The main event featured a lightweight contest between New Jersey standout Jim Miller and Stockton, California’s Nate Diaz. This event proved to be UFC’s best FOX broadcast yet with all four main card bouts thrilling the fans. The undercard on FUEL TV was also a really good collection of fights.

Diaz handled Miller in the main event with little trouble. I was quite surprised at how easy Diaz made it look. He ended up submitting Miller with a tight guillotine choke in the second round – the first time in Miller’s 25-fight career he had been finished. Diaz used his length to pepper Miller with punches from the outside. Once he got the opportunity to go for the submission, he jumped on it and sealed the victory quickly. After the bout, Diaz said he found it difficult to get motivated to train for this fight because he had nothing but respect for Miller and no animosity. He also encouraged the fans to buy Miller’s signature TapouT shirt for which a portion of all sales will go towards the medical fund for Miller’s nephew little Danny Miller.

In the co-feature, Johny Hendricks earned himself a shot at the UFC Welterweight Championship with his split-decision victory over former title challenger Josh Koscheck. Hendricks looked a little nervous early on, but it didn’t take long for him to open up and start landing power shots. Koscheck’s eye began to swell early in the second and seemed to bother him. He was never able to find his rhythm. In the end, the judges scored it 29-28, 29-28, 28-29 for Johny Hendricks.

In a middleweight bout, Alan Belcher survived the ground attack of Rousimar Palhares and put him away by TKO in the first round. At one point, Belcher was working for a submission of his own before ending up in the top position and raining down punches and elbows.

The opener on the FOX broadcast featured two heavyweight sluggers going toe-to-toe as Lavar Johnson earned his second UFC victory and second “Knockout of the Night” award, putting away Pat Barry in the first round. It was clear early on that Barry’s size was going to make for a very rough night. Barry is the shortest heayweight in the UFC, and that played right into Johnson’s game allowing him to land heavy shots from a distance where Barry could barely even connect. At one point, Barry got the fight to the ground and was working a submission, but Johnson endured and made it back to his feet where he was able to finally drop Barry and secure the TKO victory.

Several undercard fights were quite good, as well. Fight of the Night honors went to Louis Gaudinot and John Lineker who stood toe-to-toe swinging for the fences for the better part of two rounds. Neither showed a clear advantage until late in the second round, Gaudinot jumped into a guillotine choke and put Lineker to sleep with just seconds remaining in the round.

TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson had his first stumble in the Octagon as he was out-pointed by TUF 12 finalist Michael Johnson. The fight was contested entirely on the standup. Both fighters had their moments and landed big shots. In the end, it was Johnson’s higher rate of strikes, and having dropped Ferguson twice that earned him the victory.

Below is a gallery of my shots from the night. Please visit my website (www.jhedgesphoto.com) for the complete gallery, as well as UFC.com and Getty Images for their editorial selections from the night.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, and questions.

UFC on FOX 3: Diaz v Miller – Images by Joshua Hedges

I’d like to take the time again to thank all the people who made this workshop a success – Robert Hanashiro, Matt Brown, Dave Black, Shawn Cullen, Rod Mar, Myung Chun, John McDonough, Michael Goulding, Wally Skalij, Sean Haffey, Michael Corrado, Christy Radecic, Rafael Delgado, Ron Tonawaki, Sara Moosbrugger, Ian Ray, and Deanna Hanashiro. It was a pleasure to work with you all, and I hope to do so again soon.

Below is a gallery of shots I collected throughout the week. I’ll probably add more to this as I have time. Please let me know what you think.

Sports Shooter Academy IX – Images by Joshua Hedges

Aside from a couple minor hiccups in the beginning, everything went very smooth and overall produced the results I was looking for. If I had to change anything, I would have probably narrowed my triangle a little between myself, the fighter, and the light. But I still think this looks really good. Most of these shots were taken with the following settings, though there was some variance – ISO 800, 1/1250s, f2.8, white balance 5600K. The light mounted on the balcony was a single Canon 580EX speedlite, running at 1/2 power. The face of the light was probably setting about 15-20 feet from the center of the mat. For the blurred shots, I used second-curtain sync at 1/15s, f16.

Take a look at the gallery and let me know what you think.

UFC on FOX 3 Open Workouts – Images by Joshua Hedges

Anyways… back to the game. It started out pretty slow. I shot the first 3 innings from the third base photo well, then moved up top with my long lens to get some different angles from in and above the bleachers. The UC Irvine Anteaters, who have their own super fan who was going nuts the whole game, were up 5-2 in the later innings before Riverside stormed back and tied it. The game went into extra innings, so I trudged back down to the third base well hoping for a good shot of a walk-off hit and the ensuing celebration. While I got the shots, I wasn’t completely happy with the angle and reactions. I probably should have stayed up top or gone over to the first base side. But, it was a good learning experience.

After the game, we headed back to the workroom to file our edits and stick around for the slideshow and awards. I had some good conversations with photographers Matt Brown, Mike Corrado, and Michael Goulding about my shots from the game. It’s amazing how much you can learn from just sitting down for five minutes with someone and showing them your shots and talking about them. Seriously, take advantage of those chances and do it as often as you can. If you ever see me somewhere and want to pick my brain, by all means do it! They helped me narrow down my top 8 shots to the final 4 for the slideshow, and I’m very happy with the ones we came up with. You can see those four shots below.

I just want to take the time again to thank everyone who put this event on and made it THE coolest photography event I’ve ever been a part of. Bert Hanashiro, Matt Brown, Christy Radecic, Rafael Delgado, Rod Mar, Michael Goulding, Dave Black, Jon McDonough, Shawn Cullen, Wally Skalij, Sean Haffey, Deanna Hanashiro, Sara Moosbrugger, Ian Ray, Ron Tonawaki, Grant Brown, and all the wonderful sponsors, including Nikon, ThinkTank, PocketWizard, Samy’s, Honl, SanDisk, Camera Bits, LiveBooks, and anyone else I’m forgetting. If you ever have a chance to participate in one of these events, please please do. It is a priceless experience.

Here are my final four shots from day four that were submitted to the slideshow. Stay tuned for a larger gallery of my overall experience coming soon.

Let me quickly recap what happened yesterday before I get into today. I was scheduled to just shoot soccer with my good buddy Rod Mar who is the team photographer for the Seattle Seahawks football team and Sounders soccer team. I’ve worked alongside Rod at several UFC’s and always enjoy absorbing his knowledge. We headed over to UC Irvine for a 7-on-7 women’s soccer tournament featuring a number of current and former Division I NCAA athletes. The short fields made for lots of action. It was very hard to follow at first, so I ended up just sitting on goal keepers and waiting for shots. This proved a good strategy to get a feel for it. There were a number of diving saves. Eventually, I started feeling more comfortable and started straying a bit and following different players. I also mounted a couple different goal remotes, though I didn’t get any great shots from those.

After a while in the hot sun, the soccer started getting a bit stale so I walked over to the baseball stadium to catch the game between UC Irvine and UC Riverside. I’ve shot some baseball before, so I took a different approach than normal. I walked around various points of the park shooting with my 400mm lens, with and without the 1.4x teleconverter. Unfortunately, it was a very lackluster game and I was really exhausted, so I didn’t make the best shots.

After the conclusion of the baseball game, I headed over to the track meet to see if I could get anything good over there. I’ve never shot a track meet before, and can’t really say I’ve ever wanted to. After being exposed to it now though, I have a strong desire to go back and try again. The long jump produced the easiest pictures. We had a nice back light later in the day during the finals which gives you a really nice sand splash shot. Of course, everyone wants that shot, so it’s quite competitive fighting for a straight on position. I ended up leaving the men’s final in favor of the women to get a better position. I also attempted to shoot some pole vault and javelin, but couldn’t really find the light I was looking for. the sun was still a bit straight overhead and flat for my tastes. So then, I decided to head down to the water pit to setup a remote for the final event of the night, the steeplechase. Everyone raved about this event, so I had to see what was up. The remote shot didn’t do anything for me, but I did grab a couple of nice frames with a long lens. By the time we finished up there, it was after 7:00pm, so I dropped Rod off at his hotel and hurried back to the Crowne Plaza to get to the workroom and start editing. By the time I finished my edit and had food in my belly, it was nearly midnight. Below are a few shots from the day.

After falling asleep with my laptop in my lap, I got about 6 hours of sleep to prepare for the final day. Today, I just had baseball on the schedule. I went in with the plan to make pictures I have never made before. I strayed way out of my comfort zone for shooting baseball and I shot a lot of stuff very tight. I used a lot of different angles and tried to tell more of a story. Luckily the game had a lot of drama, ending with a walk-off hit in the 11th inning. I’ll post some pictures from that game tomorrow.

I’ll be hitting the road as soon as possible tonight or tomorrow morning to drive up and see my wife and kids for a few hours before hopping on a plane to New Jersey tomorrow night for UFC on FOX 3.

Here are my favorites from day 3 of SSA IX.

Sports Shooter Academy IX officially opened on Wednesday with the re-launch of the lighting luau and workshop. David Honl (www.davidhonlphoto.com & www.honlphoto.com) was the opening speaker, and one who I was most looking forward to. He talked about his lighting system and modifiers and showed tons of examples of how he uses them in the field. I encourage everyone to check his stuff out. After David Honl, we heard from Matt Bailey, one of the founders of LiveBooks, who talked about internet marketing for photographers. A very informative talk that also got me thinking quite a bit about where I’m lacking in my photography business. Myung Chung, videographer from the LA Times, gave a presentation of a few pieces he’s done for the Times’ website. While I’m not a “video guy”, this was a really fascinating part of the day and very moving. Myung is an incredible visual journalist, in addition to a photographer and editor, and most importantly he’s a great story teller. Capping off the day was Dave Black, a Colorado-based freelance photographer who currently specializes in high speed sync flash photography. You’ve probably noticed I’ve been dabbling in high speed sync over the last year, so this talk is what I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Dave did not disappoint. In fact, he gave a bonus presentation after the main talk that lasted for another hour afterwards, followed by a good question & answer session.

The main workshop started on Thursday morning. We all met in the workroom to go over some procedures and meet the staff. Then, signups started for the various events. Some events were very limited, so a lottery was held to draw names for certain things. Luckily, my name was picked for the event I wanted to shoot – Dave Black’s high speed sync flash with Cal State Fullerton Soccer players. So, after an introductory course from Dave at the hotel, we hopped in the car and drove up to the CSF campus. We were originally supposed to shoot on the infield of the track, but the track coach locked us out and sent us hiking to find a new location. Luckily, the second spot ended up better as they allowed us to use the end zone of Titans Stadium. Due to the number of guys shooting and the limited time we had the athletes, Dave decided it would be best to just use his camera and swap out cards. This was my first chance to shoot with a Nikon D800, so I got a double bonus on the day. The athletes were great and everyone made some great photos. After shooting each night, we return to the work room to file a deadline edit. Our best three shots from the day are included in a slideshow for the next morning before heading out to shoot. I’ve attached a few of my shots down below.

Day two started out with the viewing of the slideshow before heading out to shoot. I was originally scheduled to shoot a track meet at Saddleback College with Matt Brown, Wally Skallij, and Shawn Cullen. However, upon arriving we were denied access by the track supervisor. So, we all loaded up and headed to UC Irvine where there was supposed to be another track meet. After paying for parking and lugging all our gear across campus, we find out there was no meet that day, it had been moved to Friday. Determined to find something to shoot, Matt Broke out his iPhone and found a high school nearby that had both a varsity baseball game and lacrosse match scheduled for that afternoon. So, we set out to invade the games. Those poor kids had no idea what hit them. We showed up with a group of 10-12 shooters, all armed with 400mm and 600mm glass. At the start of the game, there were more photographers than there were fans in the bleachers. We were rigging remotes and going all out like it was a world series game. On the whole, the game was pretty slow, but we all managed to make some good photos of it. I left early and missed the walk-off game winning hit so I could go catch the lacrosse match. It was my first time ever seeing a live lacrosse match, much less the first time shooting it. I spent the entire game shooting with my 400mm and a 1.4x converter, giving me a focal length of 560mm, which on my 1D Mark IV effectively becomes a 728mm lens. I stuck by Matt Brown’s side for most of the first half and just absorbed everything he was telling me. Anyone who has worked with or spoke to Matt before has probably heard him say “Get in TIGHT!” That was his mantra for the day. So, I really focused on getting tight angles and lots of facial expressions. I think I had an OK shoot for my first time ever shooting the sport. Plus, the match started about 5pm and ended just before sunset, so we had some beautiful light for the entire duration. I was able to walk around at times and find some really nice side light. I had a great time and I am so thankful for Matt and Shawn sticking it out and finding us something to shoot. I’ve also included a few shots below from my take for day two.

Check out the Sports Shooter Academy website and facebook pages for more on all that’s happening this week at SSA IX.

Steelheads goalie Jerry Kuhn was the superstar of the first period making some fantastic saves. Early on, it looked like the Wranglers were going to be in trouble after being blanked in the first. The Wranglers finally netted two goals in the second period though. A third goal was disallowed by the referee for some reason unknown to everyone in attendance. The puck hit the pipe in the back of the net and bounced out like it hit the cross bar. The referee immediately waved it off and signaled for play to continue. I guess the ECHL does not have any sort of goal review. Fortunately it didn’t end up being a factor in the final outcome of the game. Kuhn finished the night saving 43 of 45 shots. The Wranglers netted a third goal in the closing minutes of the third period on an empty net to seal the victory.

I didn’t get to spend as much time shooting down at ice level as I would have liked, but I made the best of the situation I was dealt. Luckily, I had a 300mm lens with me tonight in addition to the 400mm. The 300mm proved to be a much better option for this small arena. I barely used the 400mm at all.

Below is a selection of my shots from the night.

Wranglers v Steelheads – April 16, 2012 – Images by Joshua Hedges

Last night was a great night of fights. The arena was amazing. The crowd was awesome. The fighters all brought it and put on great performances. I was very impressed with the level of talent exhibited by the Scandinavian fighters on the card, who collectively amassed a 3-3 record on the night.

I don’t think anyone is surprised that Brad Pickett and Damacio Page put in a “Fight of the Night” performance. They both have a history of doing so. Pickett looked greatly improved from his last performance against Renan Barao. Page looked a bit jittery, perhaps from the long layoff, but still did a solid job.

In the main event, Stockholm’s Alexander Gustafsson thoroughly dominated Thiago Silva over the course of three rounds to score a unanimous decision. It was Gustafsson’s first career decision. It looked like the fight would be over before it even started when Gustafsson landed a barrage early in the first round that nearly put Silva out. However, the Brazilian hung on and battled back. There were moments when Silva landed some good shots, but he never had Gustafsson in any danger. The partisan crowd warmed up to Silva by the end and cheered on both men in the closing moments of the third round.

Below is a gallery of images from my take last night. You can also check out the full take on UFC.com and Getty Images. I will try to add more images to the gallery when I get back to the states.

UFC on Fuel TV 2: Gustafsson v Silva – Images by Joshua Hedges