In the quest for great photographs, no amount of talent or enthusiasm can overcome tough logistics and tight scheduling. So it was Thursday.
Assignments: shoot World Cup Moguls at Deer Valley, then hit an evening shot back in Salt Lake City.
Time was going to be short from the start. My shift started at noon and the event was set to start at 1pm. Factor in the thirty minute drive, parking, credential pick up, and a long hike up to the mogul course and you’ve got some serious timing problems. Add in the fact that the photos are slated for the front page and now there is pressure. Not a good environment for producing great photographs.
Arriving at Deer Valley, I see another photographer’s distinctive blue truck parked in the very first row of the mammoth parking lot. That should have been where the Tribune photographer ended up, on time, prepared and on top of things. The parking spot I found was at the far end of the lot, out in Siberia, making for a long walk in snow clothes and carrying all of my gear.
Some good news does come, however, when I’m told that the event has been pushed back to 2pm. With that announcement I suddenly feel prepared and on schedule. But then I find out that the women and men made their first runs this morning. This means that I’ve lost any option for a second angle.
There are only a few dozen athletes slated to ski in the finals. This will make it tough because you really only get one shot at each athlete as they fly off a jump and sail past. One shot. And you don’t know who’s going to win so when you’re editing all you can do is pray that you got a good shot of the gold medalist.
The best way to photograph winter sports is to shoot action up on the hill for the first run and head down to the bottom to shoot reactions during the finals. In this case, I had to choose one or the other. Since it was going front page I started climbing up the hill, figuring that seeing these athletes flipping through the air on skis would be a better front page shot.
This story is getting long so I’ll let’s hurry it up. My evening assignment back in Salt Lake was going to be a challenge, but then it got even tighter when I was switched onto an even earlier assignment. The decision was made to skip the mens final, so now I just had 16 athletes to get our front page shot. I could see the likelihood of this actually making the front page vanishing before my eyes. There just wasn’t enough time to get a great photograph. I should have been up here all day.
I photographed the women’s final and drove back to Salt Lake. After sending in my best photographs, I sent a text message to the photo desk that my photos were in and that I was going to take a short lunch break before my next assignment. My phone rings a moment later, and my evening assignment has been changed again. I run out to the car and start driving through rush hour traffic to Provo, forty-five minutes away, to photograph a boy and his mother. There will be no lunch break, however short, today.
It’s just how some days are.
