First Rounder:



What a great day! Today I had the experience of a lifetime. I always love watching the NFL draft. It is always filled with tension, strategy, and hopes for the future regardless of what your team did last year. Tonight I had the unique experience of not only going to a draft party, but going to a draft party where someone there was slated to be drafted in the first round! You don't get to do that every day so I jumped at the opportunity to shoot this for Gator Country. I had the opportunity to photograph this amazing athlete last season and it was great to see his professional career start right before my eyes (and lens).

Former Florida Gator Center Maurkice Pouncey was the NFL hopeful we were all there to see but based on all of the projections and work outs this was more of a celebration than a tension filled hope fest. It did get a bit tense and quiet when it was about that time for the call to finally come in. Then it happened.

Getting to watch (and hear) Maurkice's life change was really awesome as he was drafted in the first round as the 18th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. Thank you for the opportunity Gator Country and thank you Maurkice and the rest of the Pouncey family for allowing me to peek in on such a great day in your family's life! See you next year for Mike's draft party?

Here are a few more shots from tonight:















If you'd like to see the rest of the photos from this amazing night click here Thanks for stopping by!

Photo of the Day - Back again:



Welcome back! What a long Monday! Wow. The good news is it's over! This afternoon I finally had the chance to do a little work on my web page and re-opened the "UF" section. I had to add a password prompt on the front page of the gallery to protect some sports photos and I finally got around to moving those to a better area. I frequently got questions and emails from people asking me why they couldn't access the gallery and for those who asked - now you can! :-) If you aren't a graduate of the University of Florida or a fan of the Gators you may not be interested but as long as you aren't a rival I am sure you will enjoy some of the shots of our beautiful campus. I truly miss it and love driving and walking around it while I am in town. If you'd like to see the UF Gallery click here!

I took the above photo of Century Tower, a well known UF landmark during a Lunar Eclipse after a basketball game in 2008. I read about the eclipse before we headed to town and I made sure to bring my gear so I could get a few shots before heading back home. I knew I wanted to work this famous landmark in with the eclipse if my timing was right and it worked out. I do wish the moon was a bit bigger but I can only control so much :-) Overall though I am pleased with all of the shots from that night.

Hope your Monday was a little better and more stress free than mine but hey, there's nothing we can do about it now, so here's hoping we all have a great Tuesday! Thanks for checking in and I hope to see you back tomorrow!

Photo of the Day - From One Seat:



To Another:



Well since football season is officially over I have gone from my seat (or standing area) on the football field to my full time seat at the scorer's table for UF Men's basketball. I have been working the early non-conference basketball games during football season but now that conference has rolled around the corner the season has truly arrived and I am pumped! Tonight the team faces one of their biggest conference rivals and probably the best team they will face all regular season when they face off against the University of Kentucky Wildcats and their new coach John Calipari. I'm excited to watch both teams play and hope that our Gators can pull off the upset. If they play hard and execute it is more than possible! Go Gators!!!

Both of the above shots are from my good buddy and Gator Country photographer Tim Casey. Thanks Tim! If I keep using his shots of me "working" he may stop taking them. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing :-)

Time to head to the game! Thanks for checking in and hope to see you tomorrow!

Photo of the Day - Tebowed:



I will be the first to admit that I am a very big fan of the University of Florida and all University of Florida athletics. Having worked for the men's basketball team while in school at UF and actually lettering, it has been in my system for a long time. Actually it started well before that when I was 4 or 5 and dad was bringing me to UF football games. He certainly didn't make me go to UF, but there were some subtle influences there the whole time :-)

With the opportunity to photograph this past football season however I have had to (at least slightly) reign in my fandom in order to focus on shooting the game and not be completely biased during the process. It has been difficult but I celebrate and root the guys on in my own (quieter) way while shooting. Fortunately at home games I have 90,000+ fans carrying the load for me. I am also a HUGE Tim Tebow fan and I cannot tell you how much of an honor it has been on so many levels to have had the opportunity to photograph his senior season.

Along with being a huge UF and Tebow fan, I love collecting memorabilia and autographs relating to UF athletics. How big a fan you ask? Well, I have a 95"x35" frame that holds autographed jerseys of the starting 5 from the UF basketball team that won back to back national championships a few years ago in our bar room. I'd say it verges on fanatical but I digress.

One of the few autographs over the past four years that I have not managed to get is that of the man, the myth, the legend, Tim Tebow. For the first three years of his career I have watched and enjoyed his play from afar but this season I had the amazing opportunity to photograph Tim as he played his senior season at the University of Florida. So for the first time ever I was close enough to touch him, yet so far away. Unfortunately, with access to the sidelines, locker rooms, and athletes there are some major restrictions. It is (very understandably) a major no no to ask a player or coach for his autograph or a picture while on the field using your media access. It makes total sense - these guys are inundated constantly with requests and it would not be fair to allow this type of activity to go on while they are on the field pre, during, or post game. I have actually heard of people losing access because of such requests and to be honest they deserved it. Respect the athletes and do the job you were there to do or be a fan and sit in the stands. Even though I feel that way, it is so crazy to be so close and able to talk to them, shake their hand, get run over by them etc. but not be able to make an autograph request. For an autograph guy like me that's an unbelievable challenge but I managed to contain myself. I did have a few moments throughout the season where we bumped into each other or spoke but other than that it was completely professional - he was the Heisman winning athlete that was the apple of the eye of his coach, teammates, and the Gator Nation and I was one of many photographers running around trying to stay out of the way while capturing his historical season on digital media (film for you old coots). As it turns out, fate had something else in mind for the final game of Tim's season and the final game of my first season taking pictures.

All of this leads us to the above photo - my Tim Tebow "autograph." Before the game started when the Cincinnati band was on the field playing the Superman theme song and the announcer said they were there to "pay tribute to the real superman, the undefeated Cincinnati Bearcat football team" I couldn't help but smile. As if this kid needs any more motivation than he already had, the opposing team's band is taking one last jab. Gotta love it. That is all I will say on that but needless to say, whether he heard it or not, he came out more than motivated and had one of the better games of his career. I was more than pleased. Towards the end of the game I started to get ready for the Gatorade bath that coach Meyer was about to receive and the victory lap and trophy/post game activities. Part of this process involves changing from one of my longer lenses to a wider lens, adding a flash, checking my levels, and finding a place to put the longer lens and 2nd camera body while I jog all over the field taking pictures. It is NEVER advisable to leave that kind of equipment laying around anywhere, but really you have to deal with the lesser of two evils and either carry it and try to take shots, or leave the big stuff in a safe(ish) location while you take pictures. Some photographers would argue differently but I chose to leave it in a "safe(ish)" location while I did my post game work.

A combination of fate, bad luck (or good luck as it may be) had me place my camera against a wall in the end zone. What I didn't know is that it was right below an aisle in the Super Dome where Tim's parents and family were going to come down after the game to hug him and talk for a while. Unfortunately my camera was at the epicenter of this meeting, specifically at the bottom of it. Sometime during the crush of photographers (including myself) following Tim to the spot and shooting his meeting he stepped on the plastic LCD protector on my back up camera body as he tried to climb up to visit with his family. Sure I'm upset that I have a cracked LCD protector but if you look closely you can see an orange line where his cleat impacted it and scratched the plastic before breaking it. If you squint hard enough and have a few drinks it almost looks like a "T." I may not have ever gotten Tim's true autograph during his senior season but I definitely got something much more unique: being so close to and shooting such a historical football season, and having him "autograph" whether he knew it or not, my LCD cover after the last game of his college career. My season and his, couldn't have ended any better than it did.

Thank you for all you have done this season Tim as a student athlete, as a person, and as a Nikon BM-7 Part #25343 destroyer/autographer. I won't hold it against you, but when you are drafted I'd sure like a replacement, or at least a complete autograph as a fan and not as a member of the media. ;-)

Thanks for stopping by today for my photo of the day and for putting up with my Tebow fandom one last time, but it was a funny story and one of the few souvenirs I brought back from New Orleans this past weekend. Be sure to stop by tomorrow for another edition of the shot of the day!

Seems Like Just Yesterday....


It seems like it was just yesterday when we were in Atlanta cutting down the nets for the 2nd straight year. Now I'm watching 4 different teams battle it out for the championship. Its kind of sad knowing that our season didn't really pan out as we had hoped but the future looks bright and I am sure I will have fun watching these kids play their hearts out and I know the games will be great - hopefully my bracket will hold up!

Yesterday I had the chance to shoot the UF vs. FSU baseball game which was played at the baseball grounds up here in Jacksonville. Unfortunately UF got their butts kicked but I still had a great time shooting the game. As I arrived to the will call area I gave my name and the guy told me "oh Tim Darby? he's already here" well yes I'm here now but I assure you I haven't been here long. This guy was adamant that "I" had already arrived. After showing him my ID and a few other things with my name on it he finally believed me. When I asked him what the other Tim looked like, he didn't remember. Us "media" types must all look alike. This wasn't quite the start to the evening I was hoping for, as if I wasn't nervous enough, I had that start. Ha!

I found my way to the press box and walked around like I was lost up there for a bit before putting my bag down and heading out. I walked down to the UF dugout where I stood and watched some of the pre-game action and kind of acclimated myself to the area etc. I began talking to another photographer that was already in the photo box. He was a really nice guy who shot for the Alligator and had some serious equipment ( D3, 200-400 f4 and a bunch of other stuff) which I was obviously envious of. He noticed I was shooting with a 180 f2.8 and I mentioned how I was hopefully going to get a 70-200 f2.8 in the (hopefully very near) future. He said he had his with him and that if I wasn't going far he'd be happy to let me use it. Keep in mind at this point I had known the kid for oh, a good 30 seconds and he's offering to loan me a $1,500 lens! So I hesitated at first but then decided to take him up on it. I had a lot of fun shooting the game and talking with my new friend. It was fun to hang out and watch a good photographer with some pretty serious equipment shoot the game. I will say it was pretty scary to be down at that level right in the line of fire of some low line drive foul balls. It feels like the aluminum bats they use speed up the hit and with the time lost looking through the viewfinder it can get a little nerve wracking. Fortunately we didn't have many close calls and I survived! Some of my photos are here

Today wasn't too bad, but not very eventful or productive school wise. I got to spend some good time with Britt on her day off and hopefully I can get a little more school work done.