My Best 2010

Its New Years Eve and I have nothing to do so I'm posting a few of what I consider to be my best photos from the past year. This year I have been all over the northwest shooting sporting events. Most of these have been Oregon State events but I have had a few odd-ball shoots as well. Along with traveling all over I have found out a few things in the past 365 days. Things like, I really like Seattle and I really hate Boise. I think the weather anywhere East of the Cascades is 10 times better then the weather in the Willamette Valley. My favorite sport to photograph is Cycling (but I rarely get to shoot it) But probably the most important thing that I have figured out is that people employing freelancers tend to be jerks. They never pay a fair amount and they always want more then they received. It definitely makes me wonder why I want to be a photographer.

Cyclocross Nationals 2010 Post #3

The final day of the cyclocross nationals in Bend, Oregon yesterday was again a great day of shooting. If you have never been to a cyclocross event I highly recommend checking one out. The bigger the race the better the experience. I went to the nationals in Bend last year and was blown away by the atmosphere of the race, and it helped that half the city turned out. This year I think there were even more people to cheer on any rider who gave their all during the races.

Cyclocross Nationals 2010 Post #2

Today was the third and penultimate day of the cyclocross nationals in Bend. It was the wettest day so far which means that the mud was everywhere. Not to mention that the temperature has been around 40 everyday so I am pretty weather beaten. Good thing that there is only one more day. Anyway, the U23 race today was great. The leaders battled for the first five laps then as they began their final lap they shook hands. I guess it was a kind of respect for each-other. One of the best acts of sportsmanship I have ever seen.

Cyclocross Nationals 2010

So its been a crazy couple of weeks. My apartment burned up on Thanksgiving day and I had to spend finals week on a friend's couch because I am currently homeless. Basically I need a break. Thankfully the term has come to an end which means a little reprieve from school. I planned on relaxing for the first few days of this much needed vacation but a friend asked if I could shoot a few photos of the cyclocross nationals for his website. So here are some of the photos I have taken so far.

Civil War 2010

Another Civil War determines the rest of the season. The Oregon State Beavers needs a win to be bowl eligible and the University of Oregon Ducks needs to win to for them to clinch a spot in the BCS Championship game. Sadly the Ducks won. But losing doesn't mean that the world comes to an end, there were still a ton of photos to take so here they are.

ESPN GameDay Visits Corvallis

For some incredible reason ESPN decided to bring their college football show, GameDay to Corvallis for the Civil War. Luckily since I intern with OSU Athletics I was able to acquire a pass and shoot the three hour spectacle. With the Memorial Union as the backdrop and the MU Quad full of fans from both the University of Oregon and Oregon State bringing signs of all shapes and sizes, I imagined that the photos would look pretty cool. Add in the fact that the show starts at 6am when it is still dark and the photo possibilities can almost seem endless. Here are my favorites from this morning.

More Snow!

Over Thanksgiving weekend I traveled over the Santiam Pass back to my home in Sisters. Before I left I made sure to set my camera next to me to grab a few quick pics as I drove along because I knew there would be a few cool scenes along the way.  I did give up on the photo thing during parts of the drive where the car lost traction in the snow.

Snow!!

I love the snow and since moving to Corvallis for school I have started to miss it. I grew up in Central Oregon where it snows quite often. It usually is only a few inches here and there but its a hell of a lot more then you get in the Willamette Vally. So last night when it started to snow (and stick) I got pretty excited.

Today is press conference day for OSU and the room that this is held in overlooks the football field. I only had one lens with me today so I didn't have a ton of options for a photo but I did what I could.

Last Home Game

Last year I promised myself that I would shoot more volleyball because I need to get better at it and because it is pretty fun. I failed and shot maybe 4 games this year. This sucks because it takes time to find new angles when the first couple of games are spent trying to get as many stock photos of players as possible. Oh well, maybe next year I will go to more games.

For the last couple of games I did get to use the strobes set up in the stadium which always helps with lighting and also let me get to be a little creative because of how much light they produce. Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Nike N7 Game

Last week I posted a few images of the Nike N7 uniforms the OSU basketball team would be wearing for their game against Texas Southern and now here are photos from that game. Sadly we lost to Texas Southern 66-60. On the bright side it was nice to photograph something other than the boring white uniforms we wear normally.

Big Win!

All week I have been saying that OSU would comeback from their loss to Washington State and beat USC. Honestly I said this with some doubt. Even though I didn't truly believe that we would win, I feel that you need to at least look like you believe in a team to help them out.

There always needs to be someone there to keep some sort of hope alive and most of the people I talk to on a regular basis were confident we would get crushed by USC. I'm so glad they were all wrong! Here are a few of the photos from the extremely cold game on Saturday night.

Nike N7

This morning the OSU men's basketball team unveiled the uniforms that they will be wearing this weekend when they host Texas Southern. I think they are pretty good looking unis and it should be fun to photograph a different color in Gill (sometimes white and orange can get a little old.)

Oregon State vs Washington State

The Beavers suffered another disappointing loss today. Honestly I don't think that the loss itself was disappointing to me, what was disappointing to me was the lack of action on the field leaving me with very little to photograph. But I did get a few good photos here and there so I can't complain to much.

Civil War Volleyball

Last night I was the 2nd of two Civil War volleyball games this year. Fortunatley I got a chance to use the strobes in Gill Coliseum which I think I finally started to figure out last night. Here are just a few photos form the game.

Global Formula Racing

Over the weekend I had a chance to go watch and photograph a drive day for Global Formula Racing. GFR is the OSU racing team made up of college student who design and build a race car annually and compete against other colleges. The "global" part comes from the OSU team's partnership with a university in Germany that build and race generally the same cars.

Long ago, when I still had not found photography, I wanted to be a part of the OSU racing team but somewhere along the way my dreams changed and I started in on my photography forgetting about the team completely. Strangely though everything has come full circle and I'm now taking photos for GFR on the side and Saturday was the first time that I saw the car in action, along with a go cart and a completely electric racer.

Basketball Is Back

Finally winter sports are starting to make their way back into my little world. The Beavers played the Western Oregon Wolves tonight and looked pretty good. I was a little worried that I would be rusty at shooting basketball but after just a few minutes it all came together and the photos started to look pretty good. Here are a few from tonight's win.

Finally A Day Game

For some reason I have been busy every time the OSU soccer teams have a game in during the day. Yesterday afternoon I finally got to shoot soccer with decent lighting and boy did it make a difference. I used a 300mm f2.8 lens with a 1.3x multiplier and my Canon 1D Mark III. This setup was perfect for the game. I even got to shoot in just about all the different types of weather we have here. Overcast, rain, sun, and even rain and sun at the same time.

What Some People Will Do

Tonight while I was on my way back to my apartment I heard quite a commotion coming from Reser Stadium. So I got on my bike and road by for a quick look. I found out that all the excitement was just the students camping out for tickets to Saturday's football game against Washington State. Apparently some of the students have been camping out since Friday afternoon, that's just crazy in my opinion.

Portland Fall Classic

Yesterday I left my apartment at 5:30am to get to a friend/coworker's house by 6am (That's just a little too early when its Halloween weekend and you have stayed up late and woken early for three days in a row.)  Abby, Emily and I were traveling to Portland to watch the Portland Fall Classic Regatta.

I only get a few chances a year to shoot rowing and after spending a few hours along the river taking photos in such great conditions, it makes me wish I could shoot rowing a lot more. It was an incredibly beautiful morning which made it pretty easy to get then shots I needed. I love photographing events like this!

New Blog!

I have created a new blog! Why create a new one when I already have one? Well, I update my other blog when ever I photograph something a little different or something pretty big. The problem with only blogging about the big stuff is that I end up only making 2-3 posts a month. That's were this new blog comes in. The posts will be shorter and the much more frequent (I'm hoping I post after every shoot that I do.)

I also want to make this blog a little more personal and fun unlike my wordpress blog. This will be more of my personal, everyday life blog and my Wordpress blog will cover big events that I photograph in detail.

Although my plan could just fall to pieces in a couple of weeks. Any bets on when I stop updating this blog? One week? Two weeks? 



-Ethan