More Steelers Vs Jaguars

Here are a few more images from the Steelers Vs Jaguars game.

Willie Parker makes a move down the field. Too bad Willie

broke his leg in the next game and is out for the season.

Tough day for Big Ben as he prepares to be sacked.

Santonio Holmes grabs one in double coverage.

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We are headed off to shoot the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday and then on to Tampa for Imaging USA the next week. I really enjoy Phoenix and Tampa, so it should be a great time.

Jags over Steelers

Jaguars quarterback David Garrard hands off the ball off to Fred Taylor for another Jacksonville first down.
Despite rough weather and tough field conditions the Jaguars broke the Steelers home game winning streak.

WVU Vs Pitt

We won't talk about the game, I think we all want to forget that as soon as possible.

But it wasn't a total loss. Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover was at the game filming a segment for the family in Fairmont that are getting a makeover this week. And General Chuck Yeager was honored by the band at half-time.


WVU President Garrison and Ty film the part where WVU provides the
kids in a family a free education.


Below Ty takes time out to pose with the WVU Cheerleading squad.




Below General Chuck Yeager poses with Governor Joe Manchin and WVU Mountaineer Mascot Brady Campbell.

WVU Vs Winthrop

Joe Alexander works his way into the hoop!

Big East Champs!

Coach Rod accepts congratulations from the fans after a huge victory over UConn.
On to the backyard brawl and just maybe the BCS Championship!

WVU Blowout!

WVU Mens Basketball has begun and they completely blew out Prairie View in regular season game two. The team has really grown physically. The best part of the game was when Joe Alexander went into the stands to go after the ball. He actually hurdled the two rows of folding chairs that sit courtside including the people sitting in them and landed in the bleachers behind.

Nobody was hurt and I don't think he even moved the chairs!

Here he is going in for two under the hoop.

Pittsburgh Steelers Vs Cleveland Browns

Had a chance on Sunday to photograph the Steelers / Browns game and did I ever pick a good game to shoot. Above Big Ben rumbles down the field for his record breaking touchdown!

Willie Parker carries the ball and a couple of Browns too!

Stuck in Phoenix

Coming home from Cabo....Due to long lines in security and customs we missed our connecting flight back to Pittsburgh and are ....stuck overnight in Phoenix. I can think of alot worse places to be stuck.

I thought I would take a minute and post a couple photographs taken with the new Canon D9 point and shoot camera. I got it just in time for this trip and haven't even had time to go over the manual but I managed to get a few nice shots. This is Canon's top of the line point and shoot
and best of all it includes the RAW mode that has been missing from the PowerShot line for the last few years.

Another beautiful Mexican sunset.

The lobby of the Hotel California in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

I'm on vacation this week in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I am doing some work while I'm here, working on business plans for next year and taking lots of photographs. I guess a photographer can't really get away from his work if you want to call it that. This place is beautiful! I'll have to admit I am sitting around the pool and enjoying this while I'm here too because I know what the weather will be like in West Virginia in the near future.

Right now one of the biggest fishing tournaments in the world is happening here in Cabo and I happened to be at the check in point when this 300 lb Black Marlin was brought in. At that time it was in second place but first place was over 500 lbs.

The sunsets here are unbelievable too. Here is one I shot last night.

Darryl Worley and Emerson Drive Concert

Country music stars Darryl Worley and Emerson Drive performed live in concert......very talented entertainers.

More Festival Events

Governor Manchin anticipates the crowning of Catie Wilkes Queen Silvia the 71st.

Woodchopping compeition is always a ton of fun.

The Toronto Police Winged Wheels Precision Motorcycle Team......Not only are they great riders but a group of real nice guys!

Sunday Festival Events

Great Weather!! Really makes or breaks festival week....
Today was the 10K Run /Walk, the Childrens Parade and tonight was a Beatles
look and sound alike band.

The kids sure had fun at the fun run!

Its Festival Week!!

Its Forest Festival time again. For those that don't know the Forest Festival is one of the biggest festivals in the state and is non-stop events for nine days and I'm lucky enough to be the

Official Photographer for the past 13 years. Today was opening ceremony, the strong man contest and the gospel music show.

Here are a few images from the strong man contest.

Those guys are maniacs!!

I think I got a hernia just watching!!

Kansas Concert

Had a blast last night shooting the band Kansas in concert. The MKIII was flawless! The images shown are all straight shots at ISO 3200. Shot in RAW and converted in CS3 and thats it!

I also shot the meet and greet before the show. The band seemed like nice guys. The drummer had a thing about shaking hands which at first I thought was kind of rude but after some thought I realized was quite sensible. He makes a living with those hands and some he-man decides to shake real hard and he can't perform like he should. Just my observations....

This week we are shooting Team and individual football and soccer with some seniors sprinkled in. WVU Vs E. Carolina on Saturday and then off to Huntington for the Professional Photographers of WV fall convention. I'm going to be one of the speakers and its a little scary.

I'm used to speaking in front of customers but not in front of other professional photographers. Hopefully they won't fall asleep or throw things.....

Football Samples From the MKIII

Lovin the MKIII.....I've shot a large wedding and two West Virginia football games so far and have no complaints. I really like the feel of the shutter and its very quiet too. No sign of the focus problem that people were noticing with the first ones shipped. Buttons are very intuitive and the larger display is quite nice.

Canon EOS 1D MK III

Got my MKIII today and I'm spending some quality time with the manual for the next couple days. I'm going break it in at a large wedding we are shooting on Saturday. I'll let you know how it performs. First impression is great.....a good bit lighter than the MKII with a larger display. I doubt I will need the 10 frames per second at the wedding but Mountaineer Football is right around the corner!!!

Forest Festival 50 Motorcycle and ATV Race

The Forest Festival 50 Motorcycle and ATV race held on Kelly Mountain outside Elkins was fun as usual on Saturday. Very hot and very dusty. Luckily the Canon 1DMKIIn is sealed to dust and water and is the perfect camera for these kind of racing conditions. Got the MKIII on order and will post images after I've tried it out a while.

Whats been happening?

I've been a bad blogger for the last month or so and haven't posted for a while.

July was crazy with baseball and seniors and one week was spent in Daytona Beach, not at the beach but in a dark classroom learning the ins and outs of PPA print competition at the annual PPA judging class. It was a real eye opener to see how the prints are critiqued and the huge amount of effort they put into the integrity of the competition. Dennis Craft and Helen Yancy were the instructors and really covered all the bases of competition.

Speaking of the print competition it looks like I hung all four entered prints and got one in the loan collection! And SURPRISE it was a WVU basketball shot! I guess I'm going to be a sports photographer when I grow up.

Last Sunday Christie and I hosted the PPWV annual picnic. We had a great turnout and everyone seemed to have a good time on the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley train ride despite the torrential rains that came later in the afternoon. Thanks very much to the crew from Canon!

Jen, Timo and Morgan in Sacramento

While in California I had the pleasure to photograph a cute young family on the state Capitol grounds in Sacramento.

Mono Lake and Yosemite

Mono Lake was very cool. I've always wanted to see the Tufa formations and they were extremely cool. The big mistake I made on my trip planning was that I didn't allow near enough time to see everything. It would have been really nice to have more options of the time of day to photograph the lake.

Yosemite was a very peaceful place especially when you get away from the central part of the park. The absolute most impressive view I found was from the Glacier Point lookout but almost anywhere you look was a great photo op. Below is a last light shot of Half Dome.

I've heard lots of stories about the bears at Yosemite but never thought I would run across one. This hungry guy didn't seem to mind having his photo taken while he searched for his bug dinner.

Lake Tahoe, Nevada

We are on a little vacation this week in California and it is fantastic here.

It is beautiful just like West Virginia is this time of year. It is like a much bigger version of home.

We stumbled across a mock disaster scene and I got a few decent shots.

The disaster was an explosion and oil spill containment drill. It was really

interesting stuff.

We are headed off to Yosemite for the next couple days. We plan on visiting Mono Lake on the way and stop by the Ansel Adams Gallery along with as many waterfalls as we can find.

Professional Boxing

This past weekend I photographed Professional Boxer, Kenny George in action as he pretty much pummeled his opponent in a six round event. This is the third time I've photographed a match for Kenny since he began his professional career and he just gets more awesome every time.

Boxing is a real challenge to photograph, you generally have to deal with really bad lighting, very fast action and the ropes of the ring which are almost constantly in the way. A fast lens along with high ISO setting and some patience are the secret to success.

WVU Vs NC State

Rob Summers and Frank "The Tank" Young salute the crowd

after winning their final game at the WVU Coliseum to propel them into the finals of the

NIT Tournament in New York.

What a game! A victory at the Coliseum for the Mountaineers to move on to the Garden to finish the job. The crowd really turned it on at the end of the game, sparked by what in my humble opinion were some questionable calls.





Alex Ruoff drives to the hoop.

WVU Basketball NIT Tournament

Two games down, one to go in Morgantown. The Mountaineers are on a roll!!

The crowd at the UMass game was awesome. They made as much noise as a 12,000

plus crowd. I'll be shooting the WVU Vs NC State game on Tuesday, Go Mountaineers!

Mid East States Convention

Just got back from the big city of Dayton, Ohio. My son Greg and I attended the Mid-East States convention and Regional Print Competition. He is starting to get interested in this photography thing. I hope he enjoys it as much as I do.

The print competition was a big success for me. I came out 10th in the top 10 MidEast photographers. That means of all the print cases entered from West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan my case was the 10th highest of all!
Not bad for a sports photographer. My image Eat My Dust scored a 95 and I got 3 blue ribbons out of 4 prints. Needless to say I was very happy with the judging.

Arizona Vacation

Just got back from a week exploring Arizona. We spent the first of the week in the Sedona, I did a little hiking and checking out the art galleries. The end of the week was spent in the Tucson area. Tuscon was a busy place with the huge match play golf tournament going on and the big annual rodeo. I didn't realize either was going on until we arrived and got into the traffic. I wish I had planned on attending both, I'm sure it would have been fun to photograph pro golf and rodeo.......maybe next year. We checked out some of the cactus forests and rode to Mt. Lemon the top of a 9,000 foot mountain that has unbelieveable views. The best part of the week was the south rim of the Grand Canyon, I don't know what I expected but it was nothing like I thought it would be. I stopped at as many overlooks as I could and everytime I thought that it just couldn't get anymore beautiful the next stop would be even more spectacular. It snowed and was very cold so not alot of people were out and around, but the bad weather made for some real nice shots. I'm definitely going to go back again when I can spend more time and do some hiking into the canyon.

PPWV Spring Convention

Just got back from the Professional Photographers of West Virginia Convention in Oak Hill, West Virginia. We had a great crowd and got to mingle with many very talented photographers. Today the speakers were David Huntsman of Versailles, KY and Clayton Spangler of Charleston, West Virginia. Both are not only very gifted photographers but nice guys too. If you want to see some of the winners keep checking the PPWV Website at www.ppwv.org. The results should be posted in the next week or so.

The print competition was also lots of fun and we had many beautiful prints on display.

Personally, I took home four blue ribbons, second place in the commercial category and won the Phillips Rittenhouse Award for the best News Photograph for the 5th time in the last 8 years of competition.

Image Titled: Eat My Dust won the

Phillips-Rittenhouse News Photo Award

Image Titled: Gator Bowl Celebration

Won 2nd Place in the Commercial Category

Trip to San Antonio

Wow! What a weird week! We arrived on Friday, short sleeved shirts, eating dinner outdoors on the balcony of a typical San Antonio Riverwalk restaurant. 24 hours later, coats and ice, roads closed down and ice everywhere! And that was the weather story for the rest of the week. I could have stayed home for weather like that... but it was still alot of fun. The usually bustling Riverwalk was very quiet and I did get a few nice shots of the ice that formed on almost everything.

The Imaging USA convention was quite educational. I was able to attend many seminars taught by some of the leading photographers in the world. Celebrity wedding photographers Denis Reggie and Joe Buisink both gave very informative programs. I sat in on a couple other classes on photographing seniors and children and I was also able to take in some Adobe Photoshop seminars. The tradeshow was good but I didn't find any new earth shattering products that I couldn't live without.

The highlight of the week for me was the awards ceremony where I was presented with my Master of Photography degree by my lovely wife Christie and PPA President Michael Taylor.

Since the weather was so bad and the airport was such a mess we stayed an extra day and took in a San Antonio Spurs game against the LA Lakers. Lakers won in the last seconds and Kobe had over 30 points.