David Hall '05 Nasdaq 100 by Rollingpix
This will be my fourth trip to this tournament which coincidentally falls on my birthday weekend. This tournament was the starting point of all of my efforts with wheelchair athletic photography and was the first place that I was actually given credentials to shoot from an on court position.
I really wasn't as well prepared for last years tournament as I could have, or should have been. I was escorted to my shooting position to photograph the semi-final match between the then World's #2 player, France's Michael Jeremiasz and the #1 player - David Hall of Australia. I took quite a number of decent pictures, I got overwhelmed, overheated and left after the first set and was to ashamed to return.
It took so much work to get there, I had no professional experience or affilliations with a newspaper or publication to speak of. The angle that I did have was that I didn't see any photographers that were actually in a wheelchair. I made a number of phone calls to the tournament director, explaining who I was and what my dreams were. He was willing to give me this oppurtonity on one condition...That I build a professionally looking website, three days before the tournament started!
That's how Rollingpix came to be, 30+ hours straight of coding and posting what available pictures of the previous tournaments. I sent the site to the Director and he graciously replied, "Call me when you get on site and we will have someone escort you to a shooting position."
Getting back to being unprepared, all I had for equipment was a 6.2 MP Canon EOS Digital Rebel and the EFS 18-55 MM Lens.I didn't get a chance to introduce myself to the athletes before hand and I believe that it made them both a bit unconformtable.
With luck on my side I am going to contact the Director again, now I have the equipment. I have a brand new 8.2 MP Rebel XT, Sigma 18-70 and Sigma 70-300 Tele-photo lens, shrouds, filters, 6 gigabyte memory card, tripods..the works. I followed my favorite players career all of '05 and there is nothing more I want then to succeed.
Wish me luck
