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Long Day at the Ball Park

Yesterday I had the assignment to cover the last two evening session games of the four game set in the Big 12 Baseball Championship at Bricktown Ballpark. It looked as though it was going to be a great day to cover some baseball, but Mother Nature had other thoughts. The first game that started at 4pm between Baylor and Kansas State lasted all of an inning and a half before the rain decided to make an appearance and stay awhile. After about a three hour rain delay, and chasing around weather features, the Bears and the Wildcats went back into action to finish their game under the full moon.

The second game between OU and Kansas was to start at 7:30 now was pushed back to a start time of about 10:35 pm. Since my deadline to get photos back to the paper was 10:45 pm, I have just enough time to shoot OU’s starting pitcher at the top of the inning and their first few at bat in the bottom of the inning before I had to start sending photos back.

I went back out to the field when I was done transmitting to try and get some much needed ‘better’ photos. Which did not go so well. For a fan, the game was great KU had a no hitter going to the 5th inning, and the 1-0 lead over the Sooners, but for a photographer who is in need of some action photographs it was not what I was looking for in a late game. I kept telling myself the next inning will be better, the next inning will be better, and the next thing you know it was the bottom of the 9th inning at 1:15 am with KU holding onto a 2-1 lead. Then karma decided to pay it forward for me since I had done my time for the day when the Sooners hit a two run shot to win the game 3-2. Photos of the Sooners’ celebration made it well worth the wait to finally get to bed at 3am.

Here are a few photos from the two games. Click HERE for full gallery.

-Chris Landsberger

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Graduation Night

The impact of graduation night didn’t sink in until Sara Medrano looked in the mirror and adjusted her cap and gown. A Senior at Santa Fe South High School, she excitedly greets her friends, her brother, and a few of her teachers as she waits backstage for the ceremony to begin.

During her freshman year of school, Sara Medrano thought of dropping out of school. She drew inspiration from watching an older class walk across the stage to get their diplomas. “I don’t care what I had to go through,” Medrano recalls thinking, “I’m going to graduate.”

Teachers start organizing the chaos, and the students form two lines. They’ll weave through the hallways at First Baptist Church in Moore, Oklahoma, enter at the top of the sanctuary and work their way down to their seats. Sara finds her place behind her brother David. They will be the first in their family to graduate from high school. She talks with friends about the butterflies in her stomach and laughs about what would happen is she tripped and fell. Medrano talked about being an inspiration to her children, hoping they would achieve even more, but in the short term, she hopes to inspire her younger sister. “I want her to learn from me…and then be better than me.”

-John Clanton

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‘A friend of ours.’

When I speak to journalism students, they always ask about the process of photographing  victims of violent storms or natural disasters. The perception, I guess, is that news photographers and storm victims have an adversarial relationship. I’ve worked at newspapers through 13 Oklahoma storm seasons and only once have I encountered someone who preferred not to be photographed and was not shy about letting me know it.

Last week, when neighborhoods in Little Axe, Oklahoma, were destroyed by storms, I was sent at dawn the next day to get pictures of the damage. After a few conversations and laps around the town, I saw resident Keith Bolles waiting at a blocked intersection on the east side of town. I pulled into the grass and approached he and his son. From the first handshake and introduction, I could tell that the Bolles family, while dealing with a huge loss, were nice people who were not only willing to talk, but eager to.

I stood in a ditch talking to Keith, his son, Caden and his wife Shelley, and a growing crowd of concerned relatives for nearly 4 hours while we waited for the Cleveland County Sheriff’s deputies to open the restricted area to homeowners.  When the area was finally opened and the Bolles family drove in to their neighborhood to look at the devastation, I passed the police blockade as relatives told them, ‘he’s a friend of ours.”

This story isn’t unusual. It’s almost normal after floods, tornadoes, wildfires and other natural disasters. People want to tell their stories. Pictures that news photographers bring back from some of these major events don’t happen without the family accepting a photographer onto their property, if only for awhile.

As I watched the Bolles family pick up their belongings, I was struck not by their sadness, but by their relief and happiness. Every time somebody found something that wasn’t broken, they celebrated. Keith held up pictures of his children that could be salvaged and laughed about them with his relatives. Shelley cried tears of joy when the puppy they thought was dead was returned to them by Animal Control officers. And when Caden was able, against all odds, to find a ring that was important to his mother, the family stopped digging through the rubble for a moment and cheered.

-John Clanton

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All hail breaks loose

It seems every couple of years we will get a hail storm that makes some some surreal pictures and gives photographers an opportunity to photograph their own hands. Yesterday’s storm did not disappoint in either department.

Check out our gallery from yesterday here.

Click here for more photos of the storm.

-Nate Billings

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Oklahoma Tornadoes

Last night members of the photo staff were out capturing images of aftermath caused by the tornadoes that hit central Oklahoma. View the images in the gallery here.

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Pictures I like-Spring Edition

Staff Photographers at The Oklahoman have been busy with daily assignments since our last blog post. If you haven’t yet, check out the galleries page to see pictures from high school and college baseball games, graduations, tennis matches and a recent ceremony for fallen police officers.

-John Clanton

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I watched the Thunder play on Friday and read the newspaper on Saturday after the Lakers ended their season. With three staff photographers covering the game and a finite amount of space in the newspaper, I looked forward to going through our archives to see the pictures that didn’t make the front page. Here’s a few pictures that you may have missed. And, as always, you can see our photo galleries here.

-John Clanton

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