Just Shoot Baby!

Well, no disrespect to the late Al Davis, but he has a point. "Just win baby" may be his legacy, but the message is one we call all benefit from. As it just so happens, the last Raiders game that I covered, I was cruising the sidelines pregame complaining to myself how much I HATE shooting pregame. I was just telling myself I should go sit down until the game started when I saw Cleveland Browns runningback Payton Hillis stretching in front of me. I will freely admit I didn't know much about him, but I did remember he was on the cover of the Madden video game this year. He wasn't really doing anything, and I figured I would get some killer action shots of him during the game, so I was about to walk on by. Then I told myself to "Just Shoot Baby!", so I quickly raised my camera and had just enough time to fire off two frames.

It turns out Hillis was recovering from an injury, and after about one series re-injured himself and was out of the game. So much for my killer action shots. Later as I was going through the pictures, cursing his injury, I was about to delete the two shots of him I did take as they were pretty lame shots by my eye, but remembering my older post about uploading everything, I went ahead and uploaded the shots.

Well, It seems Hillis hasn't played since that game. And one of the "lame" shots I took of him seems to keep popping up all over the place. It has been used many times on SI.com and a couple of other sites. Mostly on a fantasy football injury report, but hey, it still pays. So in addition to telling myself to upload EVERYTHING, I now remind myself that pre,during, and post game, to just shoot baby!

Payton Hillis in his last game vs. Oakland prior to re-injuring himself

SF 49ers vs. NY Giants

So This weekend I covered Stanford-Oregon (post to come) on Saturday night, then followed that up with 49ers-Giants on Sunday. I felt like I did a good job last week with the Raiders game, and was really looking forward to this weekend. Long story short, a difficult Stanford game left me tired and out of sorts for Sundays game and I really feel like I blew it.

I think this shot pretty much sums up my weekend, Close, but just milliseconds away from a decent shot! Mario Manningham hauls in a touchdown pass.Meanwhile I get a great shot of the ball...



The game itself turned into a good one with an exciting finish. The Giants converted 2 fourth downs and came literally this close to tying the game!



Alex Smith continues to impress and played a largely mistake free game. 

Runningback Frank Gore sustained an injury and left the game pretty early. 

Gores counterpart Brandon Jacobs is quite a physical specimen, but was largely held in check by the 49er defense. 

Eli Manning looked pretty good, but a costly interception that led to a 49er touchdown proved to be the difference in the game. 

All in all, it was a good game, and I hope to rebound my next assignment and get some shots I really feel good about.

So I managed to cover the Raiders-Broncos game without getting sick. The rain never materialized and it turned out to be a pretty nice day to shoot. The story going into the game was the quarterbacks. Carson Palmer vs. Tim tebow. I know Tebow gets a lot of crap, but I like the kid. Palmer looked like the same average QB that he was in Cincy. I am not sure that the Raiders didn't over pay for him, we will see. I was quite happy with some of the pictures I got, but I seemed to be the only one!

Receiver Eric Decker makes a diving touchdown catch.

Lamarr Houston celebrates a sac.

Jacoby ford gets the ball knocked loose after a big catch.

Tim Tebow during warmups.

Carson Palmer in action.

Sharks vs. Penguins

I have decided to start sharing my recent event photos on my blog, then post a link from Facebook. I want to get better SEO for my name and my website, and I am told this is one way to do it! So here goes my latest event, the San Jose Sharks took on the Pittsburgh Penguins at HP.

Before the game, the Sharks honored "Jumbo" Joe Thornton for playing in 1,000 games and scoring 1,000 points. His Mom, Dad, Brother, Wife, and Daughter were in attendance.

The Sharks were in need of a home win, and things started out poorly for the Sharks! Neimi gave up two goals in just over two minutes! But Greiss came in and saved the day.

 Clowe was sporting a black eye after this one, but it seemed to fire him up!

 The Penguins Evgeni Malkin seemed unstoppable early, but Douglas Murray found a way to slow him down.





 The real story of this game though was Greiss. He was great in goal tonight.