When News Breaks

Well yesterday turned out to be rather interesting. Here's the story....I was to shoot the Big Sky Conference semi finals at 6:15. So I arrived at the arean at 4pm to set up a remote, get my computer setup, send a test photo, etc, etc, etc. At around 5:30 we (the media) are all sitting in the press room doing nothing when BOOM! Mt. St. Helens had blown and blown big. You could see the ash cloud from downtown Portland. So now I am thinking..."shit" I have to shoot a basketball game I can't go run off to the mountain. I call my editor at Getty and told her what was going on so she could call another stringer. 10 minutes later, no dice, nobody to shoot. It's now 5:45, game time 30 minutes. Crap. So I grab cameras and a long lens and run out the door to try and find a spot high enough to see the mountain and off I go. The first place I went was the highest building I saw near the arena. I figured I would be able to talk my way to the top and get a nice shot. I walk in and a lady offers to take me to her office....sweet...only security would not let press in the building without permission. Normally I would talk my way up, but she was having nothing of it and I had no time to waste....I got back in the car and see a Holiday Inn. I run into the Holiday Inn and talk to the manager, who is more than happy to take me to the roof. Nice, now it is 6:05. We get up to the roof and have a great view, only now it is getting dark and some clouds have formed over the ash. Crap. I got one shitty photo out of it. I ran back downstairs, jumped in the car and hauled butt back to the arean to send the photo to New York real quick. They were happy to have something, even though it sucked, but they had it before anyone else within an hour of the event. Not too bad. Finally after I sent the photo it was 6:25 or so and I had only missed about 9 minutes of game time. I ran into the arena at a time out and turned on my remote, then sat down and shot the rest of the game, sweating like a pig from running around. That is one of the things that make this job so much fun. Spot News. Fast Deadlines. It really is an adreline rush.

So now, back to the game(s), I set up a remote on the post again and got some good stuff. I did not fire it as much since I was shooting on the same side of the court as the remote was, but it worked. weber State upset Portland State. Tonight will be the championship game between Montana and Weber State with the winning getting a bid to the NCAA tourney. Should be good.