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as the emergency personnel searched for the accident victim, i moved in closer.  i was wearing my fluorescent press vest and in clear sight.  standing in an open field i was way out of the way.  as my hands started to freeze the workers found the body.

hoping for a happy photo of someone being rescued, i kept shooting only to be run off the scene by a few firefighters and to be saddened that the victim didn’t make it.  i of course did not use a photograph of the body being moved, but caught daggers from the eyes of the people on the scene for taking them.  not many people understand why we photograph scenes like this.  it’s a rough part of the job and makes me feel like a vulture.  in this instance the point is to show other people that accidents like this do happen and to be more careful in the future.  hopefully preventing accidents like this from happening in the future.  here’s the story.

if you know me well you know that i’m an eagle scout.  i grew up with scouting which was a tremendous way to spend time with my family and learn some pretty cool stuff.  pine wood derbies and rain gutter regattas were always a highlight to the scouting year and i was asked to go and shoot one tonight.  actually i needed a last minute photo page subject and snagged this assignment up.  in any case, it brought back some old memories from my childhood and was just an all around good time to shoot.

there was another similar event to this that we did one year. i don’t remember what it was called, but you basically built a car out of a cardboard box, put it on and had a foot race.  well my dad took this to the extreme and built an all out indy car (out of cardboard) complete with sponsor stickers, racing stripes and a red paint job.  showing up to see my pathetic competition holding up old soggy boxes with a number painted on the side i wasn’t sure i was going to win, but i did know that i was the coolest kid there.

back to the pine wood derby though.  some things never change and one of those things is dads getting really involved in ‘helping’ with their son’s cars.  one was a replica of the general lee car from dukes of hazzard.  quite a feat for an eight year old.

while shooting i couldn’t seem to get away from the checkered flags they had there.  hell, what say’s racing like a checkered flag?

more shots…

thanks to help from a lot of people i was able to pull it off and actually book two weddings right there on the spot. i was really hoping to book at least one so two is even better. plus i’ve got a whole list of leads that sound very promising.

the weirdest part about the whole deal was that the night before i had a dream that i was directly across from the small food stand in the mall. when i got there and found my spot i was only one door down. (between the gnc fitness store and walden books)

the display was compliments of our good friend Diedre at cwi displays. if you ever need a display for anything go to them. they are good people and do excellent work that you can trust to work the way you want it to.

jill’s dad, my father-in-law, helped out huge too by building me three 8×12 frames that i couldn’t find anywhere. the frames turned out really great and i’m glad i was able to hang up that weird sized photo.

my dad, my father father, was instrumental in arranging the display the exact way i wanted it and helping me plan out some additions we made to it. the display is a steel grid and we wanted to soften the look of it up by adding a shelf to the top and a wooden table connected to the front. the shelf i think helped people imaging what my photos might look like hanging up in their house and the table gave me some where to lay some papers and my business card.
along with the photos hanging on the grid and propped up on the shelves, i set up our new flat screen tv on a table playing a slide show from my laptop. i really wanted to connect my iPhone to the tv, but cheaped out on buying the cord that is needed. anyway, things worked out nicely. here are some photos that jill’s mom cathy took when they stopped by for a visit.

Canon EOS 5D 1/500 @ f/4.0 iso: 200

this afternoon one of our reporters asked me to go to a sex club with him in zyke’s corner near neoga, illinios. usually i would say no to a request like this on a weekday, but i was feeling a bit frisky. we needed photos for a story he was working on about what is actually a gentleman’s club that the city is trying to run out of town. why he refereed to it as a sex club, i’m not sure. the building is an abandoned school house and i was told to get photos of a school bus near the building that was allegedly being used for having sex parties. heading out to the assignment i had no idea how far off the road the school or bus was and i was warned to not step foot on the property. here’s the story.

Nikon D2H 1/250 @ f/4.0 iso: 400

so i wanted to be prepared with a long lens if i needed it. (for the photographs, not the sex club). the best i’ve got is a 70-200, but was able to borrow a nikon d2 (which is a p.o.s. camera) and a 300mm lens with a 1.4 x extender. combine that with the magnification in the camera and i’m working with a pretty hefty telephoto. this came in handy for a photo i’ve been wanting to make of trees in the recent fog. in order to achieve what i’ve been seeing i needed the extra long focal length to compact the space between the camera and the tree. add in some snow and voila, you get the photos i’ve posted below. nothing really special, but it’s something i’ve been wanting to get lately and haven’t been able to with the equipment i have.

Nikon D2H 1/640 @ f/4.0 iso: 400

although it was way more than i needed since the school house/strip club is just off the road, i’m glad i got to get a handle on a nikon again. i haven’t picked one up in a while and it’s just good to know how to do stuff. plus it made me appreciate my old canon 5d a lot more.

Nikon D2H 1/640 @ f/4.0 iso: 400

despite the snow i could have worked a scene like this for hours. those black blobs are actually birds flying around the corn field i was parked next too.

Nikon D2H 1/640 @ f/4.0 iso: 400

instead, as they often are on assignment, i was disappointed by a weak showing.  one in every three were decked out in pink which didn’t make for the dramatic and colorful background i was looking for.  here’s a few anyway:

watching a little of the seventh grade basketball game made me want to get in there and re-live my glory days.  i don’t mean go back in time and play in the seventh grade again.  i mean play the seventh graders as a grown man and own shit.  that would be awesome until i realized that i can’t shoot worth a damn and handle the ball like i have bricks for hands.

So I had to follow up on a dntiat appoinment today to prep for some crowns that I have to get put on because of a few riot canals I had done.
It’s a real pain in the ass and expensive as hell, but it beats dentures.
You might be wondering why I took photos while under the drill. Well I figured I’m paying for the work. If I want to snap a few photos so be it.

a locally owned and operated pizza place burned last week. the community came together and held a spaghetti dinner hosted by the knights of columbus to help raise money for the displaced workers.

it’s really great to see my community come together to help each other out, but i wish that we could have a similar turn out to help after disasters like the recent one in haiti.

click here to watch the video i put together.

this was a pretty standard elementary school assignment.  kids and their parents having fun.  for me though it marked a mini milestone in shooting.  i didn’t get anything great out of it, but when taking this next photo i was able to do something i haven’t been able to yet.

after attending geekfest this year and listening to sam abell talk about micro-composition and looking for the moment within the moment i have been trying to implement the techniques into my shooting whenever i can. thus far it has been forced and hasn’t come together. this one didn’t come together, but what was good for me is that the thought came about without me reminding myself to do it.

okay, that sounds confusing so i’ll try to extrapolate. in this photo below by sam, he explained to us that the only thing in the frame that he was really looking at was the red bucket. knowing that everything else was in place, he was waiting for it to complete the story and to come into the right part of the frame.

in my photo from the school, i did the same thing with the old woman’s hand (which coincidentally is in a similar position as the red bucket). as i said the frame didn’t come together, but what is important for me is that i was able to look for the moment within the moment without really thinking about it. i photography 101 we learn to place our subject onto a third of the frame. this comes as second nature to me now. i just hope that micro-composing, seeing the moment within the moment and internal framing will do so as i develop as a photographer. then i’d be set. for now i’ll use what i’ve got.

the old blog has been getting dusty and so i thought a good way to jump start my postings would be to post every time i go and shoot something. (no matter how boring it is or how poorly i shot) being the online guy at the jg, i don’t get out much, but if there’s a fire after 5PM i’m usually on it.

here are a few frames from a fire at a mobile home near lakeland college here in mattoon. the tenant was at a church meeting so he wasn’t harmed, but the place was completely totalled. i feel like a vulture shooting at such a tough time in people’s lives, but that’s part of the job.