BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Put together a quick video for a bee keeping story that ran in the features section Thursday. You can watch it on youtube in HD if you like.

Chef Hazel

This is the future album cover for Hazel's CD of cooking-inspired kids songs titled "Chef Hazel's Hootenanny Hits and Other Recipes for the Tiny Cook."

OK. Actually, this was a photograph conceptualized by Annie that was going to be used on a baby shower invitation. This came from Annie's brain, I just pressed the button on the camera. The picture never made it on the invitation though, so here it is.

Thank you Jerry and Jessi for the use of your baby.

Friday Fun

Had a chance to take some portraits on Wednesday for a homecoming story that ran today. Different theme every day. Wednesday's was "Personal Flotation Device." I'd never heard of that one before, but a group of guys brought a canoe, so I won't complain.

Just something fun and a little different. Click for: Photo gallery and article

Up through the atmosphere

I had a really random week at the end of August consisting of extremes of air and water. The week started with a ride in a Zeppelin. Not a blimp, a zeppelin. They were very insistent that a zeppelin is not a blimp.


The view south from the Eureka, one of only two Zeppelins flying anywhere in the world, Monday afternoon over Whidbey Island. The Farmers Airship will be flying sight-seeing trips over Seattle through the weekend from Paine Field in Everett.



A day or so later, with the help of Annie, a Lake Stevens police officer and police boat, a real wide lens, and a FISH TANK, I found myself on Lake Stevens photographing an invasive, underwater weed called milfoil.


Portions of Lake Stevens have been taken over by Eurasian watermilfoil, an invasive aquatic weed that mucks up watercraft motors and interferes with swimming. The weed is now part of at least 136 acres of the roughly 1,100 acre lake, according to Mick Monken, public works director of Lake Stevens.



And finally Friday, which found me getting to hop into a Waco UPF-7 biplane to preview a story about an aviation museum we have here in the county.

And just in the interest of full-disclosure, the image below is actually a panoramic image stitched together from a rapid burst of consecutive frames. We ran it as such in the paper with the explanation below. I'd never really violated the single frame like that before, but when I got up there, I just didn't have a wide-enough lens to capture what it felt like up there between those wings. So I shot a lot of images panning wing-tip to wing-tip with the below picture in mind but also shot a ton of just single shot photos.

Unfortunately a 17mm on a Canon 1D type camera just doesn't show a lot in that situation. I wish I had had the 5D and 14mm that I'd used for the fishtank photo of the milfoil above. Let me know if you have any opinions about that sort of stitching technique. Not something I'll probably do again, but it did capture what I saw, so ... argh.


With the Boeing Factory and Paine Field to the right and the Mukilteo ferry terminal directly behind him, Pilot Carter Teeters flys a Waco UPF-7 biplane south over the Puget Sound Friday afternoon. This panoramic image is composed by merging a series of consecutive pictures shot in a rapid burst while the camera was panned from wing-tip to wing-tip. This Waco UPF-7, which began training pilots in 1941 who would go on to fly in World War II and the Korean War, belongs to the Historic Flight Museum at Paine Field.

Ike

Had to run out on Tuesday and grab a quick photo for our local youtube sensation, Ike Ditzenberger. Ike took the ball 51-yards for his first varsity touchdown Friday night, and the video of the play quickly garnered over a million views as Ike's story made it to some national news outlets.

One of our writers wrote a really nice feature story on Ike with some great photos by Jennifer B. about a year-ago. I felt a little rushed to run out there in half an hour and steal a couple shots like I did. Watch the video though, it's pretty feel good. There's some room for debate, but it's a happy deal.

Train v Truck

Cleaning off my desktop. This happened just down the street from the office last week. No serious injuries, luckily.

EnduroCross

I'm going to make a concerted effort to get caught up and back in the blogging groove.
To start, a quick video that I put together from a CLO (cut lines only) photo for the local section of the paper. The event was described as a "media opportunity" to preview a motocross event, but I happened to be the only media member to show up, and the organizers hadn't even quite finished the track yet.
A rider did show up though, and he was just such a darn nice guy, so I decided to make a little video from the stills and a little audio I collected as we sat in the back of his pickup truck while he put his riding gear on.

I'm starting to develop a little theory about video at newspapers. It's really sort of an all or nothing deal. You either go all out and make a real-deal documentary type piece, or you make something quick and/or throw up some raw footage. I don't think it's worth it to waste time creating something that folks would or could otherwise see on television. The video below is an example of something real quick that I didn't have to take too much away from doing my real job which was getting a photo for the paper (above). Any thoughts?

Dirty Job

Exhibition Tomorrow!!!!

CD Release Show

A couple videos Annie recorded at our CD release show at the Can Can Club in Seattle this week.

Order the CD:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/vincemtztgby2

Southwest by Northwest & Anchor from Mark Mulligan on Vimeo.

Boy and Roberta from Mark Mulligan on Vimeo.

Last Night

In which we watch the Sounders beat the Boca Juniors at Quest Field.

The Sounders third-string jerseys are actually that color - that's not the rave green - that's some sort of glow-stick yellow.

Walking to the train.

Oh, and we ate real good before going - Annie made some eggplant!

PDFs Old and New

I've been meaning to post one of these PDFs for over a year now, so I finally will, beginning with a Sunday story from this week that is definitely worth reading. Good luck, Kyle: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100523/NEWS01/705239903



The article below one several awards last year both for Kaitlin's story and for photography: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090920/NEWS01/709209901





This final story was an end of the year graduation story that we followed up on in May: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090611/NEWS01/706119948

Found

Found these last night when moving. Polaroids from Annie and I's honeymoon trip. Click on the photo to make it bigger.

On the road

... to New Mexico

Surf and Turf

On Friday I found myself photographing fish in the morning and beef and lamb in the afternoon. The story about salmon is actually pretty darn messed up but ultimately will have a happy ending. It's worth checking out: Shock at Fish Killings in Mill Creek


Thousands of dead fish piled onto a walkway where they were dumped.


The science center's caretaker and her son unload a container full of live salmon fry donated to the science center.


The brand new live salmon fry are poured into their new home next to Nickel Creek.

The next story involved grass fed beef raised on a farm near Arlington. The folks who own the farm also raise sheep (for lamb chops not for wool) and these amazing Australian cattle dogs.

Another Video

I made this video last Wednesday during the first day of the state basketball championships to try out the Herald's new camera. I shot two games in the morning and then edited for a couple hours at the Tacoma Dome and uploaded. It was a good little project to see if I could get it all done in a pretty tight amount of time, on my laptop, on site.

My original intent was to shoot as much as I could with a four hundred. I wanted to shoot a bunch of details, do some stuff in a way people had never seen. Tight shots of eyes, hands, faces, sweat, all that good detail stuff shot nice and cinematically, BUT that required a tripod which the people running the tournament WOULDN'T LET ME USE! I was a little mad/letdown/disappointed/mad at first, but I had to get over it and just shoot. So it is what it is.

Thanks to the Lake Stevens band for the tunes (recorded in the stands before the first game).

You should be able to watch in HD.

A video

A very Super 8 Wedding from Mark Mulligan on Vimeo.

Photographed in Super 8
by Joey Castillo and Callie Richmond

Music
composed by Dan Bui and performed by The Groomsmen

Thanks to all of the amazing people we know who just happen to be great friends, family, photographers, musicians, cooks, fireworker shooter-offers, and everything else who made this all happen.

Photographers' websites:
Joe Buglewicz - joebuglewicz.com/
Joey Castillo - joseraulcastillo.com/
Courtney Dudley - courtneydudley.com/
Jordan Gomez - jordangomez.com/
Meridith Kohut - photoshelter.com/c/meridithk
Callie Richmond - callierichmond.com/
Megan Shelby - meganshelby.blogspot.com/
Rob Strong - robstrong.com/weddings/
Ben Sklar - bensklar.com/

Today

Inspired by Rob

Chasing Rainbows

Annie and I were on our way out the door when we saw a rainbow arching across Everett on Saturday. A chase ensued:


Rainbow Chasing - Images by Chiron Photos

for Annie

a Bronco at work

Too late for Halloween?