Day 30 (Fri., Sept. 30)

It's Friday and that only means one thing: tonight there was Friday Night Lights. I headed out to Plantation High School where I documented the game between rivals Plantation and South Plantation. The game was good. I was able to play w/ a very sweet lens. A 200 mm 1.8F lens. UUUHHHHH!!! That was so good. A week ago when I shot football at this same location, I shot the game w/ a flash because it was kind of dark. Well, tonight, w/ the help of the cool lens, I didn't have to worry about using a flash. In fact, I was able to get some cool action. It was halftime and I had the photos below in my storage bank. I still had two hours before deadline, so I decided to stay a little longer so that I can try to get something better. It was a good thing that I stayed behind because I captured the above photo at 8:45, which was the time I gave myself to leave the game. I was really happy when I saw the photo pop up on the screen of my camera, but I didn't realize I had such great facial features on the football player as he caught a touchdown pass. It makes the photo work. The eyes are what the photo is all about. You can see the determination and concentration it takes to catch a touchdown pass.

The above photo and the one below are good enough for print. Those were the photos I had by halftime. In fact, I captured those images 10 minutes into the game. I would have been well off w/ these photos and gone back to the office. But I don't like to leave any stone un-turned, so I stayed a little longer. It was cool staying behind, even if that meant sticking through the obnoxious band shows at halftime. Don't get me wrong, the amount of work these kids put into their work all week done so they can do well in a seven-minute space during halftime should not go unnoticed. But I really would rather see more football and less parading. That's just me.

I decided to go w/ the black and white look to these photos because that's what Friday Night Football is all about. It's about what makes football what it is. B&W photography is what photography is all about. It's sort of the basics. It's my way of symbolizing the beginning of something great. Some high school football players will go on to be great athletes and play professional sports when they make it to the big show. Same thing w/ all these expensive and fancy digital cameras, they got started w/ the B&W negative look, the "high school years" of photography, if you will.

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