My day at the Cotton Bowl

A while back I was asked to help out fellow photographer Ron St. Angelo (whom you may remember from his book signing that I covered) with a shoot at the Cotton Bowl with a few familiar faces. I'll refer to them in nicknames, but you should be able to tell from the photos who they were. For all the photographers out there, assisting, second shooting, changing backs, rolling spools and even just watching other photographers work will help your photography. You can never know everything and if you pick up on something while helping out, then it was all worth it, not to mention sometimes you get to play catch with legends. The background of the shoot was getting some older football players to do some retro, vintage shots in the Cotton Bowl and even had the guy that supplied the equipment for the movie Leatherheads bring all the helmets, balls, shoes and the works.

Here's Ron getting the Blad setup


and another on the field with my Quantum T5DR


We started up in the corner of the Cotton Bowl with this guy nicknamed "Roger the Dodger" or "Captain Comeback", I'll just try and call him Captain Comeback as this might be a long story, but one I had typed up that night while it was all still fresh.


As you can see it was a little bit of a production with Fox 4 and Time Warner both filming while shooting.


We started doing some throwing motions and started throwing the ball to me about 5 feet away. On the 4th pass, I said, I oughta start counting these and keep a running total. Ron told him I had been waiting all week to catch a pass from him...


We then went down on the field and got the lights set up and he was talking with Nita from Fox 4 and I went over to get him if he was through with her questions, while talking with her, he raised the ball and waved me "to go deep" and I took off across the field. Now the shots we were doing were with old leather helmets, so the ball he was throwing was a replica 1930 football, with no little nubbins for grip and about as fat as a watermelon. As I am running, I thought to myself, you can't let a single ball he throws touch the ground because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. First throw down on the field is led perfectly as I have to reach as far as possible to get both hands on it and just sandwich it together. With my head, hands (holding a ball just thrown from Captain Comeback) way out in front of my body, I finally regain my step to some cheers from Captain Comeback, Nita and the other camera crew. As I am running towards Captain Comeback to throw the ball, cuz I don't want to embarrass myself trying to throw a watermelon 30 yards, I hear Captain Comeback tell Nita, "that was a nice catch", ok surely he's blowing smoke but I could care less. I threw it back and he waved me on again, same deal perfect spiral and I squeeze it in. Then again, and again, and again and again till the 17th ball while sprinting down the field sails over my leaping outstretched arm by a few feet do I hang my head and shame and tell him "I had to have at least one TO moment". We continued shooting the pics and on of the shots, he told Ron, "He's got some good hands!"

I'm freaking floating, Captain Comeback just told me I have good hands! Sure again, he's probably blowing smoke, but I don't freaking care... I just caught 23 of 24 balls from Roger the Dodger, the Dodger just threw me passes so hard it left my ring finger red and swollen and I could care less, even if it's broken. The only thing I wish, is that I could somehow hold a camera while catching passes, but I did get a pic with him afterwards.


A quick snap as he was leaving


I headed up to the dressing room to see if Moose had made it yet and Captain Comeback was out signing hard hats from all the guys working on the Cotton Bowl, I admire the guys that do that instead of the not now, I'm busy types.



Moose came next and I didn't dare let him block me, he squeezed into some old timie shoes that were about a size to small. He grinned and beared it for the shot and ended up getting some really cool stuff like below and in a Heisman like pose.




As soon as that shoot finished, I was helping Moose rip off the size to small leather shoes so he could get a little more camera time in comfort with Nita and Cody.


All in all, a cool shoot and even more cooler day that I will never forget.

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