uncommons

Pantherettes and Golden Girls, Oakville, Missouri. Photo by Erik M. Lunsford

The early morning shift at the paper comes at a cost; notably my sleeping pattern and state of mental readiness. Although, on the plus side it does offer up some of the greatest opportunities for great morning light and in this case the absence of it as a thick fog coated the landscape.  There were three options on the table when I left the house in the morning — a murder scene from the night before in a neighborhood where even the bad guys won’t get out of their car, a fog feature to help out the online crew, or a handful of car crashes on side roads. The choice was easy, except with fog it’s like a race to find something before the weather clears. The number one lesson learned over the years when dealing with a fast changing weather feature is to map out a small radius (think neighborhoods or a part of town) and search within those boundaries. Generally it takes two or three different locations before striking feature gold, but the first attempt was happily the last attempt as I stumbled on these dance squads practicing for an upcoming performance.

The fifty-yard line was the perfect stage for a photograph because the lines of the track run perpendicular to it and the light poles are symmetrical. It took several minutes of waiting but the action eventually came my way. The temptation, and I think every photographer who shoots like this would know, is the desire to move quickly, following the action and trying to nail a moment. That’s especially true when we’re on a time schedule and pressed with a queue of other daily responsibilities. Of course it’s a mistake well, most of the time because often the action happens at the spot you originally planned on, and by then you’re far away chasing something out of nothing. It’s too often I jet from a scene hoping to find something better, only to be disappointed. It’s one of those hard photographic lessons that I never can (or will) fully master.