CaryEdmondson.com

I didn’t shoot my best game of the year on Sunday, but I definitely shot my most exciting baseball game of the year! For anyone who has been keeping up with the San Francisco Giants, they are aware of the fact that the team is making a push for the playoffs with about a month left in the season. On Sunday the Giants were finishing a three-game series with the Rockies, the team which was one game ahead of them in the chase for the last playoff spot. Anyways… on to the drama! Things didn’t look good for the Giants until the bottom of the seventh inning came. They were down three runs but managed to load the bases with two outs in the inning. That’s when Edgar Renteria hit a grand slam, putting the Giants ahead for good as they went on to defeat the Rockies and pull themselves into a tie for the final playoff spot. I got pretty lucky myself too because when I got home I saw all of my photos on all of the major websites. I had a photo on the front page of Yahoo Sports, ESPN, and had another run on USA Today’s site. Here’s a look at how everything ran.

“It’s a surprise!” … That was the common response I would get when attempting to find out who was performing at the Foster Farms corporate party I shot this weekend. Rumors were circulating that Neil Diamond was performing since all the songs being performed during sound-check were class Diamond songs. I tried doing some investigating but could not get answers out of anyone. I discovered that only two people in attendance knew who the “special guest” was before they made their way on stage… One was an officer who worked for the school, and the other was the owner of Foster Farms… (since hardly anyone knew what the secret was, I’m guessing that’s why the surprise was never spoiled). When it came time for the announcement, I have to admit that I was expecting to roll my eyes when they announced who would be entertaining the crowed for the evening… (For some reason I just wasn’t expecting to hear a “big” name called out). When it happened, I honestly don’t even remember how he was introduced, I just remember hearing the owner of Foster Farms say “Jay Leno”! Soon after a huge roar came from the crowd, followed by endless clapping. I just turned to the person next to me in disbelief and said… “Jay Leno? Jay Leno is in Turlock?” I couldn’t believe it! I think I just stood there in shock for a moment… not so much for the fact that it was a major celebrity, because I get to see professional athletes up close every week, but it was more for mere fact that Leno was in Turlock! Once I saw him on stage with my own eyes I immediately went into “work mode” and shot a great standup act. It was a great night and my only hope now is that the school will get some major celebrities to perform on campus for the students and alumni in the future. Leno grabbed everyone’s attention and created an electric vibe that I doubt most will forget. He was by far the most entertaining performer I have shot in Turlock since I started working at the school. Thank you Foster Farms!

I felt a little strange shooting sports the other day because I was actually shooting for the school again. The summer break is just about over and the first preseason soccer games took place yesterday in the school’s new stadium which just finished being built. I got quite a few decent action shots from the men’s game and then stuck around for the start of the night game to get an overall shot of the stadium since yesterday marked the first time any games were played there… and I knew we’d need something for the school’s web updates. Overall I thought the place looked pretty nice, … but I do with the lights shined a little brighter because it was tough to get a good action shot from the night game.

The 49ers and Raiders played a rivalry-game for San Francisco’s first home preseason game of the year. The most memorable part of the game came in the fourth quarter when an amazing play happened not too far from me. The company I worked for told me to get some ‘detail’ shots throughout the game… which wasn’t too big of a deal since it was the preseason and no plays count for anything in the standings. Little did I know I was going to miss out on getting an amazing image by shooting some detail shots though! I took off my medium sized lens and was shooting with a really large lens and a wide angle, (I put the wide angle lens on since the sun was going down and there was some good color in the sky). Right after I did this, the quarterback for the Raiders starting running near me towards the endzone, once I knew he wasn’t going to throw the ball I switched from the long lens to my wide angle and got this photo of him diving over the pylon for a touchdown. So technically I didn’t miss the shot completely, but the background on the image would’ve been a less ‘busy’ and the dive would’ve been a little sharper if I had my main lens on. Oh it was frustrating at the time, but all you can do is laugh at the end of the day because no photographer is able to get every shot. Hopefully I’ll just have the right lens on the next time someone dives in my direction

The Yankees came to town to take on the A’s in Oakland… and I was pretty excited to shoot the Yanks since the only time I’ve taken pictures of the team was during Spring Training when I was working in Florida almost four years ago. A couple of my favorite shots came from the same angle when I was shooting Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. Obviously the picture of A-Rod spitting is a little on the gross side… but at the same time I think it’s pretty funny so I thought I’d post it up on the blog

So the football season is upon us! Very excited to shoot some football the other day in Oakland. But preseason games are a little different to shoot than regular season games… especially for the first game of the year. The reason being is that the starters usually only play for one or two series. Since I knew this going into the game, I was really hoping to get a couple of good shots before the starters sat on the bench for the rest of the game. Luckily I got a shot of Tony Romo throwing a touchdown pass in my direction just before he stood on the sidelines for the rest of the game.