Since so few football photographs are made with wide angle lenses, they really stand out. You never know when the action is going to come too close for any other lens to work. And since it doesn’t happen often, most photographers keep their wide angle in the bag until the game ends.

These shots were all made in RAW mode, which takes up more card space, but allows for higher quality in the post-processing phase. Since I use the wide angle sparingly, I’m able to shoot that camera in RAW. For the telephotos I’m stuck with JPEG just to keep things deadline-manageable.

Vic So’oto leads the pre-game Haka. Look at cameraman Pete wade in there, fearless.

There’s a clue to how I got the camera up so high elsewhere in this post. For those of you who can’t figure it out, I was able to talk one of the men on the cheer squad to let me stand on his shoulders. Luckily I have the balance of a dancer.

All words in italics are lies.

BYU quarterback Max Hall gets a hand from fans as he heads to the locker room. I’m on the cheerleader’s shoulders for this shot, too. We were running all over the field, chasing down Max Hall.