Hello everyone! I haven't posted a photo blog on here in a couple years but decided that following my first homestand as a photo intern with the Minnesota Twins would be a good time to get it rolling again. This has already been an incredible learning opportunity working for Twins photographer Brace Hemmelgarn and the entire communications office and I can't wait for the rest of this season! (And for summer to eventually show its face, see below)

We started the Opening Day festivities dealing with a pretty big snowstorm that required all hands on deck to help clear the snow from the ballpark. (And when I say all hands on deck, I mean it) 

My first real event that I covered was a ticket event through US Bank where MLB Hall of Famer, Jack Morris and Twins mascot, T.C. Bear went around the skyway handing out tickets. This was a cool event to get the Opening Day weekend started up! 

The following day came Opening Day. I still can't fully put into words the entire experience but surreal definitely describes it well. As an intern I had to help pass out hot dogs and coffee during an event called Breakfast on the Plaza which started my day with a 4:30am alarm. After that, I went back into the ballpark to photograph the test runs of the pre-game festivities which included the Eagle flight which I was used to shooting at Eastern Michigan. 

After all of this the crowds started to file in and it was time to get rolling for the actual game! Brace had me placed up in the terrace level to get different kinds of shots of things going on and also roaming around getting fan shots. 

Overall, Opening Day was an incredible experience and the best part is you start right back up the next day. And in this case, the next day was actually following an off-day and was the coldest game in Twins history. Luckily the sun was out but it was still a cozy 28 degrees at first pitch. With the field being heated underneath, it created a unique fog that came off the infield for photos as you can see in the photo of Sano. 

The other really cool part of this internship is to see a lot of future/potential hall of famer's roll in like Ichiro, Robinson Cano, Justin Verlander and Jose Altuve. 

My first official game in the dugout was the Wednesday game against the Astros and it was definitely a memorable one for me as Max Kepler hit two home runs including a walk-off to win it.

The next game I worked the following night was also extremely memorable because Joe Mauer entered the game two hits away from 2000 and Brace stashed me in the first base photo well which turned out to be a great spot to be when he got his 2000th hit. Being able to have these two games as my first real games shooting has probably spoiled me but won't ever forget these couple of games.

After this game, the Twins then had three straight snow outs before leaving for Puerto Rico. I'm going to try and do a post every homestand with my favorite photos as the Twins are back in town April 27th against the Cincinnati Reds! Feel free to leave a comment with any questions!