Jeff Self Photography Blog

JMU traveled from Harrisonburg to take on their in-state rival ODU in Norfolk for a 4pm kickoff. It was another beautiful day for football and the stadium was packed.

I brought my Nikon Z9 body with my Nikkor 400mm f/2.8G lens and my Nikon Z8 body with the Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena lens. But just before ODU took the field, I realized the 400mm wasn’t going to stay on the monopod. The screw holes in the footer collar were stripped. This was the same issue I had at the Norfolk State game a couple weeks earlier, but I thought I had fixed it.

CNU hosted William Paterson in a New Jersey Athletic Conference D3 football game on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Newport News, VA. This was my first D3 football game of the season and I found it to be just as fun to watch as FBS and FCS football games. In fact, I think I liked it more. No media timeouts! I didn’t even have time to take my phone out of my pocket to check scores after a touchdown because they were already lining up for the kickoff.

I decided to venture out to Pleasure House Point Natural Area in Virginia Beach on Sunday morning. I hadn’t been there since late May. I figured the ospreys have moved on but I was hoping some of the migrating birds would have started arriving by now. The first bird I was spotted was a Great Blue Heron who was roosting in a pine tree. I then walked all the way to the Brock Center without spotting any more birds. It had just been high tide about an hour before I was there, so that was definitely going to limit the bird action. I was happy to see they built the bridge near the Brock Center. When I first started coming here 5 years ago, there was a cinder block that you had to step on to cross a very small runoff between the larger part of the creek and a little pond. You could literally step over it and didn’t even really need the cinder block. But over the course of five years, this had turned into a pretty big ditch between the two. They have built a really nice bridge for walking over the water now. It has grown to be about 20 feet wide and about 2 feet deep in just 5 years.

It was homecoming at Norfolk State this past Saturday as they hosted their MEAC rival Howard University. It was a 2pm kickoff so I showed up around 12pm and drove around campus looking for a parking spot. After realizing it was going to be hard to find, I changed my mind and drove over to Macarthur Mall to park there and then ride the Tide back to Norfolk State. There was a 10 minute walk from the train stop to the stadium and I was carrying my Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8 G lens, all 10 pounds of it, along with my Z9, Z8, and one other camera I’ll talk about in a future post.

The Grassfield hosted the Nansemond River Warriors on Friday night for their homecoming. A clear night with perfect temps. Another Chesapeake game with outdated lighting. I really hope they can get around to updating the lighting at the Chesapeake high schools.

Nansemond River was dressed in white while Grassfield wore their dark blue jerseys. Perfect color for a dimly lit field. Detect any sarcasm there?

I only shot the first half of the game as I wasn’t feeling great but at halftime Nansemond River built a 28-7 lead.

I finally got to shoot a day football game this year! Every game I’ve shot up until this one had been a night game or early evening game. This game between Texas State and ODU was being played at 3:30pm in Norfolk. And the sun was out!

Texas State rolled into Norfolk with a 4-2 record and were 10 point favorites against the 2-4 Monarchs. ODU jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first half and would hold on to win 24-14. ODU has now won 3 of its last 4 games even though the offense is still struggling.

The Hickory Hawks hosted their city rival Grassfield on Friday night. Great night for football as I had to put on the hat and thin gloves.

Hickory isn’t the best place to shoot football at night. The combination of outdated lighting and black jerseys make for some high ISOs in the images. Luckily, software has come a long way in the last ten years and the noise cleans up well.

I traveled 30 miles south into North Carolina on Friday night to photograph the football game between the visiting John A. Holmes Aces of Edenton and the home team Currituck County Knights.

It was a very competitive game and Holmes took a 21-12 lead into the half. However, Currituck County came out on fire in the 3rd quarter and outscored Holmes 21-7 in the quarter. They added one more touchdown in the 4th quarter and won the game 40-28.

Thanks to Hurricane Helene’s tracking, and the upcoming rains we were expecting on Friday, we had a football game on Thursday night. It was Military Appreciation night as the Hickory Hawks hosted their rival, the Great Bridge Wilcats.

The combination of high school stadium lighting, dark open spaces between the two sides of the stadium, and Hickory’s all black jerseys, make for a difficult night of shooting. It gets so dark out there. Even shooting wide open at f/2.8 on the 400mm lens, my ISOs were reaching my peak settings. Lets hope these schools can switch out to LED lights in the near future.

I got to shoot my second ODU football game in a row on Saturday. This time, I was prepared. I would be shooting my Nikon Z9 with the 400mm f/2.8G lens. And I would be using my Nikon Z8 with the amazing Nikon 135mm f/1.8 S Plena. This time it was against the Virginia Tech Hokies. Virginia Tech has had a rough time in Norfolk, losing each of the last two times they’ve played here. Virginia Tech has been notorious for getting their seasons off to slow starts under the current coaching regime, while ODU is struggling to find any semblance of an offense.