Home Opener
The Cardinals' Week 1 regular season game had a lot of ups and downs. Home games, for me, seem to have added pressure, and with this being the first time the starters have played a game in my time with the team, I went into State Farm Stadium determined to capture greatness.
I'm not sure how well I achieved that goal, but here are some photos that stood out to me.
I get to the stadium about four hours before kickoff. For a 1:25pm kick, players slowly start to trickle in between 10 and 11:30am. Since I am just waiting there to take photos of players walking in, I decided to try something different and shoot a couple photos on my Polaroid OneStep camera. It is a pretty bulky device to carry when you have two other cameras hanging off your shoulders, so once I got a few from warmups, I decided to put it away.
I really like the team drills during pregame that allow for shots like the one above. I get both the offense and defense in position, which obviously doesn't happen any other time.
At the end of stretches, I heard strength and conditioning coach Buddy Morris say "Hump! Hump!" to signal that D.J. Humphries was to lead the huddle. The above photo is one of my favorites from Hump's pump-up speech, but take a look at the video to see all 51 frames of the moment.
To wrap up pregame, I chose an up-front position to photograph the Cardinals introductions. I am going to challenge myself to switch up my positioning each home game to avoid a lot of repetition in my photos.
I will admit, this game was a tough one to photograph. Positioning was difficult, and when I finally felt like I had a good spot, the play just didn't go how it should have.
There were a couple of times I captured some cool celebrations. Marquise "Hollywood" Brown and James Conner's touchdown hug was an unexpected one!
I would say most of the time, I like to look for more isolated action shots. However, the two below images showcase how a close-up shot of a large group can make for cool images. Notice the eyes of Cameron Thomas in the first, and the loose ball in the second.
At the end of the game, it is always nice to see players reunite with their former teammates and friends. This moment with James Conner and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who played together on the Steelers, goes to show that football is more than just a game, it's a family.
