Now, with limited opportunities to take photos this year, I have a few picked out that I felt were the best, and one that has more meaning this year than it might have had any other year. More on those as I progress down the line.
But, first…two photographs that I didn’t take, but prominently feature yours truly. These are two of my favorite photos, and one adorns the background of my phone and my computer. You’ll see why in a second.
Brad Keselowski in Kentucky
Image courtesy of Getty Images and Yahoo! NASCAR
One of my favorite parts of interning at TV stations has become the trip to Kentucky Speedway in June. In fact, when I interviewed at FOX19 in March, Sports Director Brian Giesenschlag and I talked about when we first met—at Kentucky one year earlier, while I was interning at WCPO. He told me he could visibly tell how fired up I was and couldn’t wait to give me the opportunity to do it again.
When photographer Dan Wood and I left the station at 2 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, I was under strict orders from our producer Rufus (whose real name is Ron Millenor) to “do my thing” and get good soundbites from drivers. Easy enough.
Dan and I trekked the infield, getting video of all the cars, and chatting with drivers from old-timers like now 69-year-old Morgan Shepherd to young guns like 22-year-old Brad Coleman and 20-year-old Joey Logano. We also stopped and got sound from one of the most divisive characters in NASCAR, Brad Keselowski.
Love him or hate him (I’m not a fan, personally) Keselowski can provide some good quotes about other drivers and his experiences in the Nationwide (nee Busch) Series. And we got some great comments from the 2010 Nationwide Series champ on that sunny Friday in the infield at Sparta. Dan Wood and I also now have a great photo to share with everyone who wants to know what our job is like.
Mark Martin’s Friday media visit at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Image courtesy of IMS.com
The best photo, ever.
In 2009 I considered it a dream come true to walk up to Mark Martin in his garage stall at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, introduce myself, shake his hand and chat for a few moments. Not only was I covering the storylines of the Brickyard 400 weekend, but I was a true fan of the then 50-year-old from Batesville, Ark. The short guy has been my hero for as long as I can remember. So what would I do in 2010 for an encore?
Nothing any different. After meeting with Mark’s media relations manager Kendra Jacobs (see my story about Kendra here: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/kendra-jacobs-media-manager-and-top.html) I inched my way into a spot to film Mark’s media visit—one that was chock-full of speculation and rumors that Mark was unhappy about.
During the 15-minute session, a few cameras snapped some shots of the man dressed in neon green. This shot is the best one I could find, a wide-angled photo of Mark Martin answering questions from the media (and myself, in the aqua colored shirt on the right).
For all of my Brickyard coverage, you should visit the July section of the blog. Plenty of photos, plenty of reactions, and plenty of great stories too.
Now to photos I took, and the stories behind them…
Kurt Busch stares at me
Right before Mark Martin’s media visit on Friday in Indy, I stood by Kurt Busch, hoping to ask him what he felt was going to be the biggest difference in the racing with the new rear spoiler package that NASCAR instituted in March (I felt it was a good enough story to do a short report on FOX19.com about).I never got to, partially because the only thing anyone wanted to talk about on Friday afternoon was the Brad Keselowski/Carl Edwards dust-up from a week earlier during a Nationwide race, and of course, when Mark Martin was going to step out of the No. 5 car.
So, while standing in front of Kurt Busch, listening to him defend his teammate Keselowski, I snapped a harmless photo…or so I thought.
My camera kept the flash on, which wasn’t all bad, considering the room had questionable lighting for my $80 camera to be taking professional-grade photos. But as I snapped the picture—flash and all—Busch was staring right at me. “Oh s---,” I thought to myself. “I’m going to get kicked out of here now, and I haven’t even got to listen to Mark yet!”
Busch turned away, took another question, and probably quickly forgot about my faux pas with my camera. Thank goodness. I lived to see another day, another press conference, and quickly learned that every time I turned my camera on, I needed to turn off the auto flash too.
Joey Logano debriefs his team at Kentucky
Joey Logano looked to remain perfect at Kentucky in the Nationwide Series, and this season was no different for the kid from Connecticut. As I mentioned earlier, I got to trek around the infield with Dan Wood and take some photos of my own while Dan shot video for our sportscast that evening. I normally don’t take too many “crazy” pictures, but I got this one and I like the way it turned out.Logano came straight from Michigan—where the Sprint Cup Series was qualifying for their Sunday race—and took to his No. 20 GameStop Toyota as soon as he got off the helicopter. After turning a few laps in the first practice session he got out and chatted with his team, including crew chief Kevin Kidd.
I may not be a pro, but sometimes I can take some pretty neat photographs.
Up close and personal practice at Kentucky
After getting some garage shots, Dan Wood and I headed to the “photographers only” area right down next to the track for the second part of Friday afternoon practice. It was awesome to be so close to the cars, zipping by us at the exit of the final corner at speeds of 170 mph. But it wasn’t until after we got back in the van to head back to the station that I realized just how close we actually were.I wiped my face down with a napkin and saw some black streaks on the white napkin. “What the heck,” I wondered to myself. Then it hit me. We were so close to the cars exiting the corner that small chunks of Goodyear racing tire was hitting us as the cars rounded the corner. “Holy cow,” I thought. “That is awesome.”
The best photo I could think of to illustrate the up close and personal feel of the practice session was this one, of who else but Joey Logano. The only thing you can’t feel here is the power of the engines, the wind forced by the cars, and those little black pellets of rubber hitting you in the face. Oh, yeah, and you can’t quite duplicate the sound. I love the sound.
Pit road at Indy
The ’09 Brickyard 400 was an awesome experience. For the first time ever I got to shoot video and attend press conferences at the highest level of NASCAR racing, something I could have only dreamed of years ago. The 2010 400 was even better. I got to do all the same things and then some.After the post-race press conferences I joined FOX19’s Rontina McCann, who had come up to IMS to report on the race for the evening sportscast, to shoot some intro shots for our stories. She shot my intros, and I shot hers—teamwork at its finest!
After debating where to stand, I suggested we head down to pit road. Money. I got to film my standup intro sitting on the wall in front of Mark Martin’s pit stall. Rontina walked a few feet down pit road and stood in front of Victory Lane, which had since been cleared of Jamie McMurray’s No. 1 car.
When we got back to the media center, just a stone’s throw away, my dad could tell I was pumped. Hey, it was a first-time experience, standing on the pit lane, and it was awesome.
Family, memories
In case you are not aware, my grandfather passed away in July (read more here: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-memory.html). We read all the stories, remembered all the great times, recalled all the memories and looked at all the best photographs of him right before his funeral. However, I seemed to have left this one out. This photograph, taken during my grandfather’s 87th birthday party, now takes on greater meaning than it did when I took the photo.It’s easy to take pictures of cars going round in circles. It’s easy to go on road trips and take pictures of college football stadiums. It’s easy to go to family parties and snap photos of my Godchildren and all of my cousins’ kids, but now there’s someone missing.
Whether we called him dad, grandpa, Poppy Joe (as the young ones called him) or just Joe, we all have memories of the man we lost this year. And at no time is it more painful than at Christmas. Every year we’ve gathered, grandpa has been there to celebrate with us—voice or no voice. It will be different this year, and I know we’ll all be thinking of him when we sit down on Friday night.
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Have a great Christmas time, and I fully expect to be back and in action blogging like crazy next week. I hope you have enjoyed my favorite pictures of the year, and will join me next week for some more year-end celebrations
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