A Week in Review - Michelle's Blog

Pre event…

For the past year I’ve really enjoyed a blog-like approach to event coverage when I’ve written for U.S. Figure Skating. I like having a strong voice in my own writing, and feel I’m more able to provide that through “bloggish-type things” than standard AP style.

And then I read Mombo #9’s blogs. She has, in my opinion, the most entertaining voice in skating coverage that I have ever read. I am humbled. I feel inferior. To keep this in ice dance terms, it must be what an intermediate skater would feel trying twizzles next to Charlie White.

Sunday night means packing and feeling that dichotomy between anticipation of Mombo’s next entry for my own amusement and the sinking feeling that I will never be as good. I comfort myself with the thought that I don’t have to worry about the transport of costumes and the status of their sequins and crystals.

One thing I do have that Mombo doesn’t is a wicked concussion. I was recently in a car accident and some idiot totaled my car. My skull feels worse than the front end of my car looks, and that’s saying quite a bit. This year Daphne and I posted Help Wanted ads for volunteers, and I hope they are able to take some of the stress off of me.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about how freezing cold I was last year, sitting in the 1980 rink and pretty much seeing my breath while I was photographing all those skaters. I won’t let that happen again, and add a few more turtleneck sweaters to the suitcase.

Monday

I’m so glad I can drive to Lake Placid, rather than worry about flying into Albany and getting my stuff the rest of the way. In addition to all the warm clothes I’ve packed, I have three camera bodies, four lenses (one of which is the massive 300/2.8 on loan from Canon), two laptops, ten batteries, three battery chargers, and other assorted equipment.

The drive to Lake Placid is pretty straight forward—literally. I make only 4 turns the entire trip. The weather is good for driving. New Jersey is supposed to be over 100 this week, so I’ll be glad to be in a freezing cold arena.

Of course I don’t leave at 7 a.m. like I had planned, but then neither does Daphne. She still gets in before me, though. I’m only about an hour behind. We are staying at Art Devlin’s, one of my preferred lodging choices in LP. Basically, it’s all about free wireless internet. And the rooms are large enough to handle all my stuff.

Once I arrive, we head off to HoJo’s for the traditional welcome meal. When I was in high school, we had a HoJo’s that became the go-to place for all the post-play, chorus concert, etc. festivities. They knocked it down a few years ago and made it an Eckerd drug store. Convenient for prescription refills, but they just don’t do a good homestyle mac & cheese.

Last year I picked up this cheap memory card reader at the Eckerd in Lake Placid. It reads almost every card and I’m very fond of it. Unfortunately, they no longer carry them, so my hope of stocking up on a few is dashed.

Every year Daphne and I promise we will get to see something other than the arena and Bazzi’s pizza on Main Street. This year we are going to go to the bead store and make some jewelry. Really.

With Eckerd not having another card reader, we head off to other spots that might carry them. Nada. So yes, we got to see more than Main St., but only to be told that nobody sells card readers.

This evening, I get to meet Dee Eggert, whose son Zach Donohue is competing with Kaylyn Pattitucci in novice. Dee is one of our volunteer photographers and she brought over some photos she shot at practice. We go over the images and discuss setting changes, equipment, and other photography things to get her ready for the rest of the week. Dee shows me a photo of Kaylyn and Zach that has a very striking shadow. Completely a happy accident, but who cares—it’s very cool. I play around with it in Photoshop, turning it into a black and white image. We then spend some time finding her signature font, and she decides on Vladimir.

Tuesday

Last night I didn’t sleep very well, something incredibly rare (fortunately) for me. One of the most horrific thunderstorms I can remember woke me up in the middle of the night and I never fell back to sleep. The storm looked fake, like in a campy movie. The whole room would light up and flash, and the thunder seemed impossibly loud. I slid open the drapes and looked out across the parking lot. The lightning bolts seemed to touch down right in front of me. I hurried back to bed and wished it away.

On top of my work for ice-dance.com and U.S. Figure Skating, I also have some assignments for Blades on Ice magazine. One of these is an article on Trina Pratt & Todd Gilles, complete with photos. After checking out the schedule, it looks like the best way for me to do this is to accompany them to Plattsburgh, NY for practice and do the interview on the way.

We had quite the convoy heading to Plattsburgh, with Patti Gottwein’s three teams (in addition to Trina & Todd, Patti coaches Piper Gilles & Tim McKernan and Maia Shibutani & Alex Shibutani) and the group from Stars in Texas, plus assorted parents and coaches. The scenery on the way to the practice rink was very pretty but a little run down. The rivers and falls were brown from the storm and everything seemed on overdrive. Trina fell asleep, and Todd was as tired as I was, since the storm kept him awake, too. We postponed the interview for the drive back.

Once at the rink, we ran into a gaggle of tiny ice dancers just getting off the ice. One little girl had split her lip and had quite the mouthful of blood. She seemed quite the trouper, though.

While the older skaters took the ice for practice, I worked on setting up my new external hard drive. I had ordered it forever ago, but it was backordered and didn’t arrive until I was leaving for LP. The last couple of years Daphne and I learned the hard way that it is easy to run out of room on laptops. I would never even think about going back to film, but digital photography does have its challenges.

After about an hour I realized that my new hard drive was a dud. I tried every possible combination of cords and USB ports. Nothing. Dead. This was not good.

I gave up and went into the rink to watch practice and learn what choreography I would by photographing during the week. Charlotte Maxwell and Nick Traxler had a very cool lift that they held for a while. Unfortunately I found out that the “good” side was away from the judges, so I wouldn’t get the best photo of it. For whatever reason, they would not consider rechoreographing the program to suit my needs. How selfish of them!

During a run through by Todd & Trina, they had a problem on one of the moves and Todd took a fall, landing hard on his lower back. After a short break, he finished the practice session. I was afraid this would mean the end to our interview and photos, but Todd was a trouper.

The convoy back to Lake Placid split up, and some of us decided to grab lunch on the way. We passed a Friendly’s, which Bonnie Gilles and I had been to in the past, but none of the skaters. I’m all for introducing people to good ice cream, so Friendly’s it was. TnT and I took our own booth and did the interview over lunch, while everyone else gave us our space. Our less-than-skilled waiter did bring an ice pack for Todd’s back. Well, “ice pack” is a misnomer. It was more like a giant garbage bag full of a few gallons of frozen water. Whatever. It was cold and wasn’t leaking.

By the time we got back to Lake Placid, the air was completely vile. I can’t ever remember the weather being that hot and humid up here. It was so disgusting. I felt permanently wet and sticky. Very lovely. I couldn’t wait to get in the freezing cold rink later.

We opted to do photos up at the Crowne Plaza hotel. I had planned some styles I wanted to try, but given the heat and his sore back, Todd wasn’t fond of the idea of a wearing a turtleneck sweater. Not that I blame him. While he went to change into something more appropriate for upper 90 degree weather, Trina and I played around with the way the sun was lighting her eyes. Todd then joined us again, and we finished the photos.

Next up was a mini shoot with Piper and Tim. Daphne met us up there and we all headed out for a quick dinner before heading over to the arena to meet more volunteers. I had never done a sit-down dinner at Mike’s before, only takeout, so it was nice to try some place new. Unfortunately, their air conditioning wasn’t working, so the sweaty day continued. I can proudly say I introduced Piper to white pizza, and the one Mike’s made was delicious. Their iced tea was also the best I’d ever had, sweetened and lemony.

After dinner Daphne and I headed over to the 1980 rink. All those turtlenecks I brought? Not needed. The rink was very hot and the ice was pretty foggy. I can’t remember ever spending hours in a rink or arena in a sleeveless top. Well, before today, that is. My claw clips got quite the workout keeping my hair up. I could not have looked more opposite the polished dancers practicing on the ice below.

I hate summer.

Over the next couple hours I got to meet more of our volunteers and show them the equipment I brought and work on finding a comfort level for everyone. We tried combinations of theirs and mine, tweaking settings and getting the instant feedback that digital photography allows. I have never formally studied still photography, only one semester of video production in college and an internship at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. During the years I’ve shot skating, I’ve learned a lot from colleagues and from good old trial and error. It was great to be able to pass some of this along to others who want to improve their own skating photography skills.

Wednesday

Daphne and I got to the rink fairly early, although I wasn’t scheduled to shoot anything until novice free dance at 3 p.m. This gave me more time to work with the photography volunteers and to get more comfortable myself with the equipment Canon had loaned me for this event. Angie Goldman took a liking to the 300/2.8 lens, whereas Tim Bennett preferred the 70-200/2.8 zoom. Brenda Lauten was more comfortable with her own equipment, and Dee Eggert was a Nikon person, although she would try various combinations of what I brought. Must get her away from the dark side.

Over the last four years I have been the only photographer working the ice-dance.com/USFS/BOI beat. Seeing the four volunteers plus Daphne plus me all taking photos seemed to get the official photographer (who sells to the parents) pretty freaked out. I had to explain over and over that we were there covering this as editorial photographers, not commercial. It got very frustrating to keep justifying why we were there and what we were doing.

I’m not saying I need to have the preparation the athletes need before they compete, but when I’m about to shoot a competition or a show, I do have a process I need to go through to be at my best. Having the concussion was making everything so much more difficult, not only because of the incredible pain, but also because I felt like my brain wouldn’t process things as quickly as usual. Once I thought I had explained to every last person why we were there, someone else would come over and bug me again. I seriously wanted to scream.

The novice free dance ran very, very late, and by the time it was over, it was fairly dark out. I was supposed to meet Meryl Davis and Charlie White for a photo shoot for Blades on Ice. By the time we met up, it was 90 minutes later than I had planned. Meryl and Charlie were very kind and offered a re-do tomorrow. It turned out to be in my favor that they had decided not to do the senior free dance, since that made them have more availability that matched mine.

Back in the 1980 rink, it was still very hot. Not only was I in sleeveless, I was in a tank top. In an ice rink. Insane.

I hate summer.

The volunteers would bring over their photos and we would review and keep tweaking. Danna Thelen had quickly become Daphne’s and my savior, Photoshopping everyone’s pics so we could get them uploaded. The team had a nice rhythm going, and if people would just leave us alone, we were definitely surpassing last year’s coverage.

Thursday

Brenda and Tim took the early events, so I was able to snag an extra hour sleep. Without the external hard drive, it meant I was burning CDs and DVDs late into the night to keep the laptop with enough space to work on that day’s photos. There’s nothing I like more than burning a DVD at 2:45 a.m.

A big technical problem arose—my own 20D camera wouldn’t read memory cards. After much investigation I finally realized what was causing it: one of the pins the compact flash card sits on was bent all the way over. I have no idea how something like that would happen. The big problem was we were now down one body, and it was the one I wanted to use for the off-ice shoots.

Tim Bennett is a gadget whiz. He is also my hero. I showed him what was wrong with the camera. He then pulled a McGyver and created a tool using some of his own fishing equipment and his wife’s sewing kit. Amazingly, he got his little creation to fit inside the slim card holder and straightened out the little pin! My camera was now a functioning piece once again. Wheeee!

My events today were the junior and senior free dances, and I felt like I had a really good shoot. As soon as the senior was over, it was back to the Golden Arrow to have a second go at Meryl and Charlie’s photos.

If one good thing had come out of the delay yesterday, it was knowing what clothes they had available to use in the shoot. We started with Meryl in a light pink top and Charlie in a baby blue shirt that made his eyes look amazing. Our setting was the beach on the Mirror Lake side of the Golden Arrow.

Both Meryl and Charlie’s moms were with us, which I actually like, assuming the skaters are comfortable with it. It never hurts to have an extra set or two of eyes. . Although Meryl and I had planned some strategy over the phone before we came to Lake Placid, I never know exactly how a shoot is going to turn out. I had also never worked with the two of them before, so I wasn’t sure how much I could push or what they would be up for.

I knew one of the important photos I needed to get was a headshot that would show off how much more mature they look now. (I can say that when I’m referring to teenagers! Older adults—not so much.) They way the light was reflecting off the sand made me happy because it was really making Meryl and Charlie’s eyes look amazing. After studying past photos of them, I had some ideas about the angles I wanted to shoot at.

Here is where I found out how much I could push.

I asked Charlie to lie on his stomach on one of the beach chairs and Meryl to sit on top of him, so her long hair would fall forward. I was sitting in the sand and the angle was perfect for me. From other angles, though, it looked a little weird. Meryl also had on a mini skirt, so her mom was called in on coverage duty.

Just when things are cruising along, their coach, Igor Shpilband, came around with his digital point and shoot, jokingly pointing out other vantage points that made for more interesting photos. We all laughed a lot, but the sun was setting and I didn’t have a lot of time. Igor left, literally going to jump in a lake.

To go for a more flirty look, I asked Charlie if he would be willing to unbutton his shirt and make it more summery-looking, like Meryl’s top. Charlie was game. We then realized that up in the window of the hotel, we could see a bunch of faces watching us. Turns out Charlie’s ripped abs has caught the eye of a few skating moms!

Our final look was a tribute to M&C’s undergrad status at University of Michigan. Meryl didn’t have any clothes from the school, so Charlie loaned her one of his shirts. We got the last of the photos and wrapped up.

I headed back to the rink to help edit photos and review with the volunteers. Then it was back to Art Devlin’s for another late night DVD burning session. Daphne and Laura, one of our volunteer staff, went to Bazzi’s. I skipped dinner in favor of clearing room on my totally full laptop.

Friday

About an hour into my drive from New Jersey on Monday I realized I had forgotten my cell phone charger. By now it was dead, the battery drained from roaming. I had changed my voice mail message requesting anyone with a Nokia charger to please come to Section 8. I had tried to spread the word, but because my phone is fairly old, no one seemed to have a charger that would fit.

Junior dancer Ashley Deavers and his mom were on a mission. They had laptop issues and had no way of downloading all the photos they had taken during the week. They came over to us and asked if we would help. That was something we could definitely do, moving the photos off the memory cards and burning them onto CDs for them. As a thank you for this, Mrs. Deavers gave us one of her extra card readers! Now that rocks!

Ashley had a Nokia charger in his car, so I gave him my phone in the hope that he would be able to revive it. Unfortunately it didn’t fit, but I appreciated the fact that he tried. It was this little example of the community spirit that comes to Lake Placid every August that gives me the warm fuzzies.

Friday’s events make for a very long day with the OD and CDs back to back to back to back. My head was pounding, and I knew I needed a break from shooting. I handed over the camera to Daphne and switched gears by editing photos for a while.

Every day it seemed like everyone’s photos were getting better and better. I have to say that was such a cool feeling.

Laura Fawcett from U.S. Figure Skating had flown in for meetings, but was free for a late dinner. She joined Daphne and I and volunteer Laura at Bazzi’s. I hadn’t had hot food since dinner Tuesday night. This is the life of LPIDC. And I had still not seen any other part of Lake Placid except for the Olympic Spirit store at the Olympic Training Center where I purchased deeply discounted Torino sock bootie things. Not that my feet were cold, mind you. But maybe they would be again some day.

Last year I had brought clothes that were not warm enough. This year, I once again packed completely wrong items. I couldn’t wear 80% of what I brought. I was on my third day in the same pair of jeans. And they would be making another appearance before I got home.

I hate summer.

Saturday

It’s the home stretch! The weather has cooled off a little, and I can now actually wear one of the sweaters I brought. Well, for a little bit here and there at least.

My plan was to shoot the majority of the skating in the 1980 rink today. I had two more off-ice mini shoots to go. Before the juvenile free dance, I was greeted by Emily Samuelson, Evan Bates, Madison Hubbell, and Keiffer Hubbell—who were all ready for their close up. Without hesitation, I handed over $14,000 worth of equipment to Daphne and headed outside with the Ann Arbor foursome.

One of the challenges about working with younger skaters is that they haven’t had experiences with photo shoots. Actually, “challenges” isn’t the right word. It takes the pressure off me because they have nothing to compare my shoots to! The four of them were wonderful to work with, willing to follow instruction and still make the experience their own. After we got the “safe” photos out of the way, we had some time to be silly. Then we all went back inside so I could download the photos and they could choose which ones they liked and which they wanted deleted. Later, their parents came over to see the photos, too, and I got the moms’ seals of approval.

The final event was the intermediate free dance, and that always seems to fly by. Maia and Alex Shibutani were volunteering once their events were done, and it’s always great to work with them. Maia has an interest in photography, so I let her borrow some of the pro equipment to shoot along side of me. I tried to help her get comfortable with the weight of it and how best to keep her balance and still get the shots. She was shaking her arms out once in a while, so I know it was heavy, because she’s in amazing shape.

Once the last team had skated, it was time to go downstairs to the hallway where the skaters wait for their results. I was trying to get quotes from as many people as possible for my article for U.S. Figure Skating, but there weren’t many of the older dancers around. The skaters I did talk to were all wonderful and helped give me a final burst of energy.

Soon it was back to Art Devlin’s. I was exhausted and my laptop had maxed out. I burned a couple of DVDs so I could finish downloading photos. Then it was time to crash and be ready for an early drive back home.

Today

It’s nearly impossible to keep up 100% with all the coverage no matter how hard Daphne and I try. Having volunteers helped immensely, but the enthusiasm of the photographers generated so much more than we’d had in the past. With deadlines for USFS, some of the photos for ice-dance.com took a bit of a back seat, and for that I apologize. We will get to them all eventually, but with the intrusion of “real” work, it takes longer than when I am able to focus 100% of my energy and time on ice dance.

I welcome all questions and comments about the content that was generated. I love to hear what you think—good and bad—so that I can do better next time.

Thank you to everyone who helped us cover this wonderful event! You ROCK!!! See you next year!

Michelle Wojdyla