30 For 30: Back Home

It’s always fun to head home. Even more fun to go back and shoot the teams who first gave you a chance.

Back in 2008 when I first got into photography as a freshman in college, the first teams I shot were Saint John’s football and St. Cloud State hockey.

This past weekend, I had the chance to head back to my roots in Stearns County and shoot a couple big games. On Friday night, St. Cloud State hosted №2-ranked North Dakota and on Saturday afternoon, Saint John’s hosted St. Scholastica in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. No way I would be where I am today without my college years shooting these teams. The people I met, connections I made and skills I created game after game were instrumental in making me what I am today. Fast forward 6 years, my job still doesn’t seem real and the feeling going back to shoot these two teams still feels the same as it did in the fall of 2008.

Below you find 30 of my favorite images from the weekend back home. Enjoy!

Michael Jordan-esque with the tongue.

Panoramic image of the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center. 30 images shot with a Canon 5D Mark III and 16–35mm lens stitched together in Photoshop CC to create the final product.

Also fun to shoot Austin Poganski, a freshman at North Dakota. Poganski, a fellow St. Cloud Cathedral graduate and also my next door neighbor growing up in St. Cloud, is a St. Louis Blues draft pick.

It’s been six years of trying and failing to get SCSU to cut holes in the glass for photographers. The glass is horrendous to shoot through, and it doesn’t help that it is always dirty. Typically when I have shot SCSU games, I shoot from the concourse above the glass 99% of the time. Ice level is better, but photos turn out dark and crappy, so I have always chosen the cleaner, sharper images above over the better angle. So of course, for the 10 minutes I shot through the glass on Friday night, Jonny Brodzinski scored his 50th career goal and celebrated right at me.

Still dark and not perfectly sharp, but definitely a usable image through the glass.

After the late Friday night game, it was off to snow-covered Collegeville for a noon-kickoff between the Johnnies and the Saints.

The onslaught of an eight interception game for the Johnnie defense began early in the first quarter.

Not sure about you, but I loved the snowy background in most of my photos throughout the day.

Interception number seven.

Of all the people at the game, this photo has men in orange and neon jackets…really? Still works though!

Your 2014 MIAC Coach of the Year, Gary Fasching.

Collegeville…

…on a cold Saturday in November.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to check out the photo blog and hopefully I can find time to make it Back Home more often.

‘Welp, see ya later.’