Every now and then someone will read my bio and ask about what it was like shooting sports and news.  And although it’s OK to talk about, it always seems a bit hollow to describe it without having any actual photographs to reference.  When I worked in that area of the photography world, everything was captured on film, and the bulk of my work catalog from that time is still held on file by my rep. Brian Spurlock of Spurlock Photography.  However I recently stumbled across a few scanned images on an older hard drive and thought I’d share a few here to give anyone who’s interested an idea of what I did before I began photographing children, families, and weddings.

I covered the Big 12 conference tournament two years in a row, I think this one ran in ESPN The Magazine.

Being a Bears fan it was a bittersweet feeling to have this one published, but since it ran in Sports Illustrated as part of the Packers’ commemorative edition the year they won the Super Bowl in 1997.

This one takes me back to my days at Vanderbilt University.  In between working for the school paper and going to classes, I also did a lot of work directly for the athletic department photographing the covers for several of the team’s media guides and schedule posters.

I’m honestly not all that sure what I was doing with these swimmer pictures.  The only thing I can remember is that we shot these at a pool in Lincolnwood someplace, and in order to make the bottom photograph, I was actually sitting up on top of the diving board while the swimmer came out from underneath me. Luckily neither myself or the 400mm 2.8 lens I used wound up falling off and going in the water!

Another from my days at Vanderbilt…..for some reason I always liked this image, which is probably why it wound up getting scanned and sticking around on my computer.

The years I was photographing NFL football, any time the Detroit Lions and Barry Sanders were on the schedule you knew you were going to get something good.  Far and away one of the most challenging but rewarding assignments back then because this guy seemed to move faster and cut quicker than anyone else on the field.  I think this one was part of the Sporting News year in review, or possibly another one for ESPN.

So that’s all I have for now.  Maybe if I can find someone with a slide/negative scanner I can dig around the basement and pull up a few more to share in the future.