Batman, 1989, The Joker – Played by Jack Nicholson

I’m still processing photos from the wedding I shot in Kansas City last weekend.  I wanted to post this particular shot first though. It was taken of the bride and groom dancing during the reception. Since the wedding was on the 31st of October they turned the reception into a costume party. You really couldn’t of asked for a better setting. It was located at the Bingham-Waggoner estate in Independance, MO. The house was built in the mid 1800’s and really looked like it had a few unexplained stories behind its doors. The area where the reception/dance was held was VERY dark. Its tough to shoot in this type of setting because  your constantly trying to find an appropriate balance of off camera flash and available light. To make things more difficult, you have to maintain a decent shutter speed if you want any chance of your flash being able to freeze the action on the dance floor. Not to mention the camera’s auto focus is pretty much useless because its so dark, so the only option is to manually focus.  I think the lighting balance in this shot turned out perfect and I squeaked by with a just enough shutter speed to freeze the action with a few light trails in the background. I guess it just goes to show how much goes into a shot like this to get it to turn out the way you want.

Technical details.

24mm @ f3.2 1/4 sec shutter ISO 1000

Kevin Garnet - UCLA

T-Mac – Louisville

Josh Smith – Pitt

Dwight Howard – Kansas

I don’t like to play the “what if” game; however,  this would have been our starting lineup during the 03-04 season if this fairytale were true:

G. 6′4 215lbs Keith Langford

SG. 6′3 215lbs Michael Lee

PG. 6′1 175lbs Aaron Miles

PF. 6′9 255lbs Wayne Semien

C. 6′11 265lbs  Dwight Howard 

Bench: David  Padgett

The original plans for the weekend stayed intact in that we all traveled to Bolder for the KU vs Colorado match up. It was Ashleys first Jayhawk basketball game; while it was unfortunately away from Allen Field House, it was in front of a home crowd since the hawk fans out numbered the Colorado fans.  

My mother has taken a liking to this tree which sits in the corner of a wheat field between Hutchinson and Ellinwood, Kansas. She travels between the towns often to visited her father (grandpa) and during one of these trips noticed this tree. She has brought it up in conversation several times, sent me her own photo of it and made a point to drive me by it on our way from Kansas to Colorado.  This tree could have easily been removed, but for one reason or another the farmer decides to plow, plant and cut around it every year.  I am my mother’s son, we both notice when someone goes out of their way to let a tree grow.  Does this make me a tree hugger? I gotta move…

These are the last of my photos to process from the stockpile that occurred during my computer shortage. I had a blast hanging out with the guys at my replicate 10 year reunion.  I say replicate because my real high school reunion was naturally planned for the weekend after Luke and I bought our flights back. I’m not upset that I missed it, I would have gone had it not been planned at the last moment though.  I love hanging out with my high school friends; it’s one of the few things that makes me want to move back to the sunshine state. We have a blast when we hang out and it never takes long for us to fall back into the old routines just like the ol’ days in High school.   We spent one of the evenings at Jason’s house. His son Caden is one of the most photogenic children I have ever met.  I just read an article last week in my photography magazines about shooting reflections to gain an interesting perspective of things. For once I am already practicing a tip prior to its publication. Ashley and I spent the last part of our trip at my parent’s cabin at Kanopolis Lake in central Kansas. In large I spent my childhood at this lake, so it’s always special when I get to go back.  One of my many childhood memories was playing on a mid-evil looking swing at the park. Some things don’t change, I still like to play on it and I’m sure it could still behead a yack if given the opportunity.

A bonus to the day was that one of my favorite musicians, Bob Schneider, was playing a free concert. He put on a good show; played some of the favorites and threw in a few new songs as well. 

We arrived at the Alamo Dome about 80 min before tip-off. I wanted to grab the tivo remote and just fast forward to the start of the game, but it just wasn’t an option.

First Half: I was a little surprised that we didn’t play nervous. I had seen us do it in other games this year against defenses that weren’t nearly as good as Memphis. We ran our offence, worked the ball inside, and got great pressure and even a few steals with Chalmers and Collins. I believe we were up by 5 at half, but it didn’t matter. We were up by 29 at one time on North Carolina and I knew it didn’t matter. When you’re playing teams like NC, and Memphis no lead is safe. Right Billy Packer?

While I’m on the subject, I would have paid twice as much for my tickets not to have to listen to him during the games.

Second Half: I really don’t know how we got ourselves into a 14 point swing in the second half. We played fairly good and neither team was hitting from the parameter, it just kind of happened. I have watched the game several times on TV and it still surprises me when I look at the score and we are down by 9. Everyone credits Mario Chalmers for sending the game into overtime, and they should. He hit a well guarded, clutch 3 point shot. But if you watch the crowed, the vast majority of Kansas fans, including the bench, weren’t in hysterics when he hit it, they expected it. Sherron Collins is the one who gave us a fighting chance. In the final two minutes he created offence when they clamped down on us. He had an impossible steal on the inbound play and then managed to get the ball to Rush as he is falling out of bounds with two Memphis players in front of him. He then calmly rose, took up residence on the 3 point line and waited to deliver again with a 3 that cut the lead from 9 to 4.

Overtime: They didn’t have a chance. We ran our offence, produced high percentage points in the paint and finished it off with a fast break and a clinic on how to shoot high-pressure free throws.  When the fireworks went off I really didn’t understand what happened. 10 minutes earlier I was being called into the boss’s office to get fired and I just walked out with a raise, corner office and a shiny trophy.  UTEP, Duke, Arizona, Maryland, Bucknell, Bradley, Rhode Island, Syracuse, UCLA, Illinois, Georgia Tech, Kentucky. Off the top of my head these are just a few of the teams that have ended our tournament run in the past 20 years. It’s something you have to think about for the next 7 months until the next season. But not this year.

This is probably my favorite photo from San Antonio. Time was always a subject matter during the weekend. Whether it was a flight time, wanting time to move along with a 28 point lead on North Carolina, wanting more time when we were down by 9, an answered prayer at 2.8 seconds or a championship in overtime. However in this photo, time surrendered to the moment for us. We were all given the opportunity to remember when we watched the Kansas Jayhawks win the 2008 National Championship.

[About the photo: I left the shutter open for 1 sec and moved the flash to rear sync mode. This allows it to fire at the end of the shutter to gather the background light first.]