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Fire photos without fire are challenging… I’ve been to several fire scenes in my time as a photojournalist, but haven’t seen any flames since I started at the Herald & Review almost four years ago. I’m not sure if it’s the fact we don’t have a working scanner in the photo room or the local fire departments are super-speedy.
I know it sounds bad — complaining about a bad photo when these people just lost everything. I don’t wish bad things on anyone, but they happen and part of my job is taking photos when they do. In a perfect world, every fire call on the scanner would be in an abandoned house and every wreck would be freak accidents with runaway empty vehicles and nobody would ever get hurt.
Photos without flames from a fire scene are like photos of an empty podium from a press conference with a caption that says “So-and-so spoke at this podium earlier in the day and blah blah blah.”
This latest shot is from a house fire that destroyed everything but the chimney…
Nov 22, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: assignment, herald and review, mount zion, scanner, spot news | Leave A Comment »
Somebody drove their car into a 16-inch deep patch of fresh cement in a construction zone a block away from our office last week… sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve shot something like this in the past few months. I don’t understand how someone can not pay attention to all the barricades, workers and that huge patch of wet cement.
Nov 03, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: assignment, cement, decatur, herald and review, scanner | Leave A Comment »
Election is always a challenge because it’s a lot of waiting around in poorly-lit rooms. I spent most of my night at Lock Stock & Barrel following Republican candidate Adam Brown around while waiting for the results in his race for the 101st House District. I got some OK shots of him checking the numbers and talking with people but finally got a hint of emotion when his opponent called to concede about two minutes before my deadline… whew.
TV cameras can be a real pain… but sometimes they make me happy.
The worst part of election night is hanging out in a bar and having to turn down drinks all night because I’m on the clock.
It might not be as fancy as CNN’s Election Express, but my mobile office has heated leather seats and XM Radio.
Nov 03, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: assignment, decatur, election, election night, herald and review, newspaper, politicians, politics | Leave A Comment »
I shot my first volleyball match of the season tonight at Argenta-Oreana High School. I always forget how loud high school volleyball girls are… the shrieking noise that their lungs pump out is louder than a dozen Sun Chips bags. You’d think I would learn.
The lighting was weird tonight. Everything was nice and even at the beginning of the match, but towards the end everything started to shift colors and brightness. I’ve seen gym lights do that before, but usually it’s all the time and not gradually getting worse. Who knows…
Not a bad night for being rusty… I get to shoot my first-ever cross country meet tomorrow. Don’t know how I’ve gotten out of that in my time at the newspaper.
Aug 30, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: argenta-oreana, atwood-hammond, high school, newspaper, prep, sports, volleyball | Leave A Comment »
The weather around here has been hot and dry, so the farmers are getting ready for an early harvest. I had an assignment for the newspaper to take pictures of a local farmer making preparations to harvest his crops.
I don’t know much about farming, so I’m thankful that David, the farmer I was sent to photograph, was friendly and gave me a crash course on harvesting feed corn.
David made adjustments to the corn head and inspected the augers inside his combine while I was there. He also showed me how he tests the moisture levels of the corn.
I almost sounded like a farm boy there, didn’t I?
Aug 30, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: agriculture, decatur, farm, herald and review, newspaper | Leave A Comment »
Last week I had an assignment to shoot a water aerobics class at the Decatur Athletic Club for a health story. Usually these are indoors in crappy light, so I grumbled about it for a little bit. I changed my tune a little bit when I realized that it was in an outdoor pool… nothing like getting paid to work on my tan for an hour.
This was my first assignment after coming back from a long weekend trip at Lake of the Ozarks, so it was kind of frustrating to watch a bunch of people swimming and not be able to get in the water myself. Oh well…
Aug 30, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: decatur, health, herald and review, newspaper, pool, water aerobics | Leave A Comment »
Tonight was the season-opener for area high school football and I got to shoot a good game between Central A&M and Unity. The weather was fantastic. The light was nice. It was a good way to start the year off.
I had some frustrating computer problems while transmitting from the sidelines, but hopefully I can smooth those wrinkles out before next week’s game.
My company-provided laptop is a power hog and the battery usually dies right in the middle of transmitting. Tonight was no exception. I bought a power inverter for my car and it works great for charging camera batteries, but every time I plug the computer in the car’s fuses blow.
Apparently my car uses mini-fuses for the cigarette lighters and they can’t handle the load. I’m hoping to have the inverter wired straight to my car battery this week, which should fix the problem (fingers crossed).
There are more photos in a gallery over on the newspaper’s site.
Aug 28, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: central a&m, football, high school, newspaper, prep, tolono, unity | Leave A Comment »
I met Ryan and Maranda at Allerton Park for a nice morning of engagement photos… It turned out to be a great shoot. Great couple at an awesome park with moderately cooperative weather. The day was even better after Maranda gave me a plate of cookies.
Here are a couple frames that I liked before I was distracted by cookies.
Aug 23, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: allerton park, engagement, freelance, monticello, portrait, ryan and maranda, wedding | Leave A Comment »
I shot an assignment at Scovill Zoo in Decatur earlier this week that I’m really excited to share, but it hasn’t run yet… so instead I give you a picture of Galapagos Tortoises wrestling with each other. I’m not an animal expert, but that’s what I heard a mother tell her child they were doing.
Aug 06, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: animal, decatur, herald and review, newspaper, scovill zoo, tortoises, zoo | Leave A Comment »
I hate assignments that make me feel like an old man. Mother Nature reminds me about it every day, I don’t need any more reminders. Recently, I had an assignment to photograph teenagers hanging out at Sportsman’s Park in Decatur. Several years ago the cool thing to do in town was drive up and down Eldorado street. Now everybody meets up in a park or parking lot to hang out with their friends.
Teenagers girls = drama. Always. I had a girl get very upset about the fact that I was there taking pictures. Apparently she would get in big trouble if her dad knew where she was. I told her that I wouldn’t focus directly on her if she didn’t want me to, but I couldn’t help it if she was in the background of a photo. After using a few profanities and telling me I had no right to take pictures in a public park she left in tears. Moments like that make me very glad that I have a son.
Aug 03, 2010 | Categories: Blog | Tags: decatur, hangout, herald and review, newspaper, park, teen | Leave A Comment »
