Official Matt Collier worked the games with a pink whistle
to show is support for the fight against breast cancer.
They're the guys you love to hate. If your team wins on a Friday night in autumn, you forget they were even there. If you lose, then of course it was their fault! They're the officials tasked with the job of calling the biggest game in town - high school football. These guys are regular members of the community, dads and husbands, business professionals and laborers. On Friday night, they enter the belly of the beast, Kern County's hallowed fields where high school football is as big as life itself. And over the course of more than six hours, they work the night's junior varsity and varsity games with a singular mission: call a good game and make sure it is the players, and not them, who are remembered when the night is done.
Nick Ellis and his crew worked the Canyon at Bakersfield games
Friday night, which featured two of California's best programs.
The guys from left are Ken Lopez, Bob Hartshorn, Bob Williams,
John Hallum, Nick Ellis and Matt Collier before the JV game.
We were commissioned by veteran referee Nick Ellis to photograph his crew Friday night as they worked the biggest game in town, the Week 1 matchup between perennial Division 1 powers Canyon and Bakersfield High. What struck me most about the crew was the seriousness they apply to their responsibilities. These are not a bunch of guys who show up a few minutes before game time, get dressed and take to the field. They arrived at the fabled Griffith Field early, more than an hour before the junior varsity kickoff, and immediately went to work discussing assignments, talking about what went right and what went wrong during their practices and Week Zero game the prior Friday. They are tough on themselves and tough on each other. This is serious business to them, and it should be. Each of them was well aware that a call made in early September, especially involving these two titan programs, could have implications well into December. Canyon was the Division 1 state champion in 2006; Bakersfield is the winningest program in state history and makes no bones that it not only wants a section championship, it wants to play for the state title. Like Peyton Manning wanting the ball in his hands with the game on the line, these were the games the crew wanted on this night.
For us, a shoot like this reaffirms the power and validity of our business model; producing top notch photojournalism and delivering it directly to the consumer. We assigned two photographers to document the crew at work - we believe it is the first time the work of a local high school crew has been documented - with Felix Adamo shooting the varsity game and me shooting the junior varsity game. Officiating crews have been after us to shoot for them for a few years now, but with individual athletes filling our entire fall schedule, it was hard to fit them in. But we are down significantly in clients for the first time, so this would be a great opportunity for any of the other crews to have themselves documented. Our fee is beyond reasonable: $600 for the night and the production. That's $100 per crew member. So if you like the show, give your crew a go!
This show is posted in high definition and we recommend you click the You Tube tab in the lower right corner to view it on our You Tube page in high def. It's a large show and will take a few minutes to load, but it's worth it to see the quality of our work. Enjoy.
to show is support for the fight against breast cancer.
They're the guys you love to hate. If your team wins on a Friday night in autumn, you forget they were even there. If you lose, then of course it was their fault! They're the officials tasked with the job of calling the biggest game in town - high school football. These guys are regular members of the community, dads and husbands, business professionals and laborers. On Friday night, they enter the belly of the beast, Kern County's hallowed fields where high school football is as big as life itself. And over the course of more than six hours, they work the night's junior varsity and varsity games with a singular mission: call a good game and make sure it is the players, and not them, who are remembered when the night is done.
Nick Ellis and his crew worked the Canyon at Bakersfield games
Friday night, which featured two of California's best programs.
The guys from left are Ken Lopez, Bob Hartshorn, Bob Williams,
John Hallum, Nick Ellis and Matt Collier before the JV game.
We were commissioned by veteran referee Nick Ellis to photograph his crew Friday night as they worked the biggest game in town, the Week 1 matchup between perennial Division 1 powers Canyon and Bakersfield High. What struck me most about the crew was the seriousness they apply to their responsibilities. These are not a bunch of guys who show up a few minutes before game time, get dressed and take to the field. They arrived at the fabled Griffith Field early, more than an hour before the junior varsity kickoff, and immediately went to work discussing assignments, talking about what went right and what went wrong during their practices and Week Zero game the prior Friday. They are tough on themselves and tough on each other. This is serious business to them, and it should be. Each of them was well aware that a call made in early September, especially involving these two titan programs, could have implications well into December. Canyon was the Division 1 state champion in 2006; Bakersfield is the winningest program in state history and makes no bones that it not only wants a section championship, it wants to play for the state title. Like Peyton Manning wanting the ball in his hands with the game on the line, these were the games the crew wanted on this night.
For us, a shoot like this reaffirms the power and validity of our business model; producing top notch photojournalism and delivering it directly to the consumer. We assigned two photographers to document the crew at work - we believe it is the first time the work of a local high school crew has been documented - with Felix Adamo shooting the varsity game and me shooting the junior varsity game. Officiating crews have been after us to shoot for them for a few years now, but with individual athletes filling our entire fall schedule, it was hard to fit them in. But we are down significantly in clients for the first time, so this would be a great opportunity for any of the other crews to have themselves documented. Our fee is beyond reasonable: $600 for the night and the production. That's $100 per crew member. So if you like the show, give your crew a go!
This show is posted in high definition and we recommend you click the You Tube tab in the lower right corner to view it on our You Tube page in high def. It's a large show and will take a few minutes to load, but it's worth it to see the quality of our work. Enjoy.
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