg High School in Harrisonburg, Va, on Saturday, May 30, 2009. Jackson won the state title with a time of 56.68 seconds. (Mike Morones/The Free Lance-Star)
Louisa's Brandon Payne, left, hands the baton to Brandon Parker in the 1600-meter relay at the AA state track meet at Harrisonburg High School in Harrisonburg, Va, on Saturday, May 30, 2009. Louisa placed eighth in the event, giving them only enough points to place third overall. (Mike Morones/The Free Lance-Star)
Tomorrow the AA state sports jubilee begins at Radford University. So far there is a local tennis player and a softball team. There likely will be a girls soccer match as well. So, this afternoon I’ll make the trek down to Radford. In years past, the area has had a lot more representation and consequently it took more staffers to cover the weekend’s events. Now, not so much. Plus it looks like the softball and soccer will be going on at the same time, so I’ll have to make some decisions as to how I go about getting to both and still get some storytelling images.
