Derek’s Photo Blog

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About Derek

Born and raised in Sparta, WI. Thought I would be a medical researcher growing up. Saw a cadaver. Into a bucket went those plans. Graduated from Sparta High and entered the Air National Guard where I thought I might make a career working for the government. Lost almost sixty pounds in six weeks. Learned I had type-1 diabetes. Lost that career in the national guard along with my ability to eat Skittles at will. Entered college life at the University of Wisconsin. Thought I might be a web designer and earn a computer science degree. Learned that would involve a lot of math. I hate math. A lot. Enter journalism. Realized that included little math, chasing stories around the globe and you sometimes get free grilled chicken (low carbs) before football games. Awesome. Graduated from the UW and moved to Duluth, MN to work at the Duluth News Tribune. Thought I'd be in that job for a very long time. Lost that job in the economic downturn of 2009 and the decline of the newspaper industry. Really sad. Realized I loved photography too much to give it up. Enter Derek Montgomery Photography.

That's the story of my life up to this point. I'm a Duluth, Minnesota-based photographer specializing in commercial, event, wedding and documentary photojournalism. My background is in photojournalism, but I love shooting everything from the deep woods of northern Minnesota to the icy landscape of Antarctica and everything in between. I feel at home shooting a basketball game as much as I do a wedding ceremony. When my camera is not attached to my face, you can find me running through Lester Park, watching sports, training for triathlons, surfing the Internet or hanging with my girlfriend Kristin and her two-year old son Evan.

Minnesota State Boys Hockey: The Finals

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 Posted in Duluth News Tribune, Hockey, Sports

This is the day everyone has been waiting for. It’s a day that has existed only in dreams for many of the kids taking to the ice in the title games Saturday at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. For a state that almost treats hockey as a religion, this is as close as you can come to a religious experience that involves violence and ice.

Hermantown advanced to the Class A title game after a dramatic, almost miraculous, victory over Mahtomedi. In the finals, the Hawks went up 1-0 in the first period while defending state champion Breck School tied the game in the second period. Heading into the final period, the score was tied at one apiece and Breck was getting handled in a way that was unfamiliar. A photographer in press row before the game responded when asked something about the game that “oh this final is Breck and the school that will get destroyed by Breck.” The private school from the cities had thoroughly dominated their opponents all season scoring 206 goals in 28 games while racking up a 26-2 record.

However, the Hawks were the ones dominating play in this game. Breck was able to keep the game even thanks to a great effort by goaltender John Russell who finished the game with 30 saves. With 1:40 to go in the game, Breck scored to go up 2-1 and the game ended that way. Hermantown players and fans were dejected after coming so close, but falling just short.

One of the cool things about this state tournament is the camaraderie between fans and teams. Warroad played Mahtomedi–the team Hermantown defeated in the semifinals–in the third place game and won in double overtime. Hermantown fans were there early and started cheering wildly for Warroad. I think part of it was due to the fact that after a Mahtomedi player scored to put his team up 6-4 against the Hawks, he slowly skated by the Hermantown student section with his finger up to a mouth in a gesture to be quiet, which served only to enrage the Hawks’ student section and solidify their support for Warroad in the third place game. During the third period of the finals, the entire Warroad hockey team was welcomed into the middle of the Hermantown student section. It was cool to watch Hermantown fans welcome these players from a town 256 miles away and join them as they both cheered against Breck in the finals.

I’m off to the NCAA wrestling tournament in Omaha, Nebraska so I will have some photos from that early next week along with my review of the best of the wursts at the Xcel Energy Center. Now here are some photos from those finals…

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MN State Boys Hockey Day Three: A game for the ages

Saturday, March 13, 2010 Posted in Duluth News Tribune, Hockey, Sports

I’ve learned throughout my years of covering sports that it’s not wise to leave until the buzzer has sounded. In 2005, the Wisconsin football team blocked a Minnesota punt in the final seconds and recovered it in the endzone to complete an improbable win. A few weeks prior to that, the Badgers sacked Kyle Orton with just a couple minutes left forcing him to fumble. Wisconsin’s Scott Starks picked up the fumble and ran it in for a touchdown to seal that game. Last year the College of St. Scholastica men’s basketball team was down by more than 20 points in the second half in their conference championship game and rallied back in dramatic fashion to win by a comfortable margin. The list goes on and on. You never know what’s going to happen until the clock hits zero and sometimes you don’t even know then. Today was one of those days.

Hermantown met Mahtomedi in a Class A state semifinal game. I was covering Hermantown for the Duluth News Tribune. The game started off with Mahtomedi scoring first, but Hermantown answered back with a goal of their own. The first period ended 2-2 and the second period ended with the score tied at three apiece. This is where things got interesting.

The teams traded goals to open up the third period before Mahtomedi answered with two straight goals to make it 6-4 with under nine minutes to go. This is where Hermantown’s Charlie Comnick comes in. Comnick scored two straight goals in less than two minutes to complete the hat trick with all three goals coming in the third period. Think that’s good? It gets better. As the second were ticking down, a Mahtomedi player fired a shot at Hawks goalie Tyler Ampe and it went into the net. The impression of the puck on the back of the net and the buzzer seemed to happen in unison and Mahtomedi began celebrating their victory by throwing their sticks, hats, gloves and more in the air as they formed a huge dogpile on the ice. However, instant replay showed that the puck was in the crease, but had not crossed the line so it was ruled no goal. With the velocity of that shot in the final second and its position in the crease, a matter of 0.1 seconds would have made all the difference between the Hawks playing at Mariucci Arena on Saturday or playing in overtime.

As luck would have it, Hermantown scored just a couple minutes into overtime to win 7-6 and the celebration was on. I’m pretty excited to be covering a finals game this year with a local team in the mix. So here are some photos from today’s exciting game…

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Minnesota Boys State Hockey Day Two

Friday, March 12, 2010 Posted in Duluth News Tribune, Hockey, Sports

Thursday was a pretty fun day at the Minnesota state boys hockey tournament. It was a long day and I was wiped out at the end, but I was happy to be able to grab some nice images and beat some insane deadlines for the last game. Duluth East and Hill-Murray faced off in the “8 p.m.” game, but as things go here, the second of each session’s games always start about an hour later. That put the Duluth News Tribune’s deadline for A1 right up against the start of the game and put the sports deadline shortly after. I was able to meet all the deadlines, but it was a mad dash to the finish.

The best game in terms of entertainment value yesterday might have been the Apple Valley-Blaine game in the afternoon. Apple Valley came in as the underdog and their goalie flat out dominated the entire game making a number of head-scratching saves and shutting out Blaine to advance to tonight’s semifinal. The late game with Duluth East and Hill-Murray was also entertaining except East gave up four goals–two in the closing minutes of the first period and two more in the opening minute of the second period, which put the game out of reach as they fell 5-3 after going up 2-0 early on.

And it looks like I’ll be back here another day as Hermantown defeated Mahtomedi in one of the most entertaining hockey games I’ve ever seen. Lots of images to come from that one, but I need to go rest and take a break. Check out the photos below!

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Minnesota Boys State Hockey Day 1: A tale of two games

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Posted in Duluth News Tribune, Hockey, Sports

The last time I was blogging from the Minnesota boys state hockey tournament, I was not even a week removed from being laid off from my job as a photojournalist at the Duluth News Tribune. At the time, I really didn’t know what was ahead for me or what path I would take in life. A year later I find myself back at the same tournament, but with a completely different outlook on where I’m heading and what I’m doing. These greatly contrasting states of mind remind me of the two games I covered today.

The first was a showdown between two northern Minnesota teams in Hermantown and Virginia/Mt. Iron-Buhl. The two had met earlier this year with the Hawks of Hermantown coming out on top 4-2 over the Blue Devils of VMIB. Hermantown dominated the first period and went into the first break up 1-0, but VMIB rallied back in the second to make it a 1-1 game heading into the final period. It’s critical junctures like these when you hope your best players make themselves known. Hermantown’s senior captain, Mr. Hockey finalist and University of Minnesota Duluth recruit Adam Krause scored early in the third period to put the Hawks on top for good. They would go onto win 2-1 and will face Mahtomedi Friday morning.

The second game I covered pitted top-ranked Breck School against New Ulm. It was competitive for the first couple minutes and then it turned all Breck. The first period ended with the Mustangs of Breck up 2-0 over the Eagles of New Ulm. The second period opened up with a quick goal by Breck and another one a few minutes later before things went really bad really quick for New Ulm. Breck scored five times in less than two minutes to put the game out of reach and open up a 9-0 lead. That’s how the second period ended and Breck would go on to win 11-1.

The two games were such a contrast. One was high intensity action down to the last second while the other saw the game get out of hand before it was even halfway over. As a photographer, it’s hard to shoot those games that are so one-sided because the players start to reflect the score in their emotions. When Breck players put together their five goals in two minutes, they showed little emotion after scoring a goal. Not good for pictures. Each goal the rest of the way was like this. Things that kept me going was thinking if this keeps up, this could be some type of state record. I looked around and didn’t see any other photographers shooting so I figured I’d be in prime position to capture something unique should a historical blowout be reached. That never happened, but I did see New Ulm finally get on the scoreboard and that brought out a fair amount of emotion/relief from the team.

Well enough about the games and me… this is a photo blog after all. I’ll be back tomorrow with more photos as well as a review on the various hot dogs at the tournament.