Wanamaker Sports Photography

Last night, Loretta and I were out at the Minisink versus Warwick game … continuing our coverage of the 2008 Minisink Valley Football season. It was work as usual except for one image that could be considered a “lucky shot”

Midway through the game, as Warwick had the ball and was making a drive for the endzone, I decided to position myself just past the endzone marker hoping to capture some shots of Minisink stopping Warwick. However, I captured something that I wasn’t expecting.

Warwick snapped the ball and the QB passed it off to Brian White (#12) who was headed straight for me near the Minisink sideline. I held my position for as long as possible until the players (who could easily crush me) got too close for comfort. I quickly set my camera settings, stood up and started to back away – keeping my finger down on the shutter button the entire time. Brian dove for the goal line and this is what I captured …

Dragging the shutter just a bit and keeping everything center focused, I was able to get a clear shot of the player and the ball in mid-dive!

In the end, Minisink won the game by a touchdown and field goal … stretching their lead to 3-0 for the season. If things keep up, we’ll be following them to Dietz Stadium again this year!

Last night was the first regular season game for Minisink Valley Football against Port Jervis, a long time rival.

After leaving the Junior Varsity game at Minisink Valley High School a little early, we headed down to Port Jervis to capture the early moments as the teams took to the field and began their warm-ups. Just ahead of the rain from Hanna, the skies were perfect and the sun settled behind the trees as their routines came to an end.

We also captured a few head shots of the Senior Cheerleaders as well as this group shot of the entire squad …

As the night progressed, Minisink Valley pulled a strong lead over Port Jervis. With a few interesting plays and a couple mess-ups, Minisink Valley won the game thirty to nothing! Here are a couple shots from the game …

Nothing says fall like colorful leaves, cool temperatures and football! Well, we don’t have the colorful leaves or the cool temperatures just yet … but we do have some football …

This past Wednesday marked the start of the 2008 high school football season with a scrimmage between the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams at Minisink Valley High School. It was also a chance for us to get back into “football mode” – running up and down the field, lugging around long lenses on monopods and running out of the way when the players are headed straight for you!

Here are is a shot of the guys warming up …

… practicing some drills …

… and playing hard against each other in preparation for the season ahead!

Bethanne, our picture coordinator for the High Point Youth Soccer League, loves our work. She also has a son on the Sussex-Wantage Little League. Unfortunately, the league’s current photographer doesn’t provide any action photography services nor do they provide the custom posters we’ve been offering since January.

With that in mind, Bethanne invited us to one of her son’s final games to grab some action shots so she could create a custom poster of her son in action. As I headed towards third base, Loretta took first and we both covered second and the home plate. Since her son was the catcher, most of our attention was focused there … although we did capture some shots of the other kids in hopes of a few extra sales!

We stayed for only a few innings and captured nearly 500 shots! Here are a few of our favorites …

The Baseball season and I haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye so far this year. Each time I’ve had a scheduled game to attend for Minisink Valley, it has either been postponed or cancelled because of the rain. After weeks of the game between the weather and myself, I finally got my chance to photograph the Minisink Valley Varsity Baseball team when they played against the Cornwall Dragons at home in a non-league game.

As this was one of my first Baseball games of the season, I decided that I needed to warm up the skills a bit and so I decided to shoot a few frames of Minisink during practice. A few frames turned into a few hundred by the time I was done!

As the game got under way, the clouds (which seemed to be messing with me during practice) finally parted completely and it turned into an incredible day for a Baseball game!

From right next to the first base umpire, I grabbed this shot of CJ Callaghan just before he smacked this ball into the outfield …

And this one of Mat Hannon repeating the same move …

As the game went on, I started focusing on some of the action on second and third base as Minisink had runners pumped and ready to go. It was a good thing I did. I grabbed this shot of Nick Iannuzzi sliding into third as the thirdbaseman caught and was about ready to pitch the ball back to first.

As exciting as the game was, I left around the top of the 6th inning as I had other obligations to attend to … but I did find out later on that Minisink lost the game 11 to 19.