Yes indeed. It’s that time of year again. The time where I start flooding the blog with hockey photos for your pleasure. The Mighty Bulls have started their preseason games getting ready for game one of the 2008-2009 season, starting Friday September 12th.

Friday they hosted Troja/Ljungby, a team from the Swedish Allsvenskan division. A pretty intense game ending 2-1.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

This past month I spent three of the four week on vacation, recharging the batteries for the next couple of months which are usually the hardest during the week. The vacation was much needed!

With all the sports I shoot it sometimes impress me that I don’t see more injuries than I do. It’s your typical sprained knee or whatever. I covered a soccer game last night and I was following two players battling for the ball at full speed. The both fell and the ball was put in the net on the rebound of sorts. The players cheered and the opposing player was still on the gras. My first thought was that he was just pissed off that he didn’t prevent the goal. I realized he was favoring his arm and looked to be in quite a lot of pain. The trainer rushed to the field and I heard the injured player say the other guy landed on him.

I checked the entire sequence on the LCD and found that I had indeed caught where his arm is bending kind of awkward when they fell to the grass.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + 1,4x TC @ 420mm, f/4,5 1/1250sec, ISO200. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

A shot of the player with the trainer behind the net shows the trainer supporting the arm while the player shows just how much pain he’s in.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + 1,4x TC @ 420mm, f/4,5 1/1250sec, ISO200. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

The player was taken away in an ambulance.

The local movie theater/concert hall/culture house Viften arranged a girls night out arrangement where they showed Sex and the City the Movie. Before the movie the girls was served Cosmopolitan drinks which would be my approach.

Walking in to the concourse area I saw a table lined up with more than 100 glasses. The bar staff was loading Cosmopolitans into the glasses. I was hoping they would fill all glasses before letting people grab the drinks. The colorful glasses would make a great photo.. Unfortunately things didn’t quite go my way.

When the first batch of glasses was filled they asked for the women to grab a drink.. To give you an idea of the table I shot this really quick..

All the empty glasses sucked and didn’t really look good at all.

So I bent down closer to the table so the glasses that was filled close to me covered the empty glasses in the middle of the bunch.

It didn’t really do what I wanted. A smaller table behind the big one was also loaded with drinks. It would also give a wider shot including more people in the frame and still show a lot of drinks.

After the first round of drinks had been taken from the table, the rest of the empty glasses was filled and was just waiting to be consumed.

To give you an idea of what I was looking for in the first place, here’ a photo of glasses.

Most of the girls had already taken their seats in the theater waiting for a male stripper to get them going… These glasses was never touched. I waited patiently for a couple of girls or three to come and take a glass…

Here’s a handful of photos taken from various assignments as of late.

A small store specializing in car racing books and miniature car models had a small Ferrari gathering at their store. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/9 1/200sec, ISO160.

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Nicolas is a huge basketball prospect in Denmark. At the age of 17 he has been around the National team development system. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/10 1/250sec, ISO100.

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Danish Band Big Fat Snake closed the one day music festival - Rockfesten. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 120mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO640.

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‘Greve’s’ Women’s Marching band performs at the annual city festival. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 200mm, f/2.8 1/640sec, ISO200.

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A ferris wheel at the annual city festival. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 200mm, f/25 1/320sec, ISO100.

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Students celebrating their final day in school with the traditional water and shaving foam fight. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)
Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 98mm, f/2.8 1/1000sec, ISO100.

click to enlarge

Sunday the local soccer team ‘Avarta’ secured advancement to Division 2 after winning the game against Birkeroed. The advancement is secured with four games left of the season.

They could have secured advancement Wednesday but the game ended with a tie game which was not enough. I spent two hours on the side line waiting for the goal that would bring them to Division 2 and the jubilation shots following the game but that didn’t happen.

It was appropriate that they won the game at home in front of their home crowd.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/3.2 1/2000sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/3.2 1/2000sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 36mm, f/4 1/800sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 24mm, f/4 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Sometimes I can’t help but think what impact we have as a newspaper. Do we make a difference? I’d like to think so. Last week my thoughts were strongly proved.

An Iraqi family here in Denmark was about to be homeless. They could no longer stay in the house they rented. And with a father mentally ill due to torture from their time in Iraq wasn’t able to do anything about the situation. The family’s 15 year old daughter was basically who ran the show at home while attending school.

We brought the story about the family in our paper and within a day or two the Iraqi family was saved from a life in the gutter. Somebody called us telling that they could offer the family to stay at their house. There was plenty of room for the family. It’s so nice to see that some people are still concerned about others.

Here’s a photo of the daughter I shot for the story.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 27mm, f/4 1/1000sec, ISO125. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

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Around Monday last week I received a phone call.
Voice says: “Hey Brian, our photographer is on vacation. Would you be able to cover the Cup Final thursday?”

Without much hesitation I replied with a “Yes of course!”

The Cup Final is a nation wide soccer tournament where lower tier teams compete with the top division teams. It’s not the National Championship, but the winner gets a ticket to the European UEFA Cup next year. Brondby the local soccer team where I live is so far down the standing they looked to not make it to the European tournaments for the second straight year which is not satisfying what so ever.

Not only did I get to shoot top level soccer (The final was between two top division teams), I got to shoot the local soccer team where I live. And it was played in the National stadium where the Danish National team plays their home games.

Brondby won the game 3-2 after being ahead 1-0, 2-1 and scoring their last goal to make it 3-2 with about five minutes to go.
The fans got so excited. I was sitting in the same end as the Brondby fans and when they scored their second goal to make it 2-1 I almost got bombed with beer. A container hit the dirt right next to me and a spray of beer flew up and soaked my sock and left side of my pants. Why would anybody toss an almost full cup of beer? I’d empty it up instead!!

Anyway here’s a slideshow with sound and photos from the very exciting game! Click the image to launch.

Death in the family has kept my mind on anything else but this blog. Now that everything is back to normal (as normal as it can get) I figured it was time to give a little update on what I’ve been doing..

A couple of concerts, a couple of soccer games, some handball, a demonstration and other stuff is among what I’ve been pointing my camera at.

I made a small gallery with captions in it with some of the most recent stuff I’ve been doing.

Click image to launch.

Every now and then I track back through the past couple of weeks or months or work, just to see what I’ve been shooting. And maybe some kind of hope that I can see a progression in my work.

Here’s a few photos that never found its way to this blog.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/160sec, ISO500. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/60sec, ISO400. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/60sec, ISO400. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

What an interesting week it has been. Two car crashes, snow and the rehearsals for a hip hop theatrical play. That’s just some of the stuff I’ve been covering this past week.

I actually started out covering a car crash on the very first day I worked for the paper. Since then I can only recall arriving at a crash scene maybe twice where the cars and stuff was still there. This past week I was called out to two major crashes.

Friday (last week) some guy had to dodge an old woman crossing the street with her dog to avoid hitting her. He ended up hitting a light post and running over three small trees before coming to a hold when hitting a fourth tree.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO250. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

A front view of the car shows the damage.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/100sec, ISO250. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Monday as I arrived at the paper I got a phone call a colleague who had seen fire trucks and ambulances fly down the street past our office. The police scanner didn’t really give anything so I just drove in the direction I was told the fire trucks was going. I had a pretty good idea where it could be and I was right.

I never heard what happened but from what I saw at the scene it looked like somebody ran a red light broadsiding a car, plowing it into a traffic signal post.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 23mm, f/4 1/800sec, ISO200. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

I woke up Wednesday morning around 6.45am, having an assignment at 7.45am. I looked out the window and saw white trees and snow covering the grass and parking lot. My boss has been bugging me for ‘winter’ shots almost for as long as I can remember. Last year’s winter was basically only a couple of days. It’s hard to get good winter (read: pictures with snow or ice) shots when it’s over cast. So I was waiting for a sunny day with snow. You can’t exactly buy that on Ebay so when I saw that the sun was out and everything was basically what I was waiting for, it was all about getting out of the door as fast as possible before the snow melted away. On the way to the morning assignment the snow began falling from the trees as it was melting, so no time to chat at the first assignment. It was just getting it done and on my way again. I got what I wanted.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2.8 1/1250sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM @ 70mm, f/2.8 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Thursday I was assigned to cover the rehearsals to a hip hop theatrical play that a local boy is in. It was pretty cool. I enjoy watching those guys dance!

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/320sec, ISO1250, flash fired. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 23mm, f/4 1/320sec, ISO1250, flash fired. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

This is the local kid. I figured it would be a good idea to shoot a solo shot of him.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 28mm, f/4 1/320sec, ISO1250, flash fired. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)