As I watched the Jacksonville Jags beat the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday on a snowy, windy Pennsylvania afternoon,I thought of the winter afternoon in New York City a few years back where I stood on Park Avenue wearing a tuxedo in a blowing blizzard and photographed the newly crowned NASCAR Winston Cup champion as show shot horizontally through the photo.Matt Kenseth had clinched the '03 championship a few weeks before and I as prepared to travel to New York for the banquet from my home in Florida, I was excited by the weather channel's forecast of snow for the banquet week in New York, as I hadn't seen any real show since I was a 5-year-old growing up in Massachusetts.When the snow arrived, however, it was much more than I had bargained or prepared for, with 17 inches falling over the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of banquet week. The storm reached its peak late Friday afternoon and Matt Kenseth and his team prepared to pose with their race car on Park Avenue in front of the Waldorf. At the appointed time the driver, crew, and all the media (me included) walked out into the storm to record the traditional image of the NASCAR Champion and his crew and car in front of the Waldorf on Park Avenue.Wearing my light tuxedo in the blizzard, I might as well have been standing there in shorts and a tee shirt. I would bet that this Park Avenue Champion's shoot was the quickest, and most unusual on record. We quickly shot our photos and everyone dashed back into the warm lobby of the Waldorf. I've always liked the look of the photos from that shoot, with the snow blowing through the pictures, and yesterday, as I watched Jacksonville's Fred Taylor carry the football on a snowy field in Pittsburgh, I thoguth to myself that NFL players aren't the only ones who are called upon to perform their jobs in less that perfect weather.

Tags: photography, NASCAR, snow, New York City