Mike Bonnicksen used our new video gear testing the equipment and trying his hand at video editing and came up with a really great first project documenting Chris Ohta, the manager and a “ski tunah” at Tune-A-Sport working on skis.

Mike has some video experience, shooting video for a television news project the Wenatchee World had in the mid to late 1980s. In those days shooting video meant lugging around a large camera, a video deck and tripod. And if you wanted to shoot stills, you had to carry that gear too.

I had dug in my heels and refused to shoot both stills and video because of the extra load and because of the huge potential of missing a still photo moment while shooting video. So the paper hired Mike to shoot exclusively video until the television project was canceled after a few years.

What is different now? Why is the photo staff able to shoot both? “The gear has changed a lot,” says Mike. “The gear is a lot smaller, seems to be a lot better, and the ability to get frame grabs is revolutionary. I predict that in five years, most photos in the paper will be grabbed off of video rather than taken with still cameras.”

Check out his first “new” project.

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Swimming used to be one of my worst sporting events to cover. Dark, humid and colorless, I dreaded having to shoot pictures with my old film cameras. That has changed with well-lit pools, colorful lane dividers, and better competition.

I photographed the Wenatchee Eastmont meet today and came back with some interesting pictures. I like this one the most because it conveyed the emotion of the event against the rival schools:

And this one that shows the speed of the swimmers as they travel through the water.

If we hadn’t run a diving photograph in Monday’s newspaper

I would have been temped to use one of the diving pictures I made just before the divers hit the water.

Swim meets have sure become a better subject for me.

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Is it baseball time already?

I know I’m usually not ready to start talking baseball until at least March, but Baseball Northwest’s winter 2008 issue has the jump.

Eastmont P/3B Seth Haehl, who will just pitch for U-Dub next spring, was ranked 10th on BN’s Washington Class of 2008 Top 185 list, ranking all players regardless of position. Haehl was also ranked No. 15 in the whole Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming) among seniors.
 
The scouting report on Haehl: “Athletic, big frame and good arm strength. Can show 90 on the gun at times with riding life. Will need to develop better consistency of secondary pitches for next level. Shows a good arm action for development. Will need to refine mechanics to gain consistency of stuff.”

Wenatchee catcher Derek Johnson and right fielder Kris Carlson were ranked No. 70 and No. 74, respectively in the Washington Top 185, as was Panther teammate and LHP Colton Richards (No. 119). 

The Class of 2009 rankings include Eastmont RHP Cody Brunner (No. 105) Wenatchee 2B Josh Penny (No. 106), Chelan 1B Curtis Pusey (No. 126) and Wenatchee 1B A.J. Sauceda (No. 128).

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The Brewster girls basketball team took a big step Monday at the MLK Day Tourneytown.com Shootout with that 48-41 victory over No. 2-ranked Colfax at the Yakima SunDome.

Saw Colfax’s volleyball team go to war with King’s at the state tournament in that same building this past fall. A lot of those same girls are on the basketball team and that makes the Bears’ win today even more impressive.

For a little town, Colfax sure grows the ladies big up there. Jordan Harazin, Sadie Lazzarini and Megan Teade were all key cogs on the volleyball squad that went on to win the state title and eight of the 10 players that took the court for Colfax against Brewster also played on the volleyball team at state.

When that match against King’s started everything else stopped. Those were the two teams everyone wanted to see and the fans got every dime’s worth of action. Every point was contested and one hit was harder than the next. Very impressive.

For Brewster to go into neutral ground like that and hold Colfax to five first-quarter points is a feather in the cap of Bears coach Jerry Riggan and Co. Might not be the last time they see Colfax on neutral ground.

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Stayed up late tonight to watch Roger Federer battle Janko Tipsarevic, ranked No. 49 in the world and a relative nobody, in the third round of the Australian Open. I’m not normally a tennis guy, but this was riveting stuff.

Tipsarevic, from Serbia, was not at all awestruck by the majesty of Federer and his absolute dominance over the sport of tennis. After 4 hours and 28 minutes of back and forth play, Federer finally closed out Tipsarevic in five sets. The fifth set went to 10-8, and the most amazing thing to me is that neither one of these guys looked tired. Absolutely incredible.

Federer has been ranked No. 1 in the world for almost four years. Think about that. 

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Here’s a little bit more on Wenatchee girls basketball player Myah Picard (my feature story on her appears in the weekend paper).

Pregame superstition: I always brush my teeth in the locker room before games.
Favorite song: “Let Her Cry”, by Hootie and the Blowfish.
Last movie seen: P.S., I Love You. Thumbs up.
Favorite basketball moment: “All the bus trips when we’re yelling and having fun.” 

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The Snohomish wrestling team snapped Lake Stevens’ incredible streak of 117 consecutive WesCo league victories with a 34-18 victory on Thursday night.

The last time the Viking lost a league dual was 1993. 

“It’s like Christmas, man,” said junior 171-pounder Spencer Caraballo, whose pinfall got the Panthers rolling.

Lake Stevens won the 4A team championship at Mat Classic last February, beating out Pasco, which Wenatchee battled to a near-draw on Thursday night. 

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I had a tough decision to make last night between two photographs. I had covered WVC’s game against Columbia Basin where the Knights were defeated by a large margin. It was a real ugly game for the Wenatchee team and I wanted the picture that ran in the paper to show that. On my first edit, I thought this was the best photo:

But when I was setting up the gallery, I found this picture that seems to say dominance better:

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I was driving around Brewster on a slow day up north, looking for photographs for a story on the town, what makes it unique, etc… when I drove by a city park and found a couple of guys trying to work while being investigated - up close - by five ducks. I had a hard time controlling my laughter as the small flock walked around the workers’ legs, under their saw horses, just getting in the way.

But when I started my work, at taking photographs of the scene, I was treated with the same respect:

No damage to my equipment but the force of the blow sent me back onto the seat of my pants.

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Taking a page out of the playbook of Detroit Pistons’ star Richard Hamilton, Wenatchee Valley College forward and Wenatchee High alum Katie Kuntz has played in the Knights’ last three games with a face mask to protect her broken nose.

Kuntz broke her nose on Jan. 5 in WVC’s first home league game against Yakima Valley when she collided with teammate Lauren Daling. The day of the Knights’ next game on Jan. 9 at Spokane, Kuntz was at the physical therapist’s office at 8 a.m. to get a mask form-fitted especially for her face. A plaster cast was taken of her face and a plastic mold was made to fit over the mold. Kuntz was able to pick up the personalized mask by 11:30 that same morning. 

“At first it was just annoying because I’ve never played with anything on my face. Now I don’t really notice it. It does get hot and sweat builds up but I don’t notice it now. When I get hit it hurts a little and the rest of my face absorbs it, not my nose,” Kuntz said. 

Rip Hamilton has popularized the mask over the past few years as an NBA All-Star. After breaking his nose twice during the 2003-04 season, Hamilton was advised to wear the mask for the rest of his career or risk major facial surgery if it happened again.”I love it. It’s like my identity,” Hamilton told NBA.com. “If some one doesn’t watch basketball, like an old lady, they always know who wears the mask. It’s my identity and I’ll wear it the rest of my career.”   

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