My Year With LSU Track & Field
Indoor Season
Pentathlon
The indoor season started with the team pentathlon. Used as a test, the team does different events compared to previous trials at the beginning of their training. This practice was my first interaction with many of the athletes; however, I still got some pretty memorable images. Practice photos allow me to capture a more fun side of the team compared to the more serious side of the meet-day images.
Purple Tiger Invitational
The first meet of the year for the team came at home. This meet was a small competition against mostly smaller schools from around Louisiana. This meet came with my first attempt to use a remote camera. However, our dark facility was less than ideal for my first time. Although nothing useable came from the remote, I captured some great photos.
Razorback Invitational
The Razorback Invitational was the first meet I travelled to this year. We headed to Fayetteville, Arkansas. We travelled on a chartered plane, so this provided my first opportunity to shoot travel photos on the tarmac. This meet had some excellent competition and provided some amazing reactions for me to capture. I was also able to photograph LSU Women's Basketball as they played only an hour after track practice.
LSU Twilight
After a few weeks on the road, the team finally returned for a Friday afternoon meet at the Carl Maddox Field House. Another meeting at home led to another failed attempt at a remote for me. I attempted to position it in a catwalk directly over the finish line. Though this attempt failed, I learned the process of using a magic arm and remote safety.
In the morning before the meet started, I travelled to a local elementary school, where a former LSU Track & Field athlete, Lloyd Wills, spoke to a class about his experience as the first African American athlete at LSU.
SEC Indoor Championships
For SEC Indoor Championships, the team travelled to College Station, Texas. This meet provided some stellar performances, and the first chance I had to see the athletes compete for something other than time. The team performed well with medals on the line and gave me plenty of opportunities for great photos.
NCAA Indoor Championships
The team travelled to Birmingham, Alabama, for NCAA championships to finish the indoor season. With a smaller group than in past meets, I was able to get more creative. Although the team did not perform the greatest, I could still photograph the national competition.
Outdoor Season
Baldy Castillo Invitational
Just two days after the indoor season ended, we travelled to Tempe, Arizona, for the first meet of the outdoor season. It felt great to be outside for the first time of the year, and the lovely light helped tremendously. With the palm trees and the desert breeze, it would have been hard for me not to enjoy my spring break with the team at the track.
After the first team practice, the annual spring break bowling trip took place, where the staff defeated the coaches by only a few pins.
Battle on the Bayou
The outdoor season's first home meet allowed me to be more creative with my shooting positions. I had better access and extra help from my coworkers, so I did not have to be at the finish line for every race. Shooting from the Bernie Moore pressbox roof allowed me to isolate some of our athletes, and going to the back straight allowed me to use the hedges as a background.
LSU Alumni Gold
I missed one of the biggest meets of the year, Texas Relays. When I was assigned the Spring Game the same day as this meet, I ran over to the track as soon as it was over. I got there for the last few races of the meet, and it did not disappoint.
LSU Invitational
This meet had some of the best competition in the country and brought some great reactions during the meet. With many great performances throughout the day, the men's 4x400 team defeated texas at the line. This meet also had our senior day presentations and, later on, the Garth Brooks Concert.
NCAA Regionals
With the year ending, the team took a big group to regionals and had quite a few athletes qualify for finals in Oregon. I attempted to set up another remote camera, which finally worked this time. I placed it near the steeple jump and around the finish line. With lots of rain across four days of competition, I got good at putting on and taking off rain gear. Working Monday to Saturday was tiring but provided some new material for my portfolio.
Practice and travel photos allowed me to capture more of the personality of the athletes before starting the competition.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
NCAA Championships
It all came down to one final trip to Eugene, Oregon. The last meet of the year brought great races and fantastic photos. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and then had two days of practice before the meet started on Wednesday. for the preliminary races, the first two days, I challenged myself to be more creative and shoot from areas other than the finish line, and it paid off. The team finished sixth for men and fourth for women, along with a couple of individual national champions.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
