White Christmas

While I spent Christmas eve and day working, I experienced my first white Christmas ever on Friday. So, I experimented last night trying to capture some photos of snowflakes.

On Christmas Eve, I photographed a mass at a church in Iowa City and below is my favorite out-take from that assignment. The children at the church had put on a little play during the service and I think one of the kids was less than thrilled to be in front of the church.

Birds

Today I awoke to several birds outside my front door eating from a bird feeder my roommate must have filled the night before. The red birds were beautiful against the snow. I tried to open my door to get a better shot but each time I even touched the door they would all fly away so I resorted to shooting through the window. Here are two of my favorite shots.

Snow Day

Having lived in southern Louisiana most of my life I don't get to experience much snow. Well, working in Iowa, I knew it was only a matter of time before Cedar Rapids would be transformed into a winter wonderland. The area has already received several inches and with a winter storm and blizzard warning in effect, more is to come. Since my evening assignment was cancelled today, I had the chance to shoot snow features. I am sure I will be shooting more in the coming days but here are a few of my favorites from today.

Volleyball, Volleyball, Volleyball... and more Volleyball

In three days I photographed a total of 12 volleyball matches. The state high school volleyball tournament was held in Cedar Rapids this week and I along with another staff photographer covered the games Wednesday thru Friday. We set up lights on the catwalks a week early so each court would be lit. Since there were two courts and games were played on each court at the same time each of us took a court to shoot.

There was lots of action, celebrations and tears. The hardest thing was trying to capture all of those things from a different angle each game. It was a long three days but I enjoyed every second of it, even the walking up and down the stairs before and after each match. So below are a sample of photos from the 12 games.

Basketball, Football & Manchester

On Thursday, I made a trip back to Manchester, Iowa to shoot pictures for a feature the paper was doing on the town. The first time I drove out there the light was pretty bad and there was not a lot going on but this time the weather was perfect and I got there in time for some nice afternoon light. My assignment was pretty much to just document the town and shoot features so I drove around looking for both scenic shots of the downtown area and people doing stuff outside. I found a couple features, got the scenic shots I needed and also managed to get portraits of the two people that will for sure be quoted in the story. So, I had everything I needed except for a night shot of the theatre that recently re-opened. Since, it was about two hours before it was dark enough to get a shot of the theatre lit up, I drove around looking for extra features since the light was still nice. I was driving down a street near downtown when I found some kids jumping on a trampoline. Luckily, the parents were outside and were happy to let me take a few photos of the kids enjoying the afternoon. It reminded me of the many afternoons I used to spend as a kid playing on the trampoline in my family's back yard. All that was missing was a dog under the trampoline trying to bite at feet. Anyway, the photo of the kids on the trampoline was my favorite of the day.

I also liked the photo to the left. For the paper I went with the image above but I really liked the reaction from the little boy in the photo on the left. 

After shooting the photos I headed to a coffee shop in the town to edit the photos I had and wait to get the last shot I needed, the theatre lit up a night. Apparently, the theatre lights have not been on at night. So, before even arriving in Manchester on Thursday, I knew that was a photo I needed to get. Like the trampoline photo of the kids, I ended up shooting two images that I liked. The top image below is the picture that I sent in. I thought it said "quiet small town" more than the other photo. Though I think, just as an image, I Iike the bottom photo more.

On Friday, I shot a high school playoff game again and I think the team that won should have been given an award for the team that celebrates the least. By the way the team was acting you would have thought they were the ones losing the game even though they were up by several touchdowns. So, while I didn't get any celebration shots I did get a shot of one of the players on the losing team, clearly upset after the loss. 

On Saturday, I had a morning assignment which ran very long. I was an hour away from the football game I had to shoot at noon and was already 45 minutes late. With a mixture of luck and driving just fast enough to not get a speeding ticket, I made it to the game halfway through the third quarter and plenty enough time to get one or two photos for the paper. The photo below was my favorite from the game.

On Sunday, I shot the first basketball game I had the opportunity to cover this season. Both Iowa men's and women's basketball team's played exhibition games in Iowa City on Sunday afternoon. It was a great day. I love shooting basketball and thankfully the two games were the only assignments I had that day. My favorite image (below) came from the women's game.

[All photos in this post are copyright Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette]

The Best Part of Football Season... Marching Bands!

To some, the title of this post may not be true but for someone who has been involved with band, marching band and colorguard most of their life, it is what football season is all about. Before I fell in love with sports photography and photojournalism, I was on the field at halftime from 9th grade thru my second year in college at LSU (My third year in college I gave up Tigerband to shoot the games). So, now when I am editing and sending photos at halftime from the press box at a high school game, I always find myself glancing up from my laptop to see what the band is performing on the field.

With that said, about a month and a half ago I had the opportunity to shoot a marching band festival for the paper. The reason I am sharing these images now, I will get to in a bit. I was very excited for the assignment given how much of my life has been spent as a band or colorguard member. I had a fairly early deadline (had to have photos in before the competition was over and scores were announced) and I wish I could have stayed longer. Even though I had to leave early, I was happy with the images. Here are a few of my favorites.

While I enjoyed shooting the assignment, it also made me miss Louisiana. What I didn't mention earlier is that I was one of the colorguard instructors at Dutchtown High School in Geismar, Louisiana for about a year and a half before coming to Cedar Rapids for the internship. I loved working with the colorguard at Dutchtown and hated to leave them before even getting to see their first show of the season. I have been so very proud of everything the girls have accomplished in the time I have worked with them. Seeing the girls take first place in their class at the LCGPC Winterguard finals earlier this year was just the icing on the cake.

On Saturday, the colorguard will be competing at Showcase with the band. It is their biggest marching band contest all year and I wanted to write a marching band related post to be a kind of good luck post. So, if any of the colorguard members at Dutchtown are reading this, good luck on Saturday. I know you will make me and Ms. Amy very proud!! The images below were taken during last year's marching band and winterguard seasons at Dutchtown High School.

Best of luck to the DTHS colorguard on Saturday and I hope to see all of the girls in January for winterguard!





[Top 4 images of the post are copyright Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette]

Monday Night Football & Tuesday Night Volleyball

It might not be the Monday night football game most people watched but it was still football and the Saints still won the game. Though, these Saints are far from New Orleans. In the town of Marion, Iowa, which is next to Cedar Rapids, the Xavier High School football team (known as the Saints) defeated the Linn-Mar Lions in a playoff game. It was very odd to be shooting high school football on a Monday night. I had to keep telling myself it was Monday and not Friday.

The game was a bit of a blow out (41-3) and there was not a ton of reaction from the winning team. I also was on the lookout for dejection from the losing team. For high school football I always produce a slideshow and video from the game. Immediately after the game was over I was shooting video of post game interviews on the field when I noticed one of the players from the Linn-Mar team kneeling on the 50 yard line. I had most of the video I needed, so I immediately grabbed my still camera and after fumbling with lenses (I had my wide angle on and really needed the 300 for this shot) I captured the image below.

Linn-Mar's Jody Henton (6) is comforted on the field following the Lion's 41-3 loss to Cedar Rapids Xavier at Armstrong Field in Marion on Monday, November 2, 2009. 

   (Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette)

  








Cedar Rapids Xavier cheerleaders celebrate after a touchdown against the Linn-Mar Lions.

(Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette)

Linn-Mar fans watch the game from under the stands during the second half. 
(Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette)



Tuesday night was another playoff game though this time it was volleyball and Linn-Mar won the game. I always enjoy shooting volleyball and this time of year always makes for good photos since there is usually a lot of emotion from both teams. It was a close match the entire time and went all the way to a fifth game with the teams matching each other point for point. I think I probably get as nervous as the players, fans and coaches sometimes anticipating what will happen. I moved around a ton in the last game trying to figure out which angle would give me the best reaction. I had my zoom ready for the instant reaction and then the wide angle for the close up celebration shots. The following shots are some of my favorite reaction/celebration shots.

  
















The Linn-Mar volleyball team celebrates their victory over City High on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 to advance to the state volleyball tournament. (Crystal LoGiudice/The Gazette)

I had an early deadline and had about 15 minutes to get the photo above in after shooting it. I had my laptop set up at the scoring table next to the court and immediately edited and captioned the photo after most of the initial celebration was over and while parents were taking pictures with the girls. I can always feel eyes on me and as I was cropping the photo I turned around to find several parents watching me edit. I just smiled and went back to work, It was a very odd feeling though.

Game Face

This is one of my favorite images from a few weeks ago. I have shot a lot of high school football games and this is by far the best game face I have seen.

Hello!

I have been wanting to set up a photo blog, so here it is! I hope to update at least once a week with my favorite images or interesting stories. 

I am a photojournalist working as an intern at The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The internship will be done in January when I will be moving back to my home state of Louisiana to freelance.