Oh Yeah It's Hurts

Well I knew it was coming sooner or later. For the past several weeks I've been telling myself I need to stay on the play with the camera a little longer, let them get a little closer, really wait until the last second before I bail out as the play gets to the sidelines. Last week I got hit (twice) in the foot (just barely) with a helmet as a player was sliding out of bounds. I was thinking oh yeah, it's getting good now. Then, I remembered seeing photographers on T.V. getting crushed by players and I always thought, man why didn't you move. Well for one thing, the players look a lot closer in the camera than they do when you take your eye away. So you end up wanting to flee the action before it's actually time to high tail it. Friday night I was determined to get the best action shot I've gotten all year and that meant (push the limits). Well as the play neared the sidelines I stayed on it until the last second and then said to myself "GO" but.....I failed to see another fine industrious young man barreling in from another direction and I got kinda pounded from behind. What happened next was sorta like flying, getting hit by a truck, and being involved in some time warp thing. It seemed like minutes but was only seconds in reality. The first thing I remember was "I got it cleared" then " boom" I'm flying. I heard noises yet it was silent, I felt my cameras going in every direction yet after it was over I still had them. When we all got up my D70 with an attached wide angle "for sideline fun" was wrapped around one of the players necks. I heard the camera bang against his helmet during the wreck, accidentally triggering the shutter release resulting in the picture above. I'm now convinced that this camera in truly indestructible. One of the local news video guys came over and said "Dude I got it all" and I said "tell me I not going to be on the news as one of those highlight trailers that they laugh at and show over and over". He laughed and said "It's not up to me but the producer, but my guess would be yes" I laughed oh well everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame, mine might as well be funny. I uploaded from home and returned to my campsite at the lake. Did it hurt? Yep you bet, but my first instinct was (at 43 yrs of age) gimme a helmet and lets get it on. Sometimes your first instinct is wrong. Laugh at yourself cause everybody else is. Haha.