I will be up bright and early tomorrow to shoot the 2nd MWPPA event of the summer. Its going to be at the Sherburne county fairgrounds again, only this time the county fair is actually taking place around it. There will be lots of people that have never really been exposed to paintball. I will be doing the usual photo coverage deals, so hit me up at the field if your team is interested.

The photos from the Elk River/Zimmerman Youth Baseball Tournament came out fantastic! I was able to borrow a Canon 300mm 2.8 lens, so that sure didn’t hurt. Click the photo at the bottom to get to the galleries! I didn’t end up making it out to the USA Cup after all, I really needed a day off. Still plan to shoot some soccer this summer though, probably after I get a 100-400L.

In other news, I plan to hit up two different local airshows this fall, the first in Eden Prairie and the second in Wisconsin. The Eden Prairie Air Expo will have the B-17 Flying Fortress “Yankee Lady”, which I am quite excited to see in person. Not to be outdone the Chippewa Valley Airshow will have the Navy Blue Angels and F/A-18F Super Hornet Demo Team, a USAF F-16 demo team, a P-51 Mustang Heritage Flight, and the Army Golden Knights parachute team. I haven’t been to an airshow in years and I can’t wait to get some fantastic photos.

Here are the baseball photos:

This weekend I am going to be at an Elk River Youth Baseball tournament, shooting as many games as I can on Saturday and Sunday. I want to try something new and try out a new market. I will also be handing out some of my new business cards, which is a big step up for me!

Next week I will also be trying my hand at youth soccer, at the Schwan’s USA Cup International Youth Soccer Tournament. It runs all week at the Blaine Sports Center, and I will be up there as much as possible.

Photos from both events will be put up in galleries labeled by game, to make it easy to find your photos. Prints and digital downloads will be available for purchase.

As for other events I will be at, I will be at the upcoming MWPPA #2 at the Sherburne County Fair in a couple weeks, as well as the next VICIOUS Series tournament in Nebraska. The PSP Northeast Open I will more than likely miss, but I hope to make it to World Cup. I also have at least one airshow coming up that I plan to shoot!

Almost forgot, I will soon have the gallery link on this page pointed to my Smugmug galleries, and I will be reposting all the stuff from the Coppermine galleries to Smugmug. I will also be tidying up my Smugmug a bit.

In preparing for the Chicago PSP, I decided I wanted to try out a longer lens than my normal 70-200mm. I did some looking at online lens rental sites, and eventually settled on www.Borrowlenses.com. I chose to rent a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS, and it came to just a hair over $100 for a week rental, shipping, and insurance on the lens (which I thought was a good idea since I would be shooting paintball). I was supposed to get the lens on the Monday before the event, but they shipped it out early and it arrived the Friday before, so I got a few extra days to acclimatize myself (at no additional charge). It came with the case, tripod collar, lens hood, and a UV filter. I used the lens all week in Chicago and got some fantastic shots, and then sent it back in the same box with the prepaid label the following Monday. Borrowlenses.com was great at communicating the status of my order, and provided an excellent product. If anyone is looking to rent some new glass to try out, I definitely recommend them.

Almost 1500 photos from divisional play on all fields. You can buy prints or digital downloads of any you like. Blazestorm and I took over 15,000 photos all week, and were on the field all five days. For teams that hired us: If you paid already then I have probably already contacted you about how to get your photos, if not, contact me asap. If you still need to pay, contact me for paypal info or other payment options. There are very few pics of the teams that hired us in the main gallery, 99% of them are in each teams personal gallery, so don’t panic if you don’t see any.

You know the drill, click the photo to see the pics!

I am uploading more than 1000 photos from the event as we speak. 99% of these are going to be of divisional Xball and 5-man, of all sorts of teams. You can buy prints or digital copies if you find any you like. Teams that hired us will be contacted about their private galleries over the next day or two as they come online. I hope everyone enjoys the photos, Blazestorm and myself put a lot of hard work into them!

Its 1:45 AM and we just made it to the windy city. Games start tomorrow and I will be on the field all day with Blazestorm, covering our teams!

I just uploaded a 420 picture gallery from Oklahoma D-Day. I had a great time despite the weather, hope everyone else did too! Check out the photos and remember you can buy prints or digital downloads of any of them!

Oklahoma D-Day Gallery

Thanks for your patience, I had a trip to Oklahoma D-Day to take care of first. The Aveda Institute contest photos have now been posted. You can order prints or digital copies of your photos here:

Aveda Contest Photos

I will probably make a fancy banner for the gallery tomorrow, but there is the link for now.

For all the paintball players, Oklahoma D-Day photos should start showing up tomorrow evening.

My travel streak continues in just a couple hours. I will be driving to Oklahoma for the D-Day scenario game. I am covering the game for PB2X, and keep an eye out for a nice big gallery on sunday or monday.

I also just shot another event for Aveda, a hair and makeup contest, so that update will come then as well.

And I got my media pass for the USA Cup soccer tournament in July.

That’s all folks!