"Make Magnum your home page and learn everyday from the top of the profession. Remember you are never there, so don’t get a chip on your shoulder. Remember there always is another level and keep working towards getting to that level. Always respect the subjects you are photographing and remember it is not about you! Always be humble, there is a photo God! Never stage a photo. Never plagiarize. Arrive early and stay late. You have to wake up every morning and want to take a great picture. Don’t ever get drunk before a big shoot…which could be tomorrow…work on developing a unique eye because this is the single most important thing that will set you aside from the rest. If you do all the above you have a 1% chance in making a name for yourself in what truly is the most amazing profession of all! Good luck!"

- Tim Clayton, Sydney Morning Herald
from an interview found here

Happy Birthday

It snowed last night. We went sledding.

Flying Toasters

Remember that screen saver? This picture reminded me of that for some reason.




So, yeah, I spent Thanksgiving morning hunting for geese hunters. I realized that hunting for geese (or most of anything) is a lot like photography; lots of waiting and the true pleasure comes in that waiting and enjoying being in the present, not worrying so much about the outcome (of course, I should probably worry about the outcome a little more sometimes). Yeah, so I could totally be down with hunting, well, except for the killing part, which I hear is intergral, so maybe I'll just stick with photography.

Rain Feature

A rain feature from earlier in the week of the post below. The rain was coming, so the paper wanted something rainy.

I feel like I'm abysmal at finding features. I'm not good at finding those cool graphic images, so I went cruising, trying to beat the setting sun, looking for some life in the rain that wasn't an umbrella walking by a wall (I'm not knocking those type of rain-features, just saying that I'm not talented enough to pull them off).

When I saw these kids who'd just gotten off of the bus, I almost forgot to turn my car off, I jumped out of it so quick. They were standing in some puddles, just kicking water in each others faces. I took a couple frames with a long lens, but they stopped pretty soon and we got to talking. That's when I made this frame of their dirty, wet faces. I just thought they were funny.

When this ran, one of the writers at the paper described these kids as "chuckleheads." The picture seemed to resonate with people and actually work, people related to it, saw themselves or their own kids. I know I saw a bit of myself.

It's funny that photos like that, which I don't really like that much at all, in fact, I almost didn't even turn it in, end up being the photos like most of all. When I look at it, I wish I'd had a 35f1.4 so it was super clean in the background, super sharp on their faces, but yeah, I don't have that, and it turns out it doesn't matter so much.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. Anyway, here's one more that didn't even get turned in. These young, middle school couple was waiting at the bus stop for the boy's little brother, doing a little smooching. There the little boy is, well, being a little boy, tapping them on the shoulder and running away.


ps Wow, when I upload to blogger, color and saturation just go all over the place! I don't know why I can't get consistent results. Why can't it all look like it does in photo mechanic?!

Shooting video

There was a week last month where I shot a couple videos. I'm struggling right now to figure out how video fits into the daily news hole, so last month when there was some flooding going on in the county, Justin suggested I toss the video camera in my bag.

My shift was in the late afternoon and evening, the other photogs had already shot everything needed flood-wise for the paper the next day, so I was basically just cruising for spot news or something especially interesting.



As I shot feature-flood photos, I would shoot a few seconds of video, but wasn't finding any sort of narrative. After finding a red cross shelter in Monroe empty, I was about to call it a night, but then found myself on the highway, pulling a u-turn and heading further out to Sultan to another Red Cross shelter. As I got into town and was looking for the shelter, I saw the fire trucks go by and decided to follow them (yes, I'm turning into an ambulance chaser).

Turned out they were going to the shelter, so this video is the result:

THE VIDEO

Turned into a half spot-news, half public service announcement. The way I look at little videos like this, they serve to just augment the daily coverage already in the paper. It would be pointless to simply repeat what's already written in an article or already shown more concisely in a well-shot news photo.

For the sake of discussion, do y'all have any opinions on how video can, could, or should fit in at a daily newspaper?

Oh, and there are a few photos at the end of the video in an attempt to explain the clicking you hear at one point in the video as the ambulance doors are closing. It's funny, even while shooting video, I just love still photos so much that I can't resist, so I was shooting the video blind with my left hand and shooting my still camera with my right.

Peter Pan

These are a couple photos and a link to a video Annie and I worked on for the newspaper. Nothing too amazing, but I think it made a nice addition to the article and the photos in the paper. Basically, the kids at Arlington High School were performing Peter Pan, and they had this cool rig to actually do some flying.

Annie shot the video, I shot stills and then spent some time at work editing the video. It's sooo so helpful to tag team it like that.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO


These are a couple photos and a link to a video Annie and I worked on for the newspaper. Nothing too amazing, but I think it made a nice addition to the article and the photos in the paper. Basically, the kids at Arlington High School were performing Peter Pan, and they had this cool rig to actually do some flying.

Annie shot the video, I shot stills and then spent some time at work editing the video. It's sooo so helpful to tag team it like that.

There are more photos at the end of the video.

Driving Home

It's starting to get dark so early here, so if the sun breaks through the clouds, it really does so around 3:30 or so and sends out this unbelievable light. I've honestly felt like I've been in a slump for the last month or so, and I'm working on shooting my way out of it. I think one of the keys to that is picking up the camera more between assignments and just doing it for the pure joy of it. Hopefully they'll be more examples of that too come. Updating the blog may be another way out of the slump, so ...

This is the portrait I was coming back from shooting. The mother was instrumental in saving the daughter's life after she had an accidental reaction to prescription drugs.