So what if the weather's bad

GAC student.I find it ironic that when Mother Nature really throws her worst at us, it's often the photographers who end up venturing out to find a picture. Let's face it, when the wind chill is -40F and the snow is coming down in flakes the size of Volkswagons there are good photos to be found.

Usually our first accumulating snowfall of the year is a couple of inches. Just enough to cover the grass. Ease us into winter. Not this year. An 8-inch blast of white stuff, followed by single-digit temps and some wind to boot, shoves us into winter. Usually these are the last conditions anyone wants to venture out in. But this is the stuff I'm compelled to venture out in regularly.

Mike Endreson blows his way through a drift in front of his Mankato home Thursday morning.

A day off from school made for a full house Thursday at a sledding hill in Mankato's Sibley Park.

As storytellers and newsmen at heart, John and I have headed out into conditions that make most people curl up inside with a good movie and wait for the snow to let up. In our case, people want to see just how bad it is outside. They want to see whether or not they should venture out to work or church. What's been canceled due to the weather?

A pair of City of Mankato snowplows work their way down Riverfront Drive during Wednesday's snowstorm.

Don't take me wrong, I respect the weather. I take "no unnecessary travel" warnings seriously. As a sailor and a former pilot I have seen what bad things the weather can do to people. But when the weather gets ugly, that's unusual, and it's news. And I'm probably out in it somewhere.

Football is football is football. Right?

Football at all levels, from high school to the pros, is reaching a pinnacle right now. Professional football is at the halfway mark. The Minnesota State High School football tournament starts today around the state, and the Minnesota State University football team will host a NCAA tournament game for the first time Saturday at Blakeslee Stadium. It's an exciting month for football.

In general, football is football. The basic rules are the same at all levels. Score touchdowns and field goals while keeping your opponent from doing the same. Certainly this is true, but the game is obviously made different by the level at which it is being played.

Over the last month I've photographed football at all three levels: Professional (Green Bay vs. Minnesota at the Dome Oct. 5), Division II college (Minnesota State) and high school (Mankato East & West, among a host of others). Each game at each level presents unique challenges for me as a photographer, and my approach to the game is different for each one.

I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to photograph the Monday Night Football tilt in October between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, a fairly rare assignment for the Free Press. Those of you who know me know I'm a Packer fan at heart, but live in a Viking world, so the whole Favre-drama-playing-his-old-team-who's-gonna-win thing was certainly not lost on me. It's a rare thing for the Free Press to send me to such an event, so I certainly wanted to show up with my A+ game, so add that to the level of nerves flowing through me at the time. Add to that the more than 100 credentialed photographers, the VIPs, the on-air TV talent roving the sidelines and you have a crowded house full of restrictions to navigate, on deadline.

Just a few photographers trying to get a picture of Vikings Brett Favre at the same time.

Again, while the basics are the same (I use a similar equipment setup for all three), shooting the much faster and more crowded professional football game takes a different approach. I spend more time in the back of one end zone or the other so I have clearer sight lines past all the other photographers, VIPs and guys carrying big parabolic dishes. Being on deadline, I chose to sacrifice much of the third quarter to transmit photos back to the paper, then return to shoot the fourth quarter and post game.

Busy sideline.

Minnesota State football is a much different game, and I take a different approach to it. While I like to shoot from the end zones at Blakeslee Stadium too, I tend to move up and down the field with the play a bit more. Since they are a team I cover more often, I do my best to get to know who the key players are and the style of offense and defense so I can be watching the right people at the right times. I also have more freedom to move in among the players if I need to for brief periods to get pictures of coaches or specific players, something that would get me promptly thrown out of a Vikings game.

Shooting from the back of the end zone gets players like MSU running back Ernest Walker coming right at the viewer.

Photos like this one of MSU receiver Chris Nowlin are made easier by knowing the team's tendencies.

Shooting the Mankato East vs. Mankato West football game is an even more different matter. Weather not withstanding, high school football offers the ultimate freedom. Freedom to move up and down the sidelines at will, mingle with players while looking for photos, go on the field after the game. That freedom often comes at a price, however. Most high school football games are at night under lights that don't quite light the field evenly or adequately (I often describe a field or gym that has some light, but not anywhere near enough as shooting in "available darkness"). I tend to shoot with shorter lenses and a flash and move up and down the sidelines with the play much more than while shooting college or pro football. The payoff, for me at least, is the raw emotions that come from high school players that seems to diminish as they move up in level.

The raw emotion of West football players after defeating crosstown rival Mankato East is a common thread in high school sports.

Photos like this one of a lineman's feet in the mud are more difficult to get when access is limited.

I find it funny that the photographers I know who regularly shoot professional sports, with few exceptions, say high school sports are their favorite things to photograph, while those that regularly shoot only high school or college sports say they'd love to shoot the pros.

Photographers that have to deal with the circus of professional sports regularly say that the access granted by high schools and most colleges allows an unmatched flexibility and creativity. This is very true. Those that don't deal with it as often find the circus atmosphere of the big game alluring.
I tend to live in both worlds, to some extent. While I don't photograph professional sports frequently, I am in the ring often enough to appreciate the big-ness of the event and be annoyed by it at the same time. I also do it often enough to realize how lucky I am to get to work with the great high schools and colleges of this area, who, with few exceptions, are willing to bend over backwards to help me do my job to the best of my ability.

For the first time in many, many years, when the Minnesota pheasant season opened at 9 a.m., Saturday, I had a camera rather than a shotgun in my hand.
I decided that Madelia's first annual Pheasant Phest was a big enough deal that I ought to take that in instead of traveling to my customary opening day spots with my usual hunting buddies. Duty called, as it were.
Of course, I could have been carrying a shotgun in addition to the Nikon. Early on, I was invited to hunt with the contingent of Madelia area hunters who were celebrating the opening of the season.
But I learned long ago that when one divides his attention between making photographs and another activity, in this case, hunting, neither ends up being done very well.
So I just committed to carrying a camera in the field as I trailed the group of hunters and dogs, enjoying the camaraderie that is part of such an event.
Of course, as it turned out, two of the three roosters the party bagged got up at my feet. I missed 'em with my camera but others in the hunting party managed to drop the birds with their shotguns.
Now I'm sure there those folks out there, particularly after watching Vikings Twins games, who believe that being a photographer at various events must be a great thing because, after all, photographers frequently have what appears to be the best seat in the house...and for free, no less.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Sidelines are not the best place to watch a game. That's why football teams always have coaches stationed high above the field to relay to the sidelines what's really going on.
What's more, court side or the sidelines aren't the place to be if you are an ardent fan. It's considered bad form (even to the extent that officials will ask offending parties to leave) if someone in the press ranks is openly rooting for one team or the other.
Dispassionate detachment is the expected sideline decorum in the working press corp. And work it is, as we compete informally with all of the other image makers who are shooting photographs, as well. There's a reason it's called work and that we get paid to do it.
It turned out that there was really nothing remarkable to shoot photographs of at the pheasant opener. What's more, by all accounts, the bird shooting was sparse enough within my circle of hunting buddies that I really didn't feel like I missed too much. Just way too much corn out there, yet.
But on late Saturday afternoon, after I'd written the story for the Sunday edition and edited the photographs, I finally managed to get out for the last hour of daylight to give my spaniel a chance to stretch his legs.
We hunted a public area that undoubtedly had been pounded by hunters earlier in the day. Our efforts were rewarded with a brace of roosters that we intercepted as they headed from the corn back into their roosting areas.

John Cross photo exhibit this weekend

Sweet Taste of Summer by John Cross.
If you're looking for something cool to do this weekend, my colleague John Cross has an exhibit opening tonight at the Blue Earth County Historical Society on Cherry St. called "Faces and Places of South Central Minnesota." You should really check it out. He has some great work from his 34 years of photographing this area.

While the exhibit is up through October, there is an opening reception tonight from 6-8 p.m. at the Heritage Center and a meet and greet with John from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. I got a look at the exhibit catalog yesterday. It's all beautifully matted and framed, courtesy of Brian Fowler at the Artisan Gallery (part of Quality 1 Hr. Photo), and it's all for sale!

Check it out. It's worth your time. Maybe I'll see you there.

Canons and Nikons: The Debate

I'm frequently asked by people purchasing their first serious SLR digital camera: Nikon or Canon?
It's a little bit like asking someone if he or she prefers a Ford or a Chevy. Personally, I use Nikons and except for my very first camera _ an East German-built Hanimex Pracktica for which I ponied up the then-princely sum of $100 in 1968 _ I've always used Nikons.
One reason was that back in the 1960s when I embarked on this career, Nikons arguably were king of the professional shooting hill with Canons coming in a serviceable but distant 2nd.
For another, my hometown paper's publisher somehow had wrangled a coveted Nikon dealership out from the U.S. distributor of Nikon products in the early 60s when the brand was just becoming recognized as top-flight pro gear.
Since I worked part-time at the paper, I could buy Nikon gear for cost, which was significantly less than what it sold for at retail prices.
And forty years ago, as a senior in High School, that's exactly what I did. After saving and scrimping, I ordered a Nikon F body (in professional black, naturally). It retailed for $225 and ended up costing me $152.
I've still got it (along with several other film Nikons of various vintage that I hung onto a little too long into the digital age and now are worth so little I use them as bookends). In spite of its dings and dents, the old F still remains silky smooth, functional, and nearly bulletproof.
But back to the Canon-Nikon debate. Each brand has had its positives and negatives in recent years and really, both are excellent cameras.
I still use Nikons for a couple of reasons. One is that the Free Press always has been Nikon-based and the specialized, really expensive lenses it owns/owned have been Nikon
For another, Nikon lenses focus exactly in the opposite direction that Canon lenses do. Auto focus is great but frequently, I prefer manual focusing. After so many years it just comes naturally.
Trying to focus a Canon lens is for me a little like getting into a car and discovering the gas and brake controls have been reversed.
Bottom line? They're both good cameras. Compare a $1000 Nikon digital camera and a $1000 Canon digital camera and you'll discover they usually have similar capabilities and features.
Buy either one and you'll soon find out that as just as quickly, a newer improved version inevitably will be introduced making you wish you had waited.
And unlike my old Nikon F which wears its patina of hard use well, nothing ages less gracefully than a digital camera.