Ducks v. Trojans 10/27/07

Eugene is a great place to live and or visit. A mid-sized college town, convenient to the ocean and the mountains with lots of places to run and pedal.

Unfortunately, it has the worst venue for a sporting event I’ve ever been in. Autzen Stadium has an extremely cramped work area (though very convenient to the field), sidelines the most crowded with friends, family and recruits that I’ve ever witnessed, not to mention the cheer squad which occupies about fifteen yards of prime sideline real estate near the northwest endzone, and a roof shadow worse than Husky Stadium’s. At least Husky Stadium doesn’t have walls painted white immediately next to the field, like Autzen does:

Lens: 400mm, ISO: 400, Aperture: 2.8, Shutter: 1/1600. JOE NICHOLSON – U.S. PRESSWIRE.

What a beautiful background! Thanks, Autzen!

Worst of all, Autzen seems to have a tradition where fans are allowed to rush the field following the game, even though access points could be controlled fairly easily. This makes for a chaotic and dangerous situation which will probably only be clamped down on when someone gets killed or badly injured. I saw people jumping out of the stands to the field from more at least fifteen feet up, which is really, really stupid.

Lens: 17mm, ISO: 500, Aperture: 4, Shutter: 1/8000. JOE NICHOLSON – U.S. PRESSWIRE.

At least I made a decent frame of the Oregon quarterback, Dennis Dixon, who now seems to be a Heisman trophy candidate, scoring a touchdown:

Lens: 90mm, ISO: 400, Aperture: 4, Shutter: 1/2000. JOE NICHOLSON – U.S. PRESSWIRE.

Not having a ref in the picture would have been nice, but I would rather Dixon not have such an obstructing face mask. It would be nice to see your eyes, Dennis. Why aren’t facemasks like what Joe Montana or John Elway wore more popular? Or what about Steve Largent? You couldn’t help but be able to see the face with helmets like that.

Of course it wouldn’t be a post without a screw-up mention:

Lens: 70mm, ISO: 100, Aperture: 3.5, Shutter: 1/4000. JOE NICHOLSON – U.S. PRESWIRE.

I was able to mostly salvage this frame after badly underexposing it, and fortunately Oregon won (did I just type that?), so the picture was pretty irrelevant.

JN