And now for something a little different. We've talked about traditional beer steins previously, but here are some more, shall we say, contemporary designs. A collection of NASCAR-themed beer steins is on display at the town of Appomattox Visitor Center.

From WSET-TV,

Appomattox, VA - Beer and NASCAR often go hand-in-hand. And with the Daytona 500 less than a week away, the town of Appomattox is already revving up.

Two dozen NASCAR beer steins are on display at the visitor's center and will be throughout the racing season. Some have been signed by legendary drivers like Bill Elliott.

Something to put your PBR in I suppose. See the complete story at NASCAR Beer Stein Collection on Display in Appomattox.



H/T to the Virginia Tourism twitter feed.

Click here for a slideshow from Sunday’s OT Redskins win at FedEx Field.

I shot this portrait of Eric and Blake Frohnapfel, players for Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, for our football preview last week. I had to sit on it until in ran in the paper.  I managed to avoid shooting the 20 or so portraits of the featured players but I’m sure I’ll be doing our All-Area spread this year.

Redskins vs Bills 8.13.2010 – Images by Mike Morones

Well, it’s that time of year again – football season! I spent yesterday at FedEx Field and anybody who has been there knows what a joy that can be. The media room got a fresh coat of paint, warm hot dogs and wireless internet access. So I’ve got that going for me. Which is nice. Even though it mildly upset my sensibilities to see McNabb in burgundy and gold, any football is good football.

I shot a portrait of Tim Scott, a football player from Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, to illustrate a story about college football recruiting. In retrospect, there were a few technical details I should have addressed. In particular, I think I should have hit the front of the box with a little  light as well as the background to minimize that shadow a bit.

I spent much of yesterday in Ashburn at Redskins Park for the team’s first minicamp of the year. One of the media relations guys said he was surprised at the amount of coverage for voluntary workouts. Maybe so but I guess with a new coach, Donovan McNabb in burgundy and gold and a few new running backs, it was to be expected. Basically it took 90 minutes to get there, 90 minutes to get back and 25 minutes to shoot if you don’t count the hour-long press conference after practice, for which I had to wait another 90 minutes. I discovered early on that a lot of this job is waiting – waiting for access, waiting for the right light or composition to come together. It also took me a little while to learn that time spent waiting was not necessarily time wasted.

I recently wrapped up the winter All-Area sportraits. Of the bunch, I was really happy with this one of Avery Green, a basketball player for Courtland High School. He was fun to work with and was interested in the process of his portrait.  As I was writing this and looking at the other 6 photos in the series, all I could think of were excuses about why the pictures sucked. And since nobody likes hearing excuses, I’ll leave you with the one picture I actually liked. The rest were not bad; they were just average. It is definitely a bummer having to admit to a certain level of failure but I must say I came into the project without a clear plan or approach.  I think I’ll take the spring off and let one of my colleagues experience the joy that is All-Area while I cook up some ideas for our football preview!

I spent a few days over the past couple weeks covering a few area teams trying to make it to the state title game. Sadly for them, they fell short. Luckily for me, it means football season is another day closer. I just need to make it through baseball… On a technical note, the first picture was shot with a Nikon D300 at ISO4000, hence the noise, and the other two with a D3 at around ISO3200.

I went to FedEx Field yesterday expecting to see the Redskins get slapped around by the Broncos. I didn’t really care one way or the other being, you know, an objective journalist. Deep inside my heart of hearts though, being from PA, I root for the mighty Iggles and seeing somebody, anybody slapping the Redskins around brings me a bit of joy. Except Dallas.  $%@# Dallas. Plus, seeing how badly they can lose was getting kind of interesting. Lo and behold, the Skins actually weren’t playing too badly and better still, I was in a good position for most plays. Except of course for the game-winning TD by Ladell Betts. I was on the left, he went right. It happens. I guess in the scheme of things, yesterday was a weird day in football – Bengals beat the Steelers, Skins win. The Pats going for it ( and failing) on 4-and-2 on their own 28-yd line. What’s next? Cats & dogs living together? Mass hysteria!