Shot a few pictures of the kids for our Christmas cards…
I didn’t just come out with some lighting practice and a couple cute photos, but a respect for photographers that specialize in children’s portraits. I have no idea how people do this all the time.
I think I’ll stick with the editorial and sports assignments…
I only covered one Illinois football game against Penn State University back in 2009… looks like I won’t be getting another chance to photograph Joe Paterno.
Oh well.
These two men might have polar opposite personalities, but they both have some great advice to give.
“Go where no one else wants to be, stick it out and see what happens.”
Tyler Hicks, staff photographer at the New York Times, during his speech to graduates of Boston University’s College of Communication.
“Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen.”
Conan O’Brien, during his speech to graduates at Dartmouth College.
I have a few Google News alerts programmed to let me know when my name appears on news websites around the world. It’s neat to see where images run and it’s a lot easier than looking through every single article on major sites every day.
This picture of then Senator Roland Burris that I took in Decatur a couple years ago just ran with an article in the Christian Science Monitor about the US Supreme Court and Illinois’ senate vacancy procedure.
Sometimes I wish my name was a little more unique… I get quite a few results for Stephen Haas the distance runner, Stephen Haas the Chicago real estate agent and Stephen Haas on a middle-school honor roll in Minnesota.
When I heard that Steve Bean, the Macon county clerk, was opening his doors at midnight for couples to get their civil union licenses I knew I wanted to photograph it… it’s not every day that history happens 30 minutes away from your house.
Bean said that, as far as he knew, he was the only county open at midnight… so Nancy Ryherd and Linda Schroeder weren’t just the first couple to fill out their civil union license in Macon county, but the whole state of Illinois.
There weren’t many people there, and there wasn’t a lot of hoopla… just a few couples filling out paperwork that gives them some of the same rights that married couples have.
More photos (here)
I covered the IHSA Girls Track and Field State Finals at Eastern Illinois University’s O’Brien Stadium last weekend for a freelance assignment. When I was working at the Herald & Review I had to photograph almost every event to cover all of our local athletes. This weekend was a little more relaxed for me.
My main job was to cover Breese Central’s Jena Hemann as she attempted to win four gold medals. Again.
This girl is a machine. She won all four of her events last year. She won the high jump four years in a row. She set the long jump state record with her first jump on Saturday. She led in team points for most of the day (she ended up getting her school a fourth place team trophy by herself). She won first place in the high jump, triple jump, long jump and the 100-meter dash.
The only complaint I have about her is that she is too good. She pretty much won every event on her first try, which means I had to get it right on the first try. It was a fun challenge.
I spent the rest of the day shooting things for fun to keep myself from getting bored in between my “must-shoot” events. I feel like I should have pushed myself a little harder, but the stress fracture in my foot was killing me… hopefully I’ll be a little more mobile this weekend for the boys meet. (more…)
Everybody is posting their “best of” posts full of awesome photos, so I thought I’d share some of my own. I’m not sure if they are my best, but they’re my favorite from 2010.
My shift was always loaded with sports but I snuck a few news/feature frames in too… here are my 20 selects from last year (in chronological order). (more…)
I’ve always wanted to go to Hardy’s Reindeer Ranch in Rantoul, so I quickly put my name in the system when I saw an assignment for a story there. I wish I could have been there during the field trip that the story is about, but I made do with what I had to work with.
The guy in the photograph, Ryan, has one of the most random careers ever… he works with reindeer during the winter and flies skydiving planes the rest of the year. He was also one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.
I took my son to see goats at the Scovill Zoo in Decatur earlier this year and he liked it for about 30 seconds… I t hink I’ll wait a couple more years before we go visit the reindeer ranch.
I photographed a few local high school athletes for some of the fall player of the year awards… Maroa-Forsyth’s Gary Scott was the Macon County football player of the year, LSA’s Morganne Criswell was the Macon County volleyball player of the year (for the third time) and Warrensburg-Latham’s Drew Dunn was the soccer player of the year.
Two of our local teams made it to the IHSA state football tournament this year, so I got to freeze my butt off shooting Tuscola in the 1A game and Maroa-Forsyth in the 2A. Both teams dominated all year long, but lost by big margins in the final games.
It was the coldest game of the season and the winds circling through the stadium made it feel even colder than it already was. The players (and coaches, officials, cheerleaders, event staff and photographers) huddled around kerosene heaters to sneak in a few seconds of warmth.
