Big Snow

Woke up this morning to about seven inches of snow outside. Since most of my time is spent behind a viewfinder, I had no idea that we were supposed to get that much. Though today was going to be a light day with one evening assignment for me, both of the other photogs were out of commission. So, out goes the intern into the wild. It was actually pretty fun tromping through the snow and chatting with the people (and dogs) that were braving it outside too. I really do enjoy assignments like these, simple pure moments. Nothing too complicated, just neighbors living life while life happens. That's one of the things I love about photography, that it gives you a reason to go out and witness it all. Here are a few outtakes from my feature hunt.

Unguarded

An outtake from a recent shoot with some actors. I think this is the one time they thought I wasn't watching so they broke their poses for just a few moments.

Foreclosure

Sometimes it's good to be a reporter and photographer. Yesterday I had to figure out how to shoot a story on foreclosure. The reporter didn't really know where she would go with the story, and it was slated to run today. After several calls and no leads on photos, I got a little worried once 1:30 rolled around. So I got a list of people whose homes were going to be sold due to foreclosure, and started calling them. I can't describe the awkwardness of cold-calling someone to ask if you can take photos of them in their home they're losing. To say I felt like scum doesn't quite hit it. Finally, after many many calls, I found a woman who was willing to talk to me and the reporter. Success! Not only would I get the photos but our reporter would have something more than an "official response" as well. Mrs. Evans turned out to be a very charming and bright person (as you can see from the photos.) She moved out of her house away from her husband to raise her son on her own. She couldn't make the payments on her new house though, and now it will be sold in mid-March. She hasn't even finished renovating it yet. This is the hard part of the job ... to see someone who is genuinely nice be handed a steaming pile of modern society, with no one around to help them. The best I can do is put a face on the problem, so hopefully people will realize there is one.

Particles

Skylight

State Wrestling Finals: It's over

Three days of photographing wrestling is intense. I have a new respect for sports photographers who do this sort of thing all the time. Straight coverage like that for 8-10 hours a day for three days is more than exhausting. But it was a good learning experience, and I now have thousands of wrestling photos to choose from if I ever need them... Here are some frames from the last day, there were a lot of emotions going around.

State Wrestling Day Two: Up Close

A few of my favorite close shots from the past couple of days. I'll put a link to the online gallery as soon as they post it on the Web site.

State Wrestling Day One: From Above

This is one of the ones I like the best. Note the transition from standing, to wrestling, to injury. I just thought the layering was interesting.

The black in this one comes from a doorway, in case you were wondering.


Spent all day yesterday covering High School State Wrestling down in Columbia for the STJNP. It was crazy, chaotic, smelly at times, and fun in between all of that. I had the chance to spend some time looking for different ways to see the tournament as well. Here are a few of the shots I like from yesterday. Tomorrow I'll post more from a different perspective. You can see a slideshow I put together of the first day's shots HERE

Pillars

An outtake from a shoot I did on the Northwest Missouri State campus a few weeks ago.

71-year-old olympian

A few days ago I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. David Easterla, a professor at Northwest Missouri State University. In addition to being a super-genius on all things nature, he is a senior olympian. After sweeping all the swimming events in several states, he qualified for the national competition at Stanford. I posted one photo of him earlier, here are two more from that take that I liked. HERE is a link to the brief multimedia piece I put together about his swimming.

Tim and Atusa

While I was down in Columbia our good friend and neighbor Tim and his girlfriend Atusa wanted me to take a few photos of them together. We went across the street to the park and I snapped a couple. Here are some of my favorites.

District Wrestling Preview

Here's a gallery of yesterday's wrestling photos. HERE. I'll put a few of my favorites up in a few days. Right now I don't have access to a card reader, so it'll have to wait.

Triple overtime

Last night's game of Lafayette High School vs. LeBlond was pretty intense as far as high school sports goes. They went into triple overtime, with freethrows making the crucial difference between who was on top at the time. Lafayette eventually pulled away and got the win. I was feeling sick still at the game, but was able to get a few frames that worked I think. Here are a couple outtakes from the game.

Preview

Here is a preview of an upcoming story I worked on. I made a small slideshow that I think runs on Sunday. I'll post it and some more selects and more details about the story once it runs.

Barn

Just a simple feature I found while cruising around the other day. Some say the green shouldn't be in the photo, but I like green, so I didn't crop it out with this version.

Glore Psychiatric Museum or... why I'm glad I'm not THAT crazy

Took part of my day off to visit Glore Psychiatric Museum. It was really strange/interesting to see how "normal" people deal with the "crazy" people. Of course, there are those that genuinely need treatment, but some of the things I saw here made me cringe. See the photo with all the writing? That's a huge blanket stitched with the ramblings of a schizophrenic patient. If you look closely you can read some of the things on it. Definitely worth the $2 to visit this place if you get the chance. Humans are much more complicated creatures than we care to realize sometimes.

Foster's, Australian for... that one little place on the corner in St. Joseph

Owner of a local bar that is starting poetry and movie nights.

St. Joseph Polar Bear Plunge 2009

This was a really fun event to go to. It was also extremely challenging, because in one hand I had to carry a huge tripod and video camera, and in the other I had my camera. That meant one-handed stills and a lot of pain in my left arm this morning from toting that stuff around. All in all I had fun and came back with some images. If you want to see more, there is an online gallery at the paper's site HERE.

Getting kids out of my system

OK, so I think these are the last random photos of kids I'm gonna post for a while...I hope so. For some reason I've been in a kid rut with features and have been turning in wayyy too many of them. So, here are some recent ones, for good or ill...and here's to including some adults in more of my features.

GOLF!

Been feature hunting a lot lately. Yesterday was an amazingly beautiful day, so I got sent out to find a warm weather feature. I found some girls from Missouri Western playing golf and followed them around for a while. They were a lot of fun, and seeing as how this was the first time I ever shot golf I think it went OK. The one on top published.

Through the little door

Librarian Will Stuck reads Anansi the spider stories to children at the East Hills Library. The reading is part of the Cabin Fever Family Reading Program sponsored by the library.

When you're tired, find a playground.

Yes, I'm aware that kid features are pretty much the lowest hanging fruit in the photo-j world. But, when you drive three hours back to St. Joseph in the wee hours, only to arrive at work and have to drive another 120 miles to photograph presentations given by high school kids on the same day, you'd probably be seeing the toddler feature as a good option too. I wanted to find a decent feature but didn't have the energy to come up with anything too good. This is an outtake from some photos I took of a dad playing with his daughter and her new electric jeep.

Stephens Lake

Super Science Saturday

Had a lot of fun covering this event on Saturday. In one of the local museums they set up exhibits and interactive activities for the kids to learn about science. Brought me back to the days when I was certain I wanted to be a physicist...guess that didn't really happen.