Tonight Ill be at the Cedar Bowl for the third year in a row. It’s a great game to shoot.

Who will raise the Cedar Bowl this year?

Cedar Crest like they did last year?

Or Lebanon like they did two years ago?

Yesterday,a pep rally was held at Cedar Crest High School and head football coach Tom Waranavage gave an fiery speech to the student body the brought out the trophy.

Pat Huggins will be covering the Cedar Bowl too so look for his Tweets (@phuggsports)

Post game Ill have a photo gallery posted to photos.gametimepa.com

I can’t forget about our local college football team either. Lebanon Valley College

These images were posted before but it’s just so darn hot and humid out. Maybe this will cool everyone down a bit.

And here’s another one for good measure.

If you didn’t vote or don’t know what I’m talking about this photo of Palmyra’s Olivia Farabaugh reacting with her teammates Mariah Ricci and Maria Tukis and everyone else on the Palmyra Cross Country team after learning they won the 2012 PIAA AA Girls Cross Country Championship on Nov. 3, 2012 won “photo of the year” by an overwhelming 74-percent (I’ve heard there may have been some “shenanigans” like members of the XC team urging their friends to vote and I see nothing wrong with that.)

Now how did I make the photo.

I was assigned to cover the 2012 PIAA Cross Country Championships in Hershey on that cold November morning and going into it I and our sports staff (Chris Fidler and Pat Huggins) figured the Palmyra girls XC team would do pretty well, we didn’t think they would win but knew they could.

Before the start of the race I headed out onto the course to get some shots of Palmyra runners coming out of the first turn and into the second straightaway. I managed to get this photo which I like.

After the herd of runners came past me I headed back to the finish line to capture the top runners from our county.

Palmyra had quite a few runners finish in the top half of the field but I don’t think Fidler and I knew exactly how well Palmyra did.

For anyone who has been to a PIAA XC championship they know it is pure chaos just behind the finish line with parents, coaches, friends, media and whomever else trying to congratulate, interview or whatever else you can think of after the race.

So, I hung around with Chris as he waited for results and he found out that Palmyra may have won the PIAA girls AA Cross Country Championship but it was a narrow margin and the officials were rechecking the numbers.

Upon hearing this I set out to find the girls XC team hoping they hadn’t found out yet so I could hopefully capture a celebration or a reaction.

Once I located the team they were just waiting for their coach Barb Mellinger to come back with the results so the team did not know anything yet, which was good for me.

While they waited for Mellinger to come back I just sort of hung out in the background hoping not to be noticed. Once Mellinger returned I moved in and started snapping photos as team members, coaches and parents looked over the results.

One of the first images I made was this one of Maria Tukis after learning of the championship.

From there I just worked my way around the team snapping photos and I managed to come away with the one of Farabaugh.

The second place photo was this photo of Olympic gold medalist Jamie Gray waving to fans gathered in front of the Lebanon County Municipal Building to honor Gray for her gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics.

Normally, I would not have covered this event since it started in the late morning and my shift starts at 2 p.m. but my boss (Earl Brightbill) was on vacation so I took the assignment.

Myself and my reporter, a very pregnant (at the time) Andrea Gillhoolley, headed out to the municipal building early to set up (she was going to shoot video).

When we arrived I noticed that people (I forget with organization they were from. The American Legion I think) were handing out “Old Glory” to those attending the program.

Almost immediately the image of Jamie Gray walking to the podium, waving to those gathered and her face framed between sea of waving flags hit me. I knew that was the shot I wanted and I had to get.

So, I found myself a spot at the back of the crowd and waited for the program to start. Of course like most events of this nature it didn’t start on time. Also, I received a call from my reporter asking if I could turn on the video camera when the program started because she was unable to get to where she set it up. Normally I would have said “no problem” but I did not want to risk losing the photo I had in mind so I told her “no, I couldn’t.”

Naturally, I took a lot of photos before Gray made her way out to ensure my exposure was correct etc. (Ask Pat Huggins he enjoys talking photography).

I knew from the beginning that I may be wasting my time because if everything doesnt come together I’m not going to have a usable photo. My shutter may be a fraction of a second early or late and Gray’s face will be covered by a flag, her eyes might be closed she won’t be looking at the crowd or any other number of things could have gone wrong.

The first image is the frame before the photo that ran in the paper and the second image the the frame behind the one that ran.

As soon as Gray was announced, like I expected, the crowd cheered and started to wave their flags as Gray walked to the podium pausing to wave and I managed to capture the moment that was on the front page of the Lebanon Daily News.

The only thing that could have made the image slightly better is if the person with the iPad wasn’t holding it up to try and get a picture (seriously, who takes an iPad in public to take pictures?). If it wasn’t for that you would see her gold medal.

I was honored to find out the next day that the Associated Press selected my image of Gray amongst a sea of flags as one of their top photos of the day and numerous member papers picked up the image as well.

So, now you know what went in to making those photos and hopefully Ill have a year-in-review blog post coming soon.

Even though I got to see some amazing musicians (Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews and many more) it wasn’t an “easy” assignment as most would think.

I won’t bore you with the details of my day but let me tell you it started at 10:30 a.m. Saturday morning and ended at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. In between those hours, I dealt with computer problems, camera problems, leg problems, food problems, looking through hundreds of images, internet problems and many other things.

However, I knew that was what I was asking for when I took the assignment. Heck, it’s what I expect everyday when I come into work. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

Like I usually tell people: “It’s a tough job and someone has to do it.”

Here’s a few images that I enjoyed and the slideshow.

From Long Shots

From Long Shots

From Long Shots

Last night I found this cute little two-year-old at St. Cecila’s Festival.

From Long Shots

From Long Shots

After the festival I headed to Myerstown for a reassessment meeting and I thought this made an interesting photo.

From Long Shots

From Long Shots

Elco’s Carissa Mehaffey (33) and Morgan McNaughton (8) look on after the final whistle blew in the match against Donegal on May 16, 2012. Donegal went on to win 1-0 ending Elco’s season and Mehaffey’s and McNaughton’s career at Elco.

You can see the sadness and disbelief in their eyes that they just played their final soccer game in an Elco uniform. (Read the full story here)

Yesterday, I also came across this amazing image shot by fellow Digital First Media colleague Chris Dunn from the York Daily Record/Sunday News.

From Long Shots

Central York softball players gather at home plate to cheer on pitcher Taylor Rohrbaugh, far left, as she runs home after hitting a homerun in the ninth inning of the YAIAA softball championship game on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, at New Oxford Senior High School. Central York defeated Littlestown 4-2 in nine innings to win the YAIAA softball championship game on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, at New Oxford Senior High School.

Dunn captured the moment from the game. (Read the full story here)

Looking at the image a little closer I like the smaller details like the one player waiting to welcome Rohrbaugh home as #5 makes sure none of her teammates interfere with the play and risk the homerun being voided.

It looks like Ill be heading to Shippensburg this weekend for District III track and field so look for a possible blog post coming out of that.

I’ve covered this event for the past three or four years and have been blown away each year by the talent here in the Lebanon Valley. This year runner-up Zach Blessing brought his fiancee, Sarah Carpenter, up on stage for his final song, Etta James’ “At Last.”

Carpenter wasn’t the only one in tears during the performance. I noticed quite a few audience members and maybe a judge or two.

From Long Shots

From Long Shots

Sarah Carpenter wipes tears away from her eyes as her fiancee Zach Blessing sings Etta James’ “At Last.”

For the second year in a row I photographed the Law Day and Naturalization Ceremony at the Lebanon County Courthouse and for the second year in a row I was reminded how lucky I am to be an American.

It’s very easy to get caught up and focus on the bad things here in the States, whether it’s debating politics, complaining about road construction, complaining about my job, how much money I earn, high gas prices etc. It’s very easy to forget that being able to debate about politics,actually having roads, etc is a luxury some countries don’t have. Heck, I wouldn’t be able to do my job in some countries without having my life threatened on a daily basis.

Yesterday when Magin Carbonell Perez, formerly of Cuba, received his documents showing that he is now an American he was happy and that is what reminded my how lucky I was to be born in this great country.

Here’s the photo of Perez after first receiving his documents.

From Long Shots

As reporter Les Stewart said to me after the ceremony, “I can’t imagine what it’s like to leave behind your family and friends and start all over here.”

You can read Les’ story here and my slide show of the event here.

Here’s a shot of Palmyra pole vaulter Shawn Mayer that did not make the paper. Here’s the slide show from the meet Here’s the story on the girls half of the meet and the boys half. Here’s some added commentary by sports writer Pat Huggins.

From Long Shots