Wanamaker Photography

We have great news for all of the seniors we’ve had the chance to follow through football, wrestling, lacrosse and baseball this year …

We’ve been asked to photograph the 2008 Minisink Valley Graduation on June 27th! We’ll be out in full force on the field capturing each and every senior receiving their diploma as well as all of the candid moment between friends. We look forward to sharing this incredible day with all of you!

Busy … Busy … Busy … That’s about the only way that I can describe the last month or so! Things have kept us going so much so that we haven’t even had a chance to update the blog!

Soccer, Baseball, Lacrosse, School and all of our other Spring events have all come to an end … which means we now have a chance to breath a little and look at what we’ve accomplished! It also gives us a chance to work on our creative ‘eye’ while getting things ready for the fall season!

As we look back over the last few months, we’ve covered numerous Minisink Valley Lacrosse and Baseball games, attended two of the area’s largest Irish Dance Feis Events, photographed Youth Soccer Players, attended Prom as a couple’s personal paparazzi, continued with our Senior Portrait Sessions and captured loving moments between couples during their Engagement Photo Session. Needless to say, we have a lot of photos ready to be blogged about!

Looking over the calendar for the next few months has a much lighter schedule for us, but plenty of exciting work we cannot wait to get to! The 2008 Eldred High School Graduation, an annual Puerto Rican Pig Roast, summer sports portraits for i9 Sports, numerous Weddings and some additional Senior and Family Portrait sessions!

Next month, we’ll also launch our new Wanamaker Photography VIP program … so details will soon follow!

Overall, it will be nice to have a bit of a breather where we can recharge our own batteries, enjoy what is shaping up to be a beautiful summer and start getting our gears into motion for the fall. Be sure to come back and check out our blog and website often as we’ll be updating it a lot with many of the incredible images we’ve captured over the last few months!

The Baseball season and I haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye so far this year. Each time I’ve had a scheduled game to attend for Minisink Valley, it has either been postponed or cancelled because of the rain. After weeks of the game between the weather and myself, I finally got my chance to photograph the Minisink Valley Varsity Baseball team when they played against the Cornwall Dragons at home in a non-league game.

As this was one of my first Baseball games of the season, I decided that I needed to warm up the skills a bit and so I decided to shoot a few frames of Minisink during practice. A few frames turned into a few hundred by the time I was done!

As the game got under way, the clouds (which seemed to be messing with me during practice)  finally parted completely and it turned into an incredible day for a Baseball game!

From right next to the first base umpire, I grabbed this shot of CJ Callaghan just before he smacked this ball into the outfield …

And this one of Mat Hannon repeating the same move …

As the game went on, I started focusing on some of the action on second and third base as Minisink had runners pumped and ready to go. It was a good thing I did. I grabbed this shot of Nick Iannuzzi sliding into third as the thirdbaseman caught and was about ready to pitch the ball back to first.

As exciting as the game was, I left around the top of the 6th inning as I had other obligations to attend to … but I did find out later on that Minisink lost the game 11 to 19.

Yesterday, I photographed my first High School Lacrosse game at Minisink Valley. While I’ve photographed Lacrosse before (2007 Minisink Swap Stix Match), I had never covered a high school game where everything seems to be 10x more violent.

It was a cold, cloudy and overall dreary day as we headed onto the field. As we finished setting up our gear, the teams were getting ready to take the field. The Minisink Varsity team was about to play Hyde Park (FDR) High School.

As the game got under way, I quickly saw that Lacrosse was a mix between Football and Hockey. Players were getting whacked with sticks and body checked by opponents in a fight over a little white ball that could knock you out cold if it hit you just right!

The first half was played extremely well by Minisink as they scored a goal nearly every 10 seconds (or so it seemed). I actually had to move from one end of the field to the other as I had no action down by me and was starting to get bored!

Minisink wasn’t as strong in the second half, but still beat Hyde Park by a lot!

A group of Minisink and FDR players chasing a failed pass

A Minisink player going after a bouncing ball

An FDR player with the ball heading down field. The Minisink player in the middle actually lost his balance on the wet field after trying to catch up

A pep talk by the coach during a time out

Last year, our introduction to the sport of Lacrosse started with an invitation to photograph the annual Boys vs Girls Swap Stix Match at Minisink Valley High School. Unfortunately, that game was nearly at the end of the season for the teams and we only had a couple more opportunities to photograph them before it was all over.

During the off-season, after a couple phone calls, we had a contract with Minisink Valley to cover the 2008 season for the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams. Finally, Lacrosse season is here!

I love Lacrosse because its fast and action packed and reminds me a little bit of Hockey. Last Wednesday was my first game for Minisink Valley Varsity as they played Valley Central at home. These two teams have always been big rivals and the game they played was tough. Here are some of the shots …