Wanamaker Sports Photography

Yesterday, I photographed my first High School Lacrosse game at Minisink Valley. While I’ve photographed Lacrosse before (2007 Minisink Swap Stix Match), I had never covered a high school game where everything seems to be 10x more violent.

It was a cold, cloudy and overall dreary day as we headed onto the field. As we finished setting up our gear, the teams were getting ready to take the field. The Minisink Varsity team was about to play Hyde Park (FDR) High School.

As the game got under way, I quickly saw that Lacrosse was a mix between Football and Hockey. Players were getting whacked with sticks and body checked by opponents in a fight over a little white ball that could knock you out cold if it hit you just right!

The first half was played extremely well by Minisink as they scored a goal nearly every 10 seconds (or so it seemed). I actually had to move from one end of the field to the other as I had no action down by me and was starting to get bored!

Minisink wasn’t as strong in the second half, but still beat Hyde Park by a lot!

A group of Minisink and FDR players chasing a failed pass

A Minisink player going after a bouncing ball

An FDR player with the ball heading down field. The Minisink player in the middle actually lost his balance on the wet field after trying to catch up

A pep talk by the coach during a time out

Just as a little note, these games were actually photographed a couple weekends ago. We’ve just been so busy with everything lately, that we haven’t had much time to sit down and get new content up on the blog. I guess that’s a good thing because business everywhere else has been slow. However, its a bad thing too as I love to keep this blog updated with new stuff!

Anyways, these games were played between the U7 and U8 Divisions of the High Point Soccer Club on a field tucked away in the woods of Northern New Jersey. The day was absolutely beautiful (as you can tell) and both Loretta and myself got really nice sunburns!

Here are a couple shots from those games! We’ll try and get more uploaded in the next couple days or so!

Last year, our introduction to the sport of Lacrosse started with an invitation to photograph the annual Boys vs Girls Swap Stix Match at Minisink Valley High School. Unfortunately, that game was nearly at the end of the season for the teams and we only had a couple more opportunities to photograph them before it was all over.

During the off-season, after a couple phone calls, we had a contract with Minisink Valley to cover the 2008 season for the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams. Finally, Lacrosse season is here!

I love Lacrosse because its fast and action packed and reminds me a little bit of Hockey. Last Wednesday was my first game for Minisink Valley Varsity as they played Valley Central at home. These two teams have always been big rivals and the game they played was tough. Here are some of the shots …

Last year, in an effort to increase our reach within Orange County, Loretta contacted Ed Killenberger, the owner of a new business called I9 Sports. After a lengthy phone conversation and a meeting or two, we had a contract between the two companies and a perfect match was made!

After covering his fall Flag Football and winter Basketball games, Ed expressed his 100% complete satisfaction with the way we’ve operated and made the announcement that we had become his “official” league photographer. This annoucement couldn’t mean more to us!

With this agreement, we’ll continue covering all of Ed’s operations as he expands into new sports and new towns within the Orange County area. We look forward to the opportunity to work with another great local business!

For more information on I9 Sports and their motto of “An Experience Beyond The Game”, be sure to check out their website at http://www.i9sports.com.

As a follow up to my last post about becoming the official I9 Sports Photographers …

This past Sunday was Portrait Day for the Spring I9 Flag Football League. With temperatures hovering around 45 degrees, an 11-mph breeze crossing the field and no sun to speak of, we knew it was going to feel like one of our fall sports leagues!

In between portraits for the different groups of players, I would grab the Mark III with the 70-200mm lense and head over a snap a couple shots of the kids playing their game.

I love this one shot (that I captured by accident) in that the player in red has his eye intently focused on the ball carrier’s flags. I didn’t realize I had captured this shot until we took a look at it on the computer later in the day …

As I headed back to get ready to photograph the last group, some of them (while waiting for the rest of their teammates) decided to practice a little to try and stay warm. As they would pass the ball, I would follow the runner down the field a little to try and capture a jump-and-catch shot. Well … this was the only kid who was able to do just that …

And just before we headed out, I looked down one of the fields and couldn’t help but capture this one shot …