Tour de Westminster

"A competitor fails to clear the bar of the high jump during a track and field meet at Francis Scott Key High School, Saturday, April 26,2008."

First, let me proudly and eagerly announce, I am an official summer photo intern of The Baltimore Sun. The call came Wednesday to stop by for an interview on Friday afternoon.

Everything went smooth and they asked if I could join the team for the summer (following my return from Japan).

I've always looked up to each and everyone of the staff photographers at The Sun since I've started reading the paper, so as you can probably sense, I am very excited.

Anyways, Saturday was already jam packed with assignments, but I opted for another one that was suppose to be simple and in Westminster.

I had to shoot one pole vaulter at Francis Scott Key High School. The assignment said 9:30 a.m., but lacked a lot of information for some reason. It didn't say the team of the vaulter or if it was a portrait, a meet or practice.

To make sure I wasn't going to make a fool of myself, I found out it was a meet and I only needed some warm up images or in action images. Fair enough, at least I wouldn't have to be a meet all day shooting numerous athletes.

I also tried calling my subject to make sure his event started at 9:30 a.m., guess I should have called more than once.

I woke up early and drove 45 minutes out to what seemed like the middle of nowhere. When I arrived, I asked just about every vaulter who Shawn was. Figures, the only bright red-headed kid, whom I asked last was him.

I introduced myself and told him I'd be making images of him and asked when they started. "Umm, probably around 11:30 for warm ups," he said.

What. Are you serious? Men's pole vaulting didn't even start until noon?

So instead being upset and bitter for the rest of the day, I burned time by shooting other events and images.

I guess it worked out for the best, because I got to shoot track and field, which is the basically 10 different sports in one, with no deadline or direction.

However, with a 1 p.m. assignment and hour away, when Shawn started warming up, I had to act fast and make some photos less than 10 minutes.

But figures, I leave so I can make it perfectly on time to my next assignment and the Tour de France decided to be on Union Bridge Road, thus delaying my drive back to Towson by 30 minutes.

People were passing each other while passing bicycles. It was getting dangerous at times.

Well, I just had a five assignment day and super exhausted. I can't connect my thoughts anymore and I have an early assignment and a long day of editing images from five photographers from Tigerfest. Must, get, sleep. Check out some of my other track images and I'll be back Monday.