Tribute to CW

As we say goodbye to 2006 and welcome 2007, I wanted to pay tribute to a dear friend and great musician, Chris Williams.

"CW" was the drummer and one of the founding members of the Pat McGee Band, a group I traveled with last year for TourPhotographer.com. Chris and I worked on a number of projects since then and I saw him whenever we were in the same city at the same time.

Unfortunately, Chris passed away unexpectedly in October. He was one of those rare people that everyone liked. His enthusiasm for life and music was contagious and you couldn't help but be in a good mood when he was around.

I did this portrait of Chris under the piers in Ocean City, MD this past summer.

In his honor, I'm donating all of the profits from Pat McGee Band print sales at TourPhotographer.com to the Progeria Research Foundation. Chris had a special friendship with Sam, now 10, who is a drummer and has Progeria. You can read more about it here.

On Tour with Barenaked Ladies

This month I went on the road with Barenaked Ladies for my company TourPhotographer.com.

I had all access to make pictures each night and I usually chose to shoot the encores from the back of the stage so you could see the crowd in the photos.

I noticed that during their song "Brian Wilson," Ed and Steve did this really nice double jump. On my last night with the tour in St. Paul, MN, I made sure to get to the front of the stage for a moment so I could capture both guys off the ground.

Football Penalty

I was commissioned to cover all of the Yankees and Mets home playoff games this year, so I figured I had a pretty good shot at covering the World Series again. Since both teams lost in earlier rounds, it was back to football!

I made this image on October 21 as the Clemson Tigers took on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

During the second quarter, Clemson WR Tyler Grisham was clothes-lined by Georgia Tech safety Djay Jones after a pass reception, causing a pretty violent fumble. Surprisingly, there was no penalty called on the play, but it turned out to be only one of the few bright spots for the Yellow Jackets as Clemson won 31-7.

Steamy Football

September for me usually means FOOTBALL.

I've been on the road shooting college and pro games for Sports Illustrated and a couple of weeks ago the West Virginia Mountaineers (ranked fourth in the country) visited Greenville, NC to face the East Carolina Pirates (whose fans get very excited when the pirate mascot says "Aaaarrrggghhh!")

West Virginia was sitting on a tenuous 7-point lead in the second half and East Carolina was driving down the field. Because it was warm out, they had machines spraying a fine mist in the bench area and thanks to the dropping sun, the light was pretty for this photo of WV wide receiver Tito Gonzalez watching the game unfold on the scoreboard video display.

West Virginia would hold on for a 27-10 win, making this photo irrelevant to the game story but still usable for my "photo of the month."

Drew Carey in Las Vegas

This month I had the pleasure of spending some time in Las Vegas with my friend Drew Carey. His "Improv All-Stars" tour was playing four nights at the Luxor Hotel and Casino.

The cast of the show is made up of some amazing improv comedians that you know from "The Drew Carey Show" and "Whose Line is it Anyway" including (from l-r) Kathy Kinney, Jonathan Mangum, Sean Masterson, Ryan Stiles, Drew, Chip Esten, musical director Laura Hall, Jeff Davis, and Greg Proops.

The show is hysterical and it's different every night since it's all improvised.

I was flown in to document the shows and behind-the-scenes, but whenever I have the opportunity I also like to set up a portrait shoot. Since we were in a casino, I thought it would be fun to have Drew and the gang at a craps table. I arranged it with the casino and we did the shoot on a Saturday afternoon.

With a growing crowd of tourists looking on, Drew played for real and also taught Laura Hall the rules of the game.