timmyquest
26th of February 2005 (Sat), 00:50
So my day starts 5 hours after the other one ended at 7am. I take a shower and get ready for work. Before I leave at 8:30 I double check to make sure all my batteries are charging, my camera and lenses are all together and ready to go.
I go to my primary job until 1. Get home at 1:00 and gather all my gear and a map from yahoo maps that will get me to Winnetka Illinois. I look at my cell phone and realize I forgot to charge that battery, no biggy...a quick stop at the nextel shop down the street to pick up an in-car charger.
Ok, so I got my camera, lenses, directions, keys, money, I’m set. I fill up the gas tank, and buy the charger. It's only 1:30...still got 2 and a half hours.
The drive goes nice, the directions were perfect, but as I expected...I get there and there is no parking, at all. I snapped this on my way back after the meet, it pretty much sums up parking for about a mile in a circle around the high school, which by the way is by far the largest froooking high school I’ve ever seen!
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/park.jpg
I find a spot on one of these narrow streets...in my big Chevy 1500 pickup. I do a pretty ugly three point turn around only to find some chump in a mini van getting ready to back into my spot, so I pull in quickly and I can tell this pisses him off. I look at him with his school colors on, look down at my camera next to me and say "F**** IT!...I’m working" I get out and gather my things and as I expected he pulls back quickly and rolls his window down. To my surprise he says "Could you pull up a little so we can both park here?". Now feeling like an ass, I realize there is indeed room for both.
I now make my way to the school, I get my pass, and start my search.
"Just follow the yellow tape to the pool" the lady says. "Great!" I think...this'll be a piece of cake.
I follow the yellow brick road all the way to a set of stairs when I realize that this is not leading me to the right place.
"I need to get on the deck, whets the fastest way to get there?"
"You'll probably want to go through the locker room."
"Great thanks, which way is that"
He sends me off and I’m on my way. I find the locker room door and present my pass to the man sitting in front of the door.
"I'm told this is the best way to the deck..."
"Well, it is but this is the girls locker room"
He sends me on my way and I easily find the guys locker room. When I get there and present this man with my pass he looks at me as if I’m joking, this is when I realize the lady gave me the wrong pass. In fact, it wasn’t even a pass...I had the standard ticket.
To my surprise he let me in, but I felt like an idiot :confused:
I get to the locker room, find the door to the deck, and walk out...and what I see is nothing what I expected. jkringas (from Fredmiranda) had told me he has shot this event in the past and to expect it to be packed...but again, this is nothing what I expected.
I open the door to this, keep in mind this is during practice, the amount of people seemed to have doubled once the meet began.
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/1.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/2.jpg
Looking back at the photos tonight, I think this is the only one that gives you a sense of how packed it was along the pool. And I still feel it does it no justice. There is truly something a little uneasy about standing on the deck of a wet pool with your toes hanging over the edge while you have $3800 of photography equipment around your neck :shock:
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/3.jpg
I'm just glad that I only had to pay attention to two swimmers and it didn’t matter how they performed. I was standing next to a photog from a larger paper who had a list of 10 kids that he was suppose to "keep an eye on".
Two kids, two events that I had time to photograph. Here are the shots. The second kid was in the 50 freestyle, he didn’t come up for a single breath...leaving my options fairly limited.
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/4.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/5.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/6.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/7.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/8.jpg
After the 50 free there was a 15 min break, and no more events for me to shoot within my time frame.
An hour and a half there, 2 hours back (traffic)
I stood around on the deck for 45 mins before the meet started, getting ready, figuring out my settings etc.
The meet starts, but the first event I have to shoot is the fourth, so I watch races for about 30 mins.
The first event comes up, the race lasts 1:30.
Another 10-15 before the next event
That race lasts about 40 seconds
So, about 4 hours of nothing, for about 2 mins of shooting :D
I enjoyed it...and they pay me for this :-)
...the end.
I go to my primary job until 1. Get home at 1:00 and gather all my gear and a map from yahoo maps that will get me to Winnetka Illinois. I look at my cell phone and realize I forgot to charge that battery, no biggy...a quick stop at the nextel shop down the street to pick up an in-car charger.
Ok, so I got my camera, lenses, directions, keys, money, I’m set. I fill up the gas tank, and buy the charger. It's only 1:30...still got 2 and a half hours.
The drive goes nice, the directions were perfect, but as I expected...I get there and there is no parking, at all. I snapped this on my way back after the meet, it pretty much sums up parking for about a mile in a circle around the high school, which by the way is by far the largest froooking high school I’ve ever seen!
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/park.jpg
I find a spot on one of these narrow streets...in my big Chevy 1500 pickup. I do a pretty ugly three point turn around only to find some chump in a mini van getting ready to back into my spot, so I pull in quickly and I can tell this pisses him off. I look at him with his school colors on, look down at my camera next to me and say "F**** IT!...I’m working" I get out and gather my things and as I expected he pulls back quickly and rolls his window down. To my surprise he says "Could you pull up a little so we can both park here?". Now feeling like an ass, I realize there is indeed room for both.
I now make my way to the school, I get my pass, and start my search.
"Just follow the yellow tape to the pool" the lady says. "Great!" I think...this'll be a piece of cake.
I follow the yellow brick road all the way to a set of stairs when I realize that this is not leading me to the right place.
"I need to get on the deck, whets the fastest way to get there?"
"You'll probably want to go through the locker room."
"Great thanks, which way is that"
He sends me off and I’m on my way. I find the locker room door and present my pass to the man sitting in front of the door.
"I'm told this is the best way to the deck..."
"Well, it is but this is the girls locker room"
He sends me on my way and I easily find the guys locker room. When I get there and present this man with my pass he looks at me as if I’m joking, this is when I realize the lady gave me the wrong pass. In fact, it wasn’t even a pass...I had the standard ticket.
To my surprise he let me in, but I felt like an idiot :confused:
I get to the locker room, find the door to the deck, and walk out...and what I see is nothing what I expected. jkringas (from Fredmiranda) had told me he has shot this event in the past and to expect it to be packed...but again, this is nothing what I expected.
I open the door to this, keep in mind this is during practice, the amount of people seemed to have doubled once the meet began.
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/1.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/2.jpg
Looking back at the photos tonight, I think this is the only one that gives you a sense of how packed it was along the pool. And I still feel it does it no justice. There is truly something a little uneasy about standing on the deck of a wet pool with your toes hanging over the edge while you have $3800 of photography equipment around your neck :shock:
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/3.jpg
I'm just glad that I only had to pay attention to two swimmers and it didn’t matter how they performed. I was standing next to a photog from a larger paper who had a list of 10 kids that he was suppose to "keep an eye on".
Two kids, two events that I had time to photograph. Here are the shots. The second kid was in the 50 freestyle, he didn’t come up for a single breath...leaving my options fairly limited.
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/4.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/5.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/6.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/7.jpg
http://www.questphotos.com/febuary2005/swim/8.jpg
After the 50 free there was a 15 min break, and no more events for me to shoot within my time frame.
An hour and a half there, 2 hours back (traffic)
I stood around on the deck for 45 mins before the meet started, getting ready, figuring out my settings etc.
The meet starts, but the first event I have to shoot is the fourth, so I watch races for about 30 mins.
The first event comes up, the race lasts 1:30.
Another 10-15 before the next event
That race lasts about 40 seconds
So, about 4 hours of nothing, for about 2 mins of shooting :D
I enjoyed it...and they pay me for this :-)
...the end.