Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

I am glad that I had the opportunity to explore the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge before last weeks Nor'easter tore it up. What a beautiful natural place full of life and natural beauty. It may not be the same for quite some time, maybe years. Parts of it may never be the same. It seems we are always worried about what man is doing that changes or damages the environment. But Hell hath no fury like Mother Nature herself, and her ability to wreak havoc upon herself. After my visit, I couldn't believe that I had never traveled to this wondrous natural outpost on the eastern shore. Many times I had been to the northern part of Assateague island, but never down here. All this made me think about the fact that we should take advantage of our opportunities to go places and see things when presented, because in the blink of an eye, things can change and never be the same.

Redskins Training Camp

OK, so I have been neglecting this blog long enough, time to get on the stick and get some stuff up here. I missed the opening of the Skins training camp yesterday, but made it this morning with my friend, Dave. He brought his freshly repaired Canon 40D with his 100-400 IS zoom, and I was using my 50D with a 70-200 f/4 IS. It was a little humid but not too warm when we stepped into Redskins Park at 8:30 this morning.
The weather prediction was calling for a 90% chance of thunderstorms, but it looked like it was going to hold off, at least for a little while. It was pretty parked up when we arrived and there were a lot of fans already there. We staked out our spot along the sidelines, looking for openings where we could shoot between people and not get a bunch of heads in our shots. Dave shot on a monopod, I decided to just shoot hand-held, using ISO 400 and my steady hands (right!) to keep things sharp. Actually, the IS (image stabalization) feature in my lens and shutter speeds between one 640th and one 1250th sec was doing that. The sun started breaking through the clouds and heating things up pretty quickly. The crowd was relatively subdued except for the occasional roars of approval on long pass completions. I had only been passively following the Redskins progress since the end of last season, so I have a lot of catching up to do on the roster. They were running the fist string offense in front of us a lot so that made it easier to hone in on the veterans we were familiar with. As the morning wore on the sun started baking us to the point where we sought refuge at the end of the field at a tree line that gave us some shade - and what felt like a 20 degree respite from the heat. Dave seemed to be doing well with the 100-400. I could have used a little more reach, but the extra 5 mega-pixels of the 50D gives me something to work with in post-processing and cropping. Below are some quick picks of some of the on-field action. All images © 2009 Archer Imaging

Jason Campbell hones in on second year man Malcolm Kelly
under the keen observation of coach Jim Zorn.



Jason Campbell pitches out to Ladell Betts on a running play
today at Redskins Park

Jason Campbell gets good protection while targeting a
downfield receiver today at Redskins Park


Chris Cooley protect on the outside while Jason Campbell
hands off to Ladell Betts

Phillip Daniels tries to thwart a Jason Campbell pass

Jason Campbell throwing downfield today during training
camp at Redskins Park

Jason Campbell shows the defense that he can still run
when the receivers are covered

Todd Collins takes his turn on the offense

Todd Collins throws downfield today at Redskins Park


A Redskin defender faked right out of his jockstrap
today at Redskins Park


Chris Cooley jumps for a tipped ball
that would eventually land in the hands
of Linebacker Alfred Fincher, #51

Some players take a water break in the summer heat.