Took some time off from posting these as there was a point where the team lost 3 of 4 games and the most important player was out with a concussion for three games…not exactly the most thrilling stuff for me to shoot. I did take some photos of these games including against Portsmouth—a loss to the best team in DII in NH and one of the top few teams in the state and St. Thomas Aquinas that is one of the top few teams of DII (also a loss). Neither was a disaster but does show the length the team has to go to play with the best. Faceoffs remain feast or famine for the team, the offense must work on cutting more to the net rather than relying on the speed and agility of individual players which can be offset by doubleteams and good stickwork, and the D could still use a bit more nastiness. But all in all? The team is at 10-3 and tied for 3rd in DII. The upcoming Timberlane game will determine the team’s seeding for the postseason. A win and they will be either the #2 or #3 seed…a loss? They could drop to 7th. This is likely the difference between a first round bye or relatively easy matchup and having to play a peer in the first round and possibly Portsmouth or Derryfield in the second. Timberlane will be a challenge...a true coinflip of a game. Each have beaten teams the other has lost to and lost to teams the other has beaten. Timberlane was the runner up to Portsmouth in ‘21 for the state championship and will not likely wilt. Enjoy the pics!
Windham Varsity Lacrosse vs. Portsmouth and St. Thomas Aquinas
Windham Girls Varsity Volleyball vs. Bishop Guertin 10/06/21
This was a new task for me. Shooting a girls only event as well as a volleyball match for the first time. Quite a different experience than football, basketball, or lacrosse as in those you can simply follow the ball to follow the action. With volleyball if you simply follow the ball, you will be too late for the shot…so its more guesswork and anticipation than the other sports. The angles are also much different and the net is often in the way. Be that as it may, it was a good experience and fair results. Windham won the match 3 games to none and looked like the more “professional” team while BG seemed amateurish in comparison playing in a haphazard manner vs. the regimented and defined structure of the Windham girls. I’ll be putting up the shots I got over the next few days and we’ll see if I get back to improve on these at future matches. Thanks to Mrs. Bartlett the Windham head coach for making me feel comfortable in taking the photos and pointing out where I could shoot from.
Windham Varsity Lacrosse vs. Portsmouth 04/13/21
Well now….that wasn’t what we wanted was it? An 11-5 loss to start the season when nothing seemed to work right. Tons of standing around on offense with no cutters, few shots and no drives to the net outside of the first five minutes of the game. Defense? Well…it was there…It just didn’t come to play much. Almost no physicality, no one was being a pest…no price was paid for Portsmouth to reach the goal mouth again and again and again. No one gave up the body to block the shots that were had over and over. Goalie’s? Not really known. They certainly faced a ton of shots but not one of the three that came in stood out given what they faced. Lastly, faceoffs….well…when you lose some 75%+ of them you are automatically giving the opposing team way too many possessions that if you aren’t going to play aggressive defense, are going to continue to end up with balls in the back of the net. Well…Next time it is boys. Gotta bring more than this in the next game. Portsmouth may simply be the better team but Windham can certainly close the gap and make it harder on them at the least.
As for me? Well, lacrosse is unquestionably more difficult to photograph than either basketball or football. Football is agonizingly slow in comparison to both sports which makes finding the action easy. Basketball has the advantage of a lack of equipment which makes getting great facial expressions easy. Lacrosse? It moves very fast with lots of intersecting traffic on top of all the face hiding helmets and many of the players you want to shoot never come close to you if you stay on one side or the other of the field and the endlines are “verboten” due to the “danger” of being hit by a ball. The only good thing is the light. Being outdoors and during daylight hours at least let you crank the shutter speed. So a big learning curve for me to. Hopefully I will bring a better photography game to the rest of the year.
So a toast to us both…may we all bring a better effort in the days to come.
Ashton Woods, Windham, NH
Went for a short hike today around a little area my town purchased in order to maintain as conservation land.
In combination with the purchase of an area called Clyde Pond, the purchase of Ashton Woods is 3/4 of a mile or so from my house and is clearly home to a large number of beavers, deer, owls, hawks, muskrats, turtles and other wildlife. The 40 acres of Ashton woods are connected to other conservation land surrounding the high school and other residential areas. about 2 acres of the 40 are open pond while much of the rest is marsh/swamp. The “trails” within it are barely used and difficult to distinguish at times and do not go all the way around the property. Bushwacking on the Northwest side of the land is required.
It also appears that there was a dump or in looking at a Windham map of the land, perhaps an auto repair garage and home on the Northwest side of the property as well given the junk and garbage present there along with two monitoring wells in that same area that I can only assume are there to monitor for groundwater contamination. Regardless…most of the property is quite nice and secluded and quiet. Now kept in an undisturbed state it should provide excellent water filtration, drainage and wildlife habitat for the coming years. I am going to try and research the garbage/debris and find out its origin as I’m curious given the notations of the garage on the town map…
