TODD SPOTH - HOUSTON PHOTOGRAPHER / COMMERCIAL / ADVERTISING / SPORTS / ANNUAL REPORT / MAGAZINE / DOCUMENTARY / MULTIMEDIA - HOUSTON, TEXAS, USA - 832.265.3486 - INFO@TODDSPOTH.COM » AFA http://toddspothblog.com Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:00:09 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 SOLDIERS AND SUSHI http://toddspothblog.com/2007/11/13/soldiers-and-sushi/ http://toddspothblog.com/2007/11/13/soldiers-and-sushi/#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2007 02:37:26 +0000 Todd Spoth http://toddspothblog.com/?p=99 SOLDIER HOMECOMING
Yesterday was a whirlwind day in my life as a photojournalist. I was originally slated to start my Veterans’ Day late shift off with a few photos to accompany a restaurant review at 3pm, until I got a call from our DOP (director of photography) asking me to be at Fort Carson, the nearby Army base, at noon. When I arrived I met up with our military reporter and a handful of other media personnel. We were escorted onto the base and led to the Welcome Center where there was to be a group of soldiers arriving for a homecoming. This was one of those experience events. Ones you may see on TV or read about, but that you never quite understand the scope of until you are there. The Welcome Center was a small gym type facility that was packed to capacity with friends and family of the 759th Military Police Battalion. Apparently this particular group of men had not been home in over a year and had a pretty rough time in Iraq, completing dangerous missions and losing a number of their own in the process. The soldiers arrived from the airport on two chartered buses complete with a police escort. They marched into the center in formation and saluted the gathered crowd with restraint as their friends and family went nuts. After a small word and the singing of the national anthem it was complete chaos. An indescribable flood of emotion that almost had me in tears at one point. Regardless of my thoughts about our current government and war, I could not deny the fact that these men, some younger than I, have seen so much in the past year and they were getting to see their wives, husbands, children, mothers, fathers, etc for the first time in a long time and it was amazing to say the least. At one point a father, also a veteran, placed his hand on one of the older commander’s shoulders and said, “Thanks for bringing my son home.” Both of the grown men completely broke down into tears at that point. The first image is one of Staff Sgt. Matthew Frye kissing his wife Farrah during the ceremony. It ran as the main art, A1, today. The lighting inside the center was horrid, but its OK…the moment is telling in and of itself. After that event, I headed to my restaurant review which surprisingly was at a smaller Japanese grill. I had a great time talking to the owners and chef about my being Japanese and we made some neat images of their food and restaurant. Their famed stuffed mushrooms, which I tried and loved, against my better journalistic judgement were awesome. Hey, they review was already written and we couldn’t let the food go to waste, right? I obliged and instead let the food go to waist.


]]> http://toddspothblog.com/2007/11/13/soldiers-and-sushi/feed/ 0 NOVEMBER MADNESS http://toddspothblog.com/2007/11/10/november-madness/ http://toddspothblog.com/2007/11/10/november-madness/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:55:59 +0000 Todd Spoth http://toddspothblog.com/?p=90 AIR FORCE BASKETBALL

Last night was my first time to shoot basketball. That sounds weird. I cannot believe that I had never shot basketball until last night. Although basketball is not one of my favorite sports, shooting it is pretty darn exciting. I was scheduled to shoot a prep football playoff and was elated to find out I was switching to an arena with lighting instead of a very dark high school football stadium. Since I don’t have much experience with arena strobes and my basketball shooting experience being where it was, I decided to head out to the base early, which proved to be a very good idea. It was the first game of the 2007 season for the US Air Force Academy Falcons and they faced off against the Big Green of Dartmouth. The venue was Clune Arena on the base of the Academy and as soon as I arrived I headed up to the catwalk to turn on the paper’s strobes. (4 Elichrom 1000r’s) After my initial (frightening) walk through, I checked the lines and much to my dismay found that the drop line to attach the pocket wizards to the strobes wasn’t working properly. After checking the lines and connections over and over I finally dropped into one of the strobes and managed to get half of the court’s lights operational. I would have to deal with that. Prior to the start of the game, the AFA photographer and I realized that we were crossing channels which was very odd since he was using a digital frequency and I was on analog. In the end, I was forced to shoot with the south-end lights on only leaving the back court completely black. It wasn’t an ideal situation, however it simplified some of the images. At some points, since the other photographer and I were sharing one of the strobes, if he had fired before me, I would only have one light operational as the shared strobe would be recycling. Needless to say there was a motley crue of images; some available light, some lit with one strobe, some lit with two. It was actually a lot more exciting than I would have thought, given the proximity to action. I did shoot from the catwalk for a bit, but with the sketchy lighting, it was better from the floor. I’m kind of bummed that I’m just now getting to shoot basketball, but I’m glad that its the NCAA. I hope to shoot a lot more soon.
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