Last week was some kind of week. I photographed the UHL All-Star game at Memorial Coliseum, here in Fort Wayne. It was a good time but made for a very long night. The News-Sentinel had two of our staff photographers shooting the game and another photographer doing on-site editing and transmitting back to the office for web and print publication. Ellie Bogue and I did the shooting and Steve Linsenmayer looked through more than 1000 photos before selecting, editing, and captioning the 30 or so photos he sent to our office.
I found out on Thursday that I was approved to cover the AFC Championship game in Indianapolis. This was a big thing to me. I absolutely love football, and being selected to cover such a high-profile game was great. I tried to plan out my coverage all weekend. I wanted to find fans from the Fort Wayne area who would be at the game. Due to weather and straining my back an hour before my scheduled departure for Indy, I didn't get to do everything I wanted to at the game. In any case, I thought I made a few nice pictures. Oh, I and I got paid to be a witness to one of the best football games in NFL playoff history. What could possibly be better than that?
It turns out that our paper has applied to get me a credential to cover the Super Bowl. It is highly unlikely that I will get in, but I certainly appreciate having the chance. The NFL has strict policies for who gets to cover the Super Bowl, and I'm pretty sure the application is late, which lessens my chances. Either way it goes, I've had a great year of covering sports, and that doesn't even include the fact that my beautiful wife will be giving birth in about four months to our new son. My 10-year-old son loved his first season of basketball. Life is good.
If anyone knows of a Fort Wayne couple or family that has deep rooted, but separated allegiances to the Bears and Colts, drop me a line. I'm looking to do a photo illustration about the fact that Fort Wayne is a split town. My dad has been a lifelong fan of the Bears, and my mom has followed the Colts since they moved to Indy. I want to find maybe a husband and wife or maybe two brothers or sisters where one is a fan of the Colts and the other a fan of the Bears. The more memorabilia the people have, the better - it helps in the photos.
Take care and Go Colts or Bears!
After a major snow storm caused blizzard conditions and dumped more than seven inches of snow on the Fort Wayne area, government agencies, schools and businesses closed down for the better part of two days. Personallly, I spent the first part of the week on my couch with a nasty case of the flu that I must have picked up during my travel back home from Miami.
As I shoveled more than two feet deep snow drifts out of my driveway, the morning sun started to rise and the skies were clear. It was a nice start to the day. My wife had hot chocolate waiting for me when I was finished. I finally convinced her after twenty minutes that I didn't want her to help me shovel snow. She was bound and determined to help, but I asked her to stay inside where it was warm. She's as stubborn as I am and much better looking. 
I ventured to work under the bright sun and saw that the light was beautiful. I knew I had to go out and make photos of people dealing with the snow, and the light was just right. I made a few decent pictures, but not what I was hoping for. I met co-worker Steve Linsenmayer at a coffee shop where we worked and transmitted our images back to the office. I was determined to get better pictures, and I knew the light at the end of the day would be fantastic.
After I left the office around 5:00 I decided to head off to Franke Park. The west side of the old soap box derby hill and its countless sledders bask in the glorious golden glow of the setting sun. Nobody cared that the temperature was less than 15 degrees. We had sunshine after two days of blizzard. Luckily, there were people willing to run their sleds into massive snow jumps. They helped me make the pictures I wanted.
