Monday, May 25, 2009

Helio pulls off the hat trick



May 24, 2009 - Indianapolis, Ind. - Helio Castroneves, second from right, and members of his crew climb the fence to celebrate Castroneves Indy 500 victory on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Castroneves became the just ninth driver to win the famed race three times.
Photo by Chad Ryan.




May 24, 2009 - Indianapolis, Ind. - Helio Castroneves celebrates after becoming the ninth driver to win the Indianapolis 500 three times after he pulled away from Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick on a restart in the final 12 laps on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





May 24, 2009 - Indianapolis, Ind. - Helio Castroneves races down the main straight away during Sunday's Indy 500 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Castroneves pulled away from Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick on a restart in the final 12 laps to record his third victory at the Brickyard.
Photo by Chad Ryan.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Safe at Home



May 20, 2009 - Fort Wayne, Ind. - Snider catcher Katherine Rogers, left, misses tagging Homestead's Melissa Harless at the plate in the fourth inning of Wednesday's game. The Spartans pushed their record to 25-0 with their 13-0 pasting of the Panthers at Homestead.

Photo by Chad Ryan.






May 20, 2009 - Fort Wayne, Ind. - Homestead pitcher Jacqui Matheis throws a strike during the Spartans softball team's 13-0 dismantling of the Snider Panthers on Wednesday, May 20 at Homestead. The Class 4A No. 1-ranked Spartans improved to 25-0 with the win.

Photo by Chad Ryan.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Backlit Baseball



May 18, 2009 - Fort Wayne, Ind. - Churubusco's Andrew Grawcock slides into third base as Elmhurst's Nick Williams has to leap to try to catch the throw. Grawcock beat the tag then went in to score a run on the errant throw during Monday's game at Elmhurst's Derbyshire Field.
Photo by Chad Ryan.

Saturday, May 09, 2009

And another one

I wanted to get the fans in the mix, so I set up a portrait station in the lower level of Memorial Coliseum, and here are some of the characters that found their way into my trap.




Here are the names of the fans clockwise from top left of the top six photos:

Fort Wayne Komets fans dressed for the occasion on Friday and a sellout crowd turner out to watch the Komets claim the Turner Cup at Memorial Coliseum. Counter clockwise from top left: Seth, 5, Hayden, 7, and Quincy Cains, 22 mo.; Tom Wisniewski; Kay and Jeff Fabini; Carroll Henry, Peg Smith, Peg Sherman, 91, Tina Mohr and Melanie Reeg; Victoria Ebbing; Dwight McCann.

And these names are the folks in the bottom six photos - again clockwise from the left:

Angela and Hal Baker; Russell Galloway, 80; the section 214 "Whiteboard Guys", Kyle Stevens, Bracken Douglas and Donovan Miller; Jim Lindlag; Nathan Oetting, 8; Sean and Dick Carroll.

Komets Pics

Here are a few photos from last night at Memorial Coliseum. I teamed up with News-Sentinel photographer Ellie Bogue to cover the Fort Wayne Komets' Turner Cup championship-clinching victory over the Muskegon Lumberjacks. Ellie and I came up with a pretty good plan to get everything in, including the video (More on that later). I haven't seen her pictures yet, but I'm sure she did the great job that she always does covering the game. It was fun following the K's this year, but now we're on to the next thing, and if I wouldn't have worked until 4:30 this morning I'd be on Pit Road at Indy right now (as of this writing) getting ready for Pole Day for the Indy 500.

Check out News-Sentinel.com for more photos, slideshows, the great sports writing by Blake Sebring and Reggie Hayes and our video content from the playoffs.


In any case ... here are the pics.



Fort Wayne's Justin Hodgman, right, slips the puck past Muskegon goalie Kevin Armstrong to score the Komets fourth and final goal in a 4-1 Game 5 victory over the Lumberjack on Friday at Memorial Coliseum. With the win the Komets repeated as IHL champions for the first time in team history.
Photo by Chad Ryan.




Fort Wayne center Justin Hodgman hoists the Turner Cup on Friday after the Komets beat Muskegon to win consecutive IHL titles. Hodgman scored a goal in the Komets 4-1 victory.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





Fort Wayne's Sean O'Connor, right, reaches for a loose puck during the first period of Friday's Turner Cup Finals Game 5 at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





Fort Wayne's Leo Thomas, right, reacts after beating Muskegon goalie Kevin Armstrong on a two-on-one break during the third period of Friday's Game 5 of the Turner Cup Finals on Friday at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.








Fort Wayne Komets fans cheer and throw confetti at the final horn as the Komets beat Muskegon 4-1 to claim the Turner Cup on Friday in front of a sellout crowd at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





Fort Wayne's Keith Rodger, left, and Dylan Row celebrate after clinching the Turner Cup on Friday at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





Konstantin Shafranov kisses the Turner Cup after the Komets repeated as Turner Cup championships, beating the Muskegon Lumberjacks 4-1 on Friday in front of a sellout crowd at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





Fort Wayne's Leo Thomas pulls away with a mouth full of beer, champagne and whatever else was dumped into the Turner Cup in the locker room as the Komets celebrate their back-to-back Turner Cup championships on Friday at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.





For the first time in team history the Fort Wayne Komets repeated as Turner Cup championships, beating the Muskegon Lumberjacks 4-1 on Friday in front of a sellout crowd at Memorial Coliseum.
Photo by Chad Ryan.

Fort Wayne Komets repeat

Here are a few clips from Friday's Turner Cup Finals Game 5 at Memorial Coliseum. The Komets beat the Muskegon Lumberjacks 4-1 in front of a sellout crowd at Memorial Coliseum to win the best-of-seven series 4-1 and repeat for the first time in team history as Turner Cup champions.


Monday, May 04, 2009

No motor drive necessary

This is the seventh frame of a game I wasn't planning to shoot today, and I only shot one photo in the sequence - despite having the 8.5 frames per second motor drive capability. So to those of you who think you need a 10 fps motor, I say, "No you don't. Well, not really anyway. OK, You can have it, but you don't have to fire it like a machine gun."



Jeudy Valdez of the Fort Wayne TinCaps, Class low-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, breaks his bat in the first inning of of the TinCaps' game against the Dayton Dragon on Sunday, May 3, at Parkview Field in Fort Wayne, Ind. Fort Wayne came back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Dragons 4-3, improving to 17-5 on the season.
Photo owned by Chad Ryan and may not be used without written permission

Opening of Indiana trout season

Alright, so this is a week old. I planned to write a story about a group of guys who get together every year for the opening of the Indiana inland stream trout season. Unfortunately, on the way up to their camp, I came across a huge fire at Lake James. I stopped to shoot the fire for the newspaper and in the course of everything from getting fire info to transmitting photos from a camp site to meeting a friend at the camp who was a little under the influence and wanted to talk for awhile I never made it to bed that night.



To make a long story longer, I had a very long day scheduled that Saturday as I was following the Fort Wayne Komets to Kalamazoo, Mich., to cover their playoff game. What I'm getting at here is I shot the photos but totally crashed before I could write the story then the newspaper didn't have space for it anyway. So, I am presenting the pics here, and I will write the story sometime because it's worth telling.



In any case, I hope you enjoy the photos. I wish I would have shot a few different pics, but I was running on 30+ hours of no sleep. I know - not a valid excuse. I'll try harder next time.