Today was the last football game of the season…
…and subsequently the last football game I’ll shoot for Harding University.
Years and years ago my first blog post was about shooting my first football game. Since then, that post has been long lost by changing hosts and blogs and such. But today was the last one. And of course its the last one for a bunch of football players and cheerleaders and band kids.
I thought I was the hot stuff with my first All-Access pass at a football game; since then I’ve had dozen. But it all started with football.
I began shooting football strictly for the sake of being on the sidelines and wearing out my camera as fast as I can. But now I shoot the football game almost as an accessory to the real life stuff going on around it
People in the stands…
Drama on the sidelines…
Drama with the people in the stands with the players on the sidelines…
But without meaning to sound conceited, I made an image this afternoon that stands a fitting end to my career photographing my University’s football games. And it wasn’t actually of the drama on the field. It was after the game as the families came out on the field.
Our team had lost. The seniors had played their final game. And the team had met for its final time on the 50 yard line for a prayer.
Then the real-life drama began. When “all-access” means I can get anywhere for the game itself, I always feel like it takes more than just an arbitrary pass to be accepted into personal moments.
Moments like this:
In a moment when a man’s son weeps openly in front of his teammates and friends – whether it be for the fact that it was his last game or the fact the team played an incredible game and still lost – his little girl looks on and waits for her turn.
Its a sensitive moment. And with 30mm I was actually rather close.
So that finished a season… and finished my career with the football team.
In other notes, I would never ever change from my Nikon platforms. The mounts are the same as it has been for 50 years, the remote flash system is absolutely unrivaled, and the color rendition is just absolutely stunning. The above photograph is almost completely unedited and it looks like it came off some slide film… and I love my slide film.
So that finishes a football season… with a photo not from a football game, but from the lives of the players.
You should stay tuned… it might get good soon,
-Noah D.
