HONOLULU - When Boise State plays four time-zones to the west, it presents a unique challenge challenge in getting photos back to Boise in time to make printing-press deadlines. On Saturday I had until 10:30 to make the first deadline. That’s less than an hour-and-a-half to shoot, download, edit, and transmit all the photos the paper needs (around 10) for Sunday’s edition.

My high school journalism adviser and photography teacher had a saying: “the more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war.” That certainly holds true in situations such as these – it’s what you do in preparations that determines your success in crunch-time.

I did plenty of “sweating in peace” before the game, and not just because of the warm, humid Honolulu weather:

• Brian Murphy and Chadd Cripe and I left our hotel for Aloha Stadium three hours before the game. Thanks to traffic and a parking experience that was as bad as a root canal, we needed that time.

• Once at the stadium I needed to find a place to edit and transmit. I knew from being there before that there wasn’t really an area for photographers. Most congregated in a dugout off the south-endzone. I pulled up a chair next to a wall outlet in the corner of the dugout and locked my laptop to that chair (pictured). Several years ago a photographer had all his gear stolen from that dugout during the Hawaii Bowl. I wasn’t taking any chances.

• I was told that the wireless network on field-level didn’t work very well. Thankfully, I brought a wireless broadband card.

• From looking up players names and positions on the roster to double-checking the spelling of “ Kaiserman,” writing captions is one of the most time-consming parts of our work-flow. To expedite this, I download a text roster for each team. I load these rosters into Photo Mechanic, the program we use to edit our photos. This allows me to use short codes for player names and positions. For instance, when I type in “\tpb4\” Photo Mechanic recognizes that as a request for the team (t) and position (p) of Boise’s (b) number four. Referencing the pre-loaded rosters, the program turns that code into “Boise State wide receiver Titus Young.” Over dozens of photos, this is a huge time savings.

• I can’t forget to take care of myself: A healthy pre-game meal and a bottle of water prevents me from crashing during the next 6+ hours. Knowing how hot and humid it gets on the field, I put two more bottles of water in my bag for half-time and post-game.

• I leave the clock on my laptop set to mountain time so there is no confusion about what time it is back home.

At 10:05 mountain time I have the first-quarter and a few minutes of the second quarter under my belt. It’s time to head into that dugout and start editing photos. By 10:15, I’ve downloaded edited through about 250 photos and selected 13 keepers. Of those, I mark 10 to send back to the paper.

Thanks to my pre-loaded rosters, those 10 were captioned and ready to go at 10:25. I connect to the internet and ship them back to the paper to be laid out on the page right at 10:30. I send a text message to Statesman assistant sports editor John Shifflett to let him know they are in.

A downfall to this is I missed most of the second-quarter. By the time I made it back out to the field, there was about three minutes left in the second quarter and the Broncos had put up 7 more points, pulling away from the Warriors 24-0.

My next deadline is 11:30, when I have an opportunity to swap some earlier photos out on the page for better photos I shot since the first deadline. I send Shifflett five more photos and advise him over text message that he’s got some new ones. We converse about what photos should be played where in the sports section. Ultimately I leave those decisions up to him, his judgement is solid and mine is clouded with emotional connections to my own pictures.

While by that time the deadline has past for the newspaper, I continue shooting for the web photo gallery and any future needs of the newspaper. In a blow-out like the Hawaii game, late-game action is often meaningless. So my focus shifts to the stands and the side-lines to see if I can’t find a few interesting pictures there.

When it’s all over, I have 27 photos in our on-line photo gallery and however many Shifflett was able to get into the paper. I finish up around 4am MDT, or so it says on my computer.