My sweet only daughter got married on Sunday. Monica and Jamie, always remember to Love, Honor, and Cherish.
Photos by Julie Tumasz.
Over the past six years, I have collected, edited, and posted thousands of photos of Annandale High School (AHS) athletes in competition, continuing to do so long after my youngest son graduated in 2014. In this post, and on the eve of the Varsity Sports Banquet for a Spring season that never was, I explain the reason why.
About the Featured Image: This is 864 of the roughly 1300 AHS photos I took between Spring 2014 and Winter 2019 that I had originally cropped to the 1 x 1 aspect ratio. The original composite image consumes 85MB, but I had to reduce the resolution of this one to 25MB so it could be uploaded to this website.
The weather conditions were beautiful on our fifth day of hiking on the Camino dos Faros. But soon after I took this photo, the trail conditions turned dramatically more dangerous.
The steeples of El Santuario de la Virgen da Barca (The Sanctuary of our Virgin of the Sea), at Punta da Barca ou de Xavina near Múxia just past sunset, as the fishing fleet heads out to sea.
This is the Faro de Cabo Vilán. It was a great start to another great day of hiking.
From the end of our second day on the Camino dos Faros, this photo shows carved granite crucifixes that stand at the lighthouse Punta de Roncudo. The 20 minutes that we were able to spend here before darkness fell were absolutely breathtaking.
The oldest operating lighthouse in the world, this is el Torre de Hércules (the Tower of Hercules). Standing on a bluff extending from the city of A Coruña, this working monument served as the starting point for our adventures on the northwest coast of Spain.
This entry briefly describes our hike from Palas de Rei to Melide (pronounced, “Melid-e”), and it shows photos we took of some sights along the way.
In this entry I describe elements of my journey to Palas de Rei, Spain, my first encounters with new friends, and I show photos from my brief bike trip to see a local 14th century castle.
My wife, Patty, recently asked me if I would be one of the photographers for this year’s Wakefield Chapel Recreation Association (WCRA) Youth Triathlon, on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. Our kids are grown, but I always enjoy encouraging kids in athletics whenever I can. And besides, this is our pool, and the running course would be right on our street!
Okay, so my buddies from grade school and I just turned 60 – not a big deal. I mean, it isn’t like we need to go out and reestablish our dominion over all creatures great and small. We’ve done that to death! But it did seem like a reasonable occasion just to get together and engage in some intellectually stimulating conversation over libations, and also stir up a little low-key competition of the sportsman variety.
To address the occasion, our friends Chris and Betty invited us down to their new place in Tallahassee, Florida for an extended weekend, which would include a lovely birthday/retirement/welcome-to-Tallahassee party for Chris and his friends at a historic Tallahassee manor house, some quality time at some of the nations finest beaches, and in a tribute to days gone by, offshore fishing, and CONSUMPTION OF THE SPOILS!
So, turning three score ain’t half bad!
My wife of 35 years graduated from McLean High School in 1978 (We met at Virginia Tech in February 1979.). While helping to plan her 40-year high school reunion, she offered me up to take photos at their reunion dinner.
In mid-August, I was contacted by the team captain for the NoVA Mutiny wheelchair (“quad”) rugby team. He asked me if I would be willing to take some promotional shots that he could use to advertise what the team was up to, in particular, to help attract sponsors, as the Fall season was just starting. This is a great cause, and one that I enjoy supporting. Therefore, it was a no-brainer!
A few days after I shot the 2018 Atlantic Sectionals Wheelchair Rugby Tournament, my wife Patty mentioned that she had seen a Facebook post that described a youth wheelchair basketball team called the Fairfax Falcons that was heading to the national finals. I figured that I was already over-subscribed for the spring season, but it sounded like a very successful program, so I wanted to find out more about it.
I found the Falcons on Instagram, and I noticed that most of the photos in their feed were either team photos, or action photos that were taken from some distance. When I take sports photos, I’m trying to create something much more personal. I want to focus on the individual, catch them doing something great, and render the image in jaw-dropping beauty. I’m not always successful, but I’ll keep working on it.
I decided to follow the Falcons on Instagram, and soon afterwards I received a message from the couple that runs the program asking if I would be interested in photographing the team. From their description, it sounded like some nice photographs could help the kids to stay engaged, and possibly help spread the word about this unique adaptive sports opportunity. So I came out to one of their practices, … and now I think I’m hooked.
During the February Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Code of Honor wheelchair rugby tournament in Richmond, Virginia, I approached the coach of the ‘Punishers’, from MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, which would be sponsoring the March United States Quad Rugby Association (USQRA) Atlantic Sectionals tournament, in Fort Washington, Maryland, offering to photograph that tournament as well, as I had done for the same tournament the previous year. My offer was accepted, and I looked forward to watching and photographing the intense competition that would lead, for the top teams, to a trip to the April USQRA National Championship tournament in Phoenix, Arizona.
Photo Notes:
Here’s Matt demonstrating his shoulder-roll technique.
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