Friday Night Lights

That's right football season is here. Teams are finishing up their training camps, making final tweaks to their playbooks, and getting ready for that first game. You can feel the anticipation and the excitement as August winds down. At PhotoFX Pros, we're putting together our coverage schedules, checking our inventory of gear, buying new equipment and waiting anxiously for the first kickoff.

This football season is especially exciting for us because this will be our first full season covering football. Luckily we've already been able to get out and shoot the Northern York (NYRA) Ponies scrimmage against West Shore and it was a lot of fun. The best part of shooting the local rec league is that we're able to watch many of those same kids we just finished shooting during the little league season take to the gridiron. For us at PhotoFX Pros that's the real benefit of working within your local community. You really get to know the athletes and their families which makes this so much more than just a job for us. It's not just an opportunity to attend and shoot some great action but to also meet some new friends and reconnect with some old.

I had contacted NYRA a few months ago. I was hoping they would be receptive to allowing us to attend and photograph the games. I received a courteous response from the Vice President, Steve Lynes. We corresponded a few more times and by the end of our "conversation" we found out that we had actually played high school baseball together! What a great surprise. After a brief face to face meeting, Steve gave PhotoFX Pros full access to shoot the 2007 NYRA season which is exactly what we were hoping for. Thank you Steve!

In addition to shooting NYRA, PhotoFX Pros photographer and owner Steve Ickes has been accepted as a freelance photographer for Max Preps, a CBS owned web site providing national coverage of high school varsity sports, including football. As a result, he'll be out covering the Mid Penn Conference which includes teams from Harrisburg, Steelton Highspire, Bishop McDevitt, Cedar Cliff, Lower Dauphin, and his own alma mater Cumberland Valley just to name a few. A busy schedule to say the least but there's nothing more exciting and fun than Friday night football under the lights.

So without further delay let's get the season started. If you happen to see Steve or any of the other PhotoFX Pros photographers out there on the sidelines, take a minute to say hello and introduce yourself. Covering a football game can be busy and hectic but we're always happy to take a moment and meet some new friends.