Gorillas in the Mist

Well, there's no mist, but the gorilla is pretty cool.



Took this at the Oklahoma City Zoo with a 300mm lens. I knew that clean backgrounds with no manmade elements would be key for realistic looking photos. The sunlight was nice - a little contrasty, but nice. The animals, though, weren't cooperating. Most of them were sleeping or just moping about. As I saw this gorilla I knew I had to take advantage of the opportunity. He played around a bit and I got the shot.

Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

Ladies and gentlemen, it's official - your's truly won the national SPJ award for sports photography and is a national finalist for general news photography.

Please hold your applause.

The sports shot was from the Bedlam football game in fall '04.



It was near the end of the game, at the time when most people start slacking off, that I got the shot. I was following OU near their end zone, praying that the Cowboys would stop their drive and score a winning touchdown. My position didn't allow any good shots of OSU defense, so I looked to the Sooners. Adrian Peterson, who had been running all over us that day, jumped right over our defender, giving me a great series of shots.

The shot that netted me a national finalist spot was from a charity rodeo sponsored by a Greek house here on campus.

It was right after budget one night when I got word that we had to have this shot for tomorrow. I bitched and complained about not wanting to do it, and eventually went after I was promised a full page for photos. BINGO!



So I go out and immediately realize the rodeo itself would be unshootable. The light was terrible and I didn't have the glass for it. So I do what any good journalist would do and got behind the story. I hung out in the staging area for a while until I saw the guy strapping on his spurs. At the time I didn't think it would be anything more than an average shot...I was wrong. As I got back to the newsroom it was obvious that this photo was good. However, a slight issue came up. Behind the man there's a backpack with a large sized Confederate flag sewn on - ouch. We at the O'Collegian had recently taken a lot of flak for a story about a football player who was said to have been involved in a rape, so our hackles were already up. After about an hour or so of arguing (the anti-photo side consisted of only one person: you-know-who) we decided to run the photo 5 columns wide on the front page, and the rest is history.