Kayak-ing

Somewhere up Highway 2, Annie and I stumbled on some kayakers on the Skykomish River. Brett, pictured here flying off of some waterfall, was nice enough to take us further up the river.

Skiing With Santa

Awesome time spending a couple hours with Santa the other day at Stevens Pass. If you watch on youtube, you can watch in HD.

Fair photo from the end of summer

Yesterday

An amazing kid

Betsy

synchro

for KIm

Random photo I made for my neighbor after a parade last summer. Too much sun? Maybe.

In case your curious, this bear is the female version of the local minor league hockey team's mascot, a boy bear named Lincoln. I'm not sure what the girl's name is though. Why is she dressed as a princess? Well, this parade was for the strawberry festival, so, obviously, the answer is, I don't know.

today

These were both taken today. Both with the mercury hovering around freezing. Both with frost still clinging to the grass in the shadows. Both guys enjoying their days as they see fit.


"Winter time is the way to go," according to Gino Romero, 62, who did not let the freezing weather keep him from enjoying the sun while waterskiing across Lake Stevens late Friday morning. "We love this sport so much, we can't give it up just because summer ends," said Romero, who dons a dry-suit before plunging into the lake.


Matt Raney laughs as he pulls a Colorado Blue Spruce out of the frozen ground for a customer Friday morning. Raney is selling Christmas trees from his Lake Stevens home as a fundraiser for an upcoming mission trip to Swaziland.

Opening Day

... and a face that keeps on giving.




What a great assignment. Go cover opening day at Stevens Pass. And, as a bonus, a beard like that. And then he takes his goggles off, and he has those eyes! (more photos with article)

recent

... fake fire (link)


... if you're going to drunkenly side-swipe someone, make sure it's not an unmarked State Trooper (link)


... more dogs (link)



... nice story on drop-outs heading back to school (link)


... new bus system


... on the way back from an assignment

Home and Garden

This is a self-portrait. This dog and I felt the exact same way. He, interrupted in his yard by strangers. Me, out on a home and garden about "scenic cover." We had an understanding.

Ref 71

Ref 71 Passes in Washington

too long

I told myself a week ago that I'd try and catch up on the blog by updating at least once a day while Annie was away in Texas. Instead I've found myself, well, not doing so. Instead, I've kept fairly busy at work catching up on some older work, a small part of which is seen above (a part that probably won't get used), and also busy with plenty of daily work.

Hots

... page from a weekly series for our Good Life page featuring folks whose names are Aptonyms - names aptly suited to their jobs. This was Travis Hots, a local fire chief. He was called to an accident scene while I was shooting portraits, so he let me tag along. It's nice to shoot what I'd call a "real" portrait of someone rather than just a portrait portrait.

addendum: big credit goes to the designers who put this page together

today

Lois

I'm trying desperately to catch up on all the blogging I haven't been doing. This is from late May on a Saturday assignment where I had the pleasure of meeting Lois while a team of volunteers installed a ramp from her garage to her back door. Lois was navigating a 6-inch drop from door to garage floor with her walker every time she went through the door.
Upon using the ramp for the first time (bottom photo) 84-year-old Lois exclaimed, ""These are the most wonderful people I've met in my life!" regarding the team who installed the ramp and did yard work around the house.
Lois also told me about her youth growing up in Alaska, and how she learned to play the piano by ear by sneaking through the window of the woman's restroom at the church next door to her childhood home to play the piano when no one was around.

Lois from Mark Mulligan on Vimeo.

I had just gotten my 5D, so I took a little video of Lois playing. The picture at the top of this post came at the end of her performance. It's hard to decide if I should have kept the video going until the end. The chance at a still photo seems to trump video though. Truly an amazing woman.

Mr. Mohawk

Making Mr. Mohawk from Mark Mulligan on Vimeo.

Video I put together a couple weeks ago that was published today with an article about Phil Andruss, a local guy whose a favorite of sports section fronts for his super-fanness.

Article:

This was definitely an experiment for me. Approx. 1000 stills in the piece. Took awhile to figure out how I wanted to put it together. Five-year-old computer with Final Cut Express did not appreciate handling that many files at once. Learned a lot though.

One year ago today

Happy Graduation to all the students of AHLC!
Especially to Zee.

found

12-year-olds with Cameras

12-year-olds with Cameras from Mark Mulligan on Vimeo.

Annie spent the spring working with a group of fifth-graders at Quil Ceda Elementary School learning photography - documenting themselves, their families, their communities and their lives.

On Thursday, June 4, 2009, the kids had an exhibition at the school.

The kids' photos that were displayed in the exhibition are in a slideshow at Annie's new blog.

Analog Girl in a Digital World

So, Annie has a new blog!!! And it just happens to be devoted to FILM.

Yes, that's right. And she's hard at work right now in the other room scanning photos taken by a group of fifth-graders she's been teaching photography to at the elementary school where she works.

The fresh print Annie's holding above was taken by one of the KIDS and is for the EXHIBITION the kids are having on Thursday night. Annie will be printing up twenty seven 11by17 glossy prints. They look great so far. I can't wait to see them all up on Thursday night.

Wow. Kids just take really awesome photos. It blows me away. These kids document the world in a way I could only dream. Truly wonderful.

Erin&Jason

San Francisco, April 25, 2009
http://www.markmulliganphoto.com/wedding/erin&jason.html

Sun peeked out

Greg

Currently at the Poynter Institute doing some learning.

indeed

Flower PHOTOS!

... from a rainy Tulip Festival

Evergreen Speedway

Weirdest "demonstration" ever

... the infamous, nationwide TEA parties ...
They only threw the "tea," a plastic barrel with a rope tied to it, into the water four times, "so the people on the other side could see too"


(related note to this post: because I used the word 'infamous,' I just spent a couple minutes on youtube trying to find the scene in Three Amigos where the amigos get the telegram and try and deduce what 'infamous' means. I love that movie. I couldn't find a concise clip.)

racing homer

Just a grab at a school assignment
Actual Article is definitely worth reading if you're interested in trends in public education.

hysteria?

Photo-ops everywhere! Look! Is that someone wearing a mask? Get them!!!
Showed up (with the rest of the pack of still and video shooters) at the Washington State Department of Health Public Health Laboratories Thursday afternoon where media were told on a press release that they could "watch staff test flu samples to look for signs of swine (H1N1) flu." This was the lab where officials tested 6 samples the day before that were sent off to Atlanta to be confirmed as swine flu.
We split into two groups (still shooters first), and went into the lab where the microbiologist was standing at his work station testing samples. As we started asking questions about what was what, what vile was the flu sample in, etc, it quickly became clear that he wasn't actually testing anything, instead he was performing for us with various tubes full of water, some even tinted ominous, eye-catching colors like red!
Yeah, so, not a real photo at all. It's weird and misleading because, if it's real, that's kind of a scary photo - there would be the stuff that people are freaking out about, right there in front of them in a tube.
Instead, you have a scary visual representation of something that's not truthful. Of course, the newspaper still wants it, so I tried to provide something that did NOT show him working and made it clear in my caption that he was demonstrating for the media.

Mark Mulligan / The Herald
Denny Russell, Lead Microbiologist at the Washington State Department of Health Public Health Laboratory in Shoreline, shows media the bio safety cabinet used in the process to test flu samples. The lab sent six samples tested in the laboratory on Wednesday to be further screened in Atlanta.
Photo taken 043009

Did you know ...

That today is Astronomy Day?! Article here It was 400 years ago that Galileo made the first telescope, or so the good people at the Everett Astronomy Association tell me. I ran out last night to grab something for the paper today. The fact that the sun hadn't set before deadline last night forced me to really work getting one thing. It never actually lined up like I wanted.


I went back at 11 pm with Annie and our neighbor, Kim, to check out the stars for fun. Made me really miss my little, rural home in Virginia where I could walk by starlight and the moon cast long shadows across my room. I'm going to make a point to go outside more and, well, just look up.

eggs