Super time of year

The Super Bowl will be here before we know it. Just one short week until the big game. As luck would have it, I will be on my way to Miami to cover the game. I couldn't be more excited. I will be blogging either here or on another blog through The News-Sentinel's web site during my trip to Miami starting on Thursday.

I am looking for Fort Wayne fans of either team that are going to the game. I would like to take some photos of the fans either at the game or before the game tailgating or just hanging out. If anyone who reads this, knows of someone, please have them email me at: cryan@news-sentinel.com

Take care, and Go Colts or Bears!

Check out my Super Bowl blog here.

Whirlwind week

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!

Officially a slacker

So, my boss informed me today that I am officially a slacker. Apparently, he's correct. It seems that I haven't updated either my blog or my SportsShooter.com member page in quite some time. The only excuse I have is that I was trying to keep my head above water during the last three months. I had been working full-time, going to school full-time (15 credit hours) and trying to fulfill my duties at home. As many of you know, that is a full-time job in itself. Oh yeah, I was also assisting Fort Wayne area commercial photographer Steve Vorderman on photo shoots about once a week and sometimes more.

Enough about my self-created problems. The Spring semester is about to start, and I've decided to scale way back on the school schedule. That means I am currently not registered for any classes, but I hope to sign up before Monday for at least one class or maybe two. I am definitely not going to attempt more than two classes while working full-time again. That was rough.

In any case, I've been shooting a lot of sports lately. Football, basketball, hockey, wrestling, beach volleyball, you name it. I went out to Los Angeles for a week in November for the SportsShooter.com Academy. It was a great experience. I learned a good deal, but mostly about seeing things I wouldn't normally see and looking for interesting angles. I roomed with a good shooter, Craig Glover, from London, Ontario, Canada. The rumors are true ... Canadians do frequently use the term "eh" in everyday speech. Craig was a good guy and he nailed some beautiful shots during our time in sunny southern California.

More sports this weekend. I'm off to Indianapolis to shoot the Colts against the KC Chiefs on Saturday. Then it's back home for the Komets on Sunday. Check out the Komets game photo slideshows at The News-Sentinel.