Cropreality's Blog

Packing up and moving on

2008-09-30T16:03:00.001-05:00

Blog has moved to Wordpress.com. Check it out there at www.cropreality.com.

Where do they get all those balls?

2008-09-15T22:51:00.003-05:00

So I shot tennis for the second time today. The one thing that has continued to amaze me over and over again is that they continue to pull ball after ball out of their shorts. Some girls have special shorts that hide their balls (no puns intended).

I think tennis one of my favorite new sports to shoot. Not because of the action or the intensity and it certainly isn't the backgrounds. It's the faces. I have so many shots of terrible looking faces. I feel bad for the girls, but it's so funny at the same time. I should submit some of them to youhavedumbface.com

I also got this shot of the ball directly in front of the girls' face. Nothing else too exciting for today, just thought I'd share my random thoughts.

Oh and for all you EIU alum, Billy's back. If you didn't know, about five or six years ago Billy Panther was replaced by Prowler. Well Billy didn't go away for good according to the DEN Web site.

Separation anxiety

2008-09-14T08:08:00.002-05:00

So after one day and one night with Addison, this is what I've found. She's very needy, almost like a baby. You might say, "well, yeah! Duh. What did you really expect?"

No, I don't think you really understand. I can't be in a different room than her for more than 10 minutes without her whining and barking. Until I left her in the garage for a few minutes yesterday, I hadn't really heard her bark or howl. That's all she does when I'm not five feet from her. It got so bad that we had to lock Gizmo in my sister's room and lock Addi in my room to sleep for the night.

As soon as we put her in my room, she laid on the floor and went right to sleep. I did a little research on it and found out she has separation anxiety. It usually stems from a long stay in a kennel, which I would have to say is the case here.

I don't think there is going to be a real good way of combating it until we get into our house in the following week. She's going to have to stay with Chris until we can take her there. I just hope she doesn't get him evicted in the meantime.

I also learned she's pretty smart. After about 25 minutes of working with her I've already taught her two commands. She already knew how to "sit." So I worked from there. I taught her how to "stay" and "come."

Everytime she wouldn't stay, she wouldn't get a treat. Everytime she waited for me to say the words "come" she would get one. It didn't take long for her to catch on. I'm hoping to add more commands as we go, but I don't want to rush her too much. Especially because she'll be going back and forth between Chris and us.

Thank God she's already house trained too. She slept all night right next to my bed, woke up in the morning and whined a little to go outside. I knew she had to go to the bathroom too because I could smell it. She's got a little bit of a gas problem. As long as the gas doesn't turn to anything else, we'll be just fine though.

Introducing Addison Williams

2008-09-13T23:07:00.003-05:00

Meet Addison. Steph and I have a dog for all intents and purposes. Long story short, we adopted her from her cousin Chris, who adopted her from the Winnebago County Animal Services.

We couldn't resist when we met her. She is probably one of the most trusting dogs I've ever met. She hasn't growled at anyone so far. She does bark when someone enters the room and then immediately runs up to see who it is. She follows that with a wagging tail and sometimes a jump up for a kiss.

It's definitely no boxer, but I'm happy. She gets along with other dogs, but Gizmo, my parents dog doesn't like her. In fairness, Gizmo doesn't like any dogs.

We're actually not sure what kind of a dog she is. We were told part lab, part retriever and part boxer. One things for sure though, she's 100 percent crotch sniffer.

She is quite possibly the neediest dog I've ever seen. I can't leave her side farther than five feet and she has to follow or begins to whine and howl. Kind of nice to feel wanted, but I can see that getting old pretty quick.

As I get more photos I'll post them here.

Case of the Mondays on Thursday

2008-09-11T17:54:00.003-05:00

Today seemed like such a frustrating day for me. I'm trying to remain as positive as I possibly can about my situation (trying to start a business, buy a house and live happily ever after), but every doorway seems to keep shutting.

I'm not 100 percent sure what my deal is, but nothing seemed to pan out. I'm in a position where I feel I know more about photography than ever before, but no outlet to use it. I'm learning a lot about lighting right now. I'm starting to gain a grasp on what I think is an acceptable level of knowledge, but what good does it do if I'm sitting around taking pictures of cookbooks?

I've always said that one thing somebody can never take away from you is knowledge, but it becomes discouraging with no room to share it.

I tried to contact churches today about doing church directories. It seemed like a good avenue to take. Three people have mentioned doing them to me in the past 2 weeks and I even received an email about creating church directories from one of my printing companies. What more of a sign could you ask for? In the end, the best I got was a "I'd say we're luke warm about interest in one."

Several of the churches said they had just printed one and others said they wouldn't be doing one for two or three years from now.

Then I tried to get my oil changed. One place in town advertised a $14.99. I thought what the heck, I can't even do it that cheap myself. Tried to get...no luck. You have to make an appointment a day ahead of time. I really needed it changed. I can't predict my day tomorrow, so I had to take it to the SuperLube across the road. Oh, and guess what...it cost $33.98 there.

I came home discouraged and feeling very apathetic. I'm headed up to work on a photo story I've started. Hopefully that pans out a little better.

I'm trying to keep my head up, but today was just a harder than usual one.

Back home

2008-09-10T21:37:00.004-05:00

I'm back from Charleston. I think I need a bumper sticker that says something like "I went back to college and survived!"

I'm pretty wore out. I didn't party too hard, but staying out until 2 a.m. drinking with the guys isn't what it used to be. Well, I take that back, it's still what it used to be, but the next day certainly isn't. I drove home about as fast as I possibly could so I could lay down. I really miss being around the guys, but I don't miss the hangovers.

All in all, it was a good trip. I shot the Alpha Phi bid day photos, gave them their disc. I'm hoping they're going to order a book from me. I'd like to make the book a part of their every year order so they could continue to have one on display for all the girls. I'd like to pick up a few more houses next year, but I'll need one or two reliable freelancers to go with me.

If you're interested, I'll update my other blog with photo and shooting details in my other blog.

On the road again

2008-09-09T07:38:00.003-05:00

It seems like I've been on the road a lot lately. Last weekend I was in Chicago, this past weekend, I went to the Northwest Suburbs and today I'm headed to Charleston.

I can't really complain a lot about it. Even though some of it was for work it usually turns into pleasure. Today I'm going to shoot Alpha Phi rush down at EIU. If that wasn't enough, I get to hangout with the guys at EIU.

I didn't get to make it down there for the first week of school this year, so this is my first trip of the year. I'm going to try and stop by the old office today to see everyone. I think I'm actually supposed to be down there for a golf tournament in two weeks as well, so it looks like the traveling has just begun.

Oh, and I shot volleyball last night, so check out my other blog.

2008-09-06T13:08:00.002-05:00

I shot football again last night. I've apparently become recognizable. Well, among the skater kids at least. One of the guys that was skating when I took photos on Wednesday saw me and yelled out my name. I thought it was a little strange that anyone would know my name and then I recognized him.

His exact words, "Those skating photos were sick!" It made me feel really good. I can't wait to get back down and shoot some more. Hopefully they tell their friends and parents about them to create a buzz.

Feelin' young again

2008-09-03T19:26:00.005-05:00

I've been spending a lot of time at the skate park lately. It's kind of nice to get out and get some skating in. I've probably been out more in the past week than I have in the past 4 years.
After a few days of hanging out and getting used to the park, I finally busted the camera out. If you want to see the other photos, click here.
Oh, and thanks to David Herrera for ~~being my model~~ letting me shoot photos while he was skating.
And thank for all the other solid dudes for letting me interrupt their sessions by taking up space with my equipment. Hopefully I'll get to shoot some more in the next few days.
Check out my other blog for lighting details.

Me and the giant Indian

2008-09-02T22:12:00.004-05:00

Nothing much today. Went to Oregon (the town, not the state) to get my substitute teachers certification. Technically it was in Grand Detour, but I had to go to Oregon for my finger prints. When I got there, they told me they couldn't do it because the prisoners were out and it was a security issue. So instead of thinking it was a wasted trip I decided to spend a few minutes at the park. Only like 15, but I've always seen the giant statue of an Indian next to the Rock River, but never stopped.

I shot a few series of photos bracketed to put together an HDR photo, but I'm not good enough using the technique yet to show off that photo. Though I actually like the shot I took. I'll post it when I get it done and tell you what I did to it. That'll probably be saved for the other blog though.

I'm sure my buddy Bob would really appreciate this photo. He always has some good smart ass comment about me being Indian.

I actually learned a little history in the 15 minutes I was there. Makes a different when you actually WANT to read those signs in a park.

I also learned how to get that wierd surrealistic look. I'll post on the other blog exactly what I did to this photo. I still have some tweaking to do, but for my first photo like this I'm pleased.

Separating blogs

2008-09-01T22:25:00.003-05:00

I updated my other blog with a freelancing workflow. It's a little long winded. As said before, I said I'm going to try and keep this as my personal blog and the other as my photo blog.

I'll update a little more tomorrow. Oh, and if you haven't check out Musictopia in a while, and I'm sure you haven't, check it out to see the review of a new band I found, White Lies. I'm loving their music right now.

Week 1 in the bag

2008-08-30T13:44:00.006-05:00

I shot football for the Rochelle News-Leader last night. It's been about 8 or 9 months since I last shot football and probably longer since I shot night football. (Gotta love playoff Saturday games.) Either way, I wouldn't say it was my worst outing, but it certainly wasn't my best.

The combination of trying to learn to use a monopod and my overall rustiness was a challenge. And even though Rochelle built this really nice new field, they certainly weren't thinking of photographers when they did it. (The inconsiderateness of some people.)

The night didn't start off the greatest. The team they were playing was Chicago Corliss. Apparently they are a slapped together inner city team that hasn't even started classes yet. It actually reminded me of something from one of those Disney movies where the team is terrible and then a coach comes in and whips them into ship only to lead them to the state championship. Except they're still in that really awful part of the movie where the kids can't do anything right. I'm not trying to rag on the kids, they certainly put in a good effort and even scored more points than I would assumed. It just would have been nice if the coaches dressed like actual coaches and their kids wouldn't have taken several cheap shots after the whistle was blown. I can't tell you how many times the refs had to continually remind them to stop when the whistle was blown.

Then there was the huge amount of flags thrown. The first half didn't even end until almost 10 p.m. Oh, and did I mention the other team showed up an hour late. So then we were talking zero daylight shots. Throughout the game I struggled with whether I should be using my flash or not? At times it worked nicely for a little fill and others I was just really mad, like at the photo at the right. A nice reaction shot, but the flash made it look terrible.

I have another game tonight on the southside of Chicago. I might try no flash the first half and flash the second half and tweek my settings a bit. It'd be really nice if I had some 300 glass, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Rochelle came out ahead 49-14 in the end, but they definitely need to tighten up. Hopefully week 1 jitters are gone by the 2nd or third week because any team with a reasonable amount of talent will certainly give them a challenge.

Anyway, I have a lot of photos to post, but it's going to take a little time to get them up. I'll go into detail about shooting on my other blog later today or tomorrow, but for now I gotta get ready to go.

First-ever tennis shoot

2008-08-27T23:13:00.004-05:00

Daniel Williams/Lifeworks Imaging/www.lifeworksimaging.com
RTHS varsity tennis player Jessica Albers reaches for the ball during the team's match vs. Belvidere Monday in Rochelle.

I shot tennis for the first time practically ever today. I think I may have shot it once during my time at EIU, but not that I can really remember. I tried to go featurey with it, but found myself lacking any creativity. I think it was mostly the lack of a clean background. Chain link fences and buildings, poles and everything else behind them don't really inspire much. Regardless, I tried and will continue to try more.

If interested in seeing a few shots from today, check out the link here. I'm really looking forward to soccer, but I have football Friday night and if the rain holds off I'm going to try for some skating shots with lights tomorrow.

It's been a long night and hard day, so I'm headed to bed. Good night all!

Beauty only costs $5

2008-08-26T19:15:00.007-05:00

Update: After posting this, I came across several similar versions. Somewhat similar, but everybod'ys always have their own techniques. Mine works great for what I need, but improvise with whatever you have laying around.

After researching a lot of information about beauty dishes, I realized there was absolutley no good reason I couldn't make my own for a fraction of the price of professionally developed ones. There were a lot of good ideas I picked from through diyphotography and various other sights.

I started out with a few goals in mind. I wanted to make one small and portable enough for a Nikon SB-80DX or my other SBs. I wanted it light as possible so as not to bend the strobe down on the light stand, but I wanted it versatile enough to withstand moving from location to location. After viewing a few with the turkey roaster approach I decided they were too flimsy and not professional looking at all. I realize many photographers would not be concerned with the professional look, but I shoot senior photos and kids can be cruel. Heck, if my photographer showed up with a turkey pan I'd have made fun of him too at 18 years old. So keeping it aesthetically pleasing was a small concern. Here is what I came up with. I labeled everything step by step with as many photos as I could. Sorry for the low-quality images, but I was so anxious to actually build it, that I didn't take much time to snap the photos.

Step 1 - Gather materials and tools
Supplies:
Large plastic mixing bowl. - Dollar General - $1.50
Standard pack of soup bowls - Dollar General - $1 for 3
Three bolts and six matching nuts - Local hardware store - $.93
Matte black spray paint- $??? Not sure, had it in the garage.
Tools:
Exacto knife
Drill (optional)
Marker
Old newspaper

Step 2 - Mark the hole
First take the large mixing bowl and flip it upside down so the bowl portion is facing the table or ground. Place the flash head you're going to use in the center. I just eyeballed it close. Next take you're marker and trace the outside of the flash. (You may want to use black so it blends in with the flash if it marks the head. I accidntally used silver and learned the hard way. I guess I could've used a pencil.)

Step 3 - Spray one standard bowl
You're going to need to spray the backside of one of the standard bowls at this point. My bowls were white and were reflecting all the light, leaving a solid circle in the middle, not a donut shape in the speculars. Technically I used a black bed liner spray, but I think matte black would work just fine. I personally like the bed liner spray though. It dried incredibly fast and made it textured as to reflect less light. Sorry, no photos of this.

Step 4 - Mark the bolt holes
You need to mark the holes you're going to drill in the lip of the standard bowl and the bottom of the mixing bowl. I placed the mixing bowl upside down on the floor again. Then I put the standard bowl upside down on top of it. Sort of like two igloos on top of each other. Then I just marked arbitrary holes. I eyballed it again and placed the holes equally apart. Then I lifted the standard bowl and put marks in about the same places on the mixing bowl. Because your bolts will have a little play in them, you don't have to be exact, just close.

Step 5 - Drill holes
Now drill all the holes out. Make sure to use a drill bit slightly smaller than your bolts. You want them to squeeze in the holes to stay in place. Then do the standard bowl. Same concept.

Step 6 - Add bolts
Place the bolts through the back of the mixing bowl. It should be a nice tight squeeze. Then remove them and put them through standard bowl. Put them through so the head of the bolt is on the bottom side of the bowl. Basically if you were to set it on a table to eat out of the bolts would be sticking up in the air.

Step 7 - The nuts
Put one nut on each bolt about a half an inch up. Then put take the entire standard bowl and place it inside the mixing bowl so the bolts can suspend the standard bowl two or three inches away and reversed. (The bowls should now be facing each other and the black side facing out on the standard bowl. If the nuts were distributed evenly on the bolts, the standard bowl should be at about the same height all the way around. Now place the remaining nuts on the backside of the mixing bowl and tighten them down.

Steph 8 - Add to strobe, beautify
Now place the beauty dish on the flash head and beautify. You can see from the example You really get the donut hole shape.

I had a little trial and error with this. I originally left both bowls white, but didn't get the specular I wanted. I could've added another bolt and another series of nuts to keep the standard bowl from sliding down, but because I underdrilled the holes I didn't need to. I think it looks fairly professional works excellent. Plus it's nice and portable. If there's any questions let me know and I'll try to respond. Oh, and it helps to have velcro already attached to your flash and to cut that hole nice and tight so it squeezes onto the strobe head and stays in place. I will update with photos in a little bit.

Cheers!

The blog's back

2008-08-25T18:53:00.002-05:00

So it's been a little while. Here's an update. Stephanie and I moved to Rochelle. I no longer work for a newspaper. In Rochelle we plan to start our photography studio. We're in the process of buying a house and she's back to work for Wills Chiropractic in Rochelle.

Other than that, not much has happened. I guess that's enough excitement for a few months. Anyway, now that I don't work for the paper I feel I can freely post whatever I want. Feels kind of nice. I'm really trying to learn a lot of new photography tips right now. It seems the more I learn the less I feel I know. Seems odd, but photography has really evolved in the past several years. Things that worked well in the past don't necessarily work any more. Digital has opened up the realm of possibilities so much too. The learning curve gets shorter each day and I feel I slip farther behind at a faster pace. Maybe one day I'll feel I'm at a comfortable medium. I'll update later tonight on more specifics, but just wanted to get a brief post about what's happened so far.

Wedding season

2008-06-24T07:54:00.006-05:00

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I'm done with the first wedding photos and should be done with the second by Thursday.

I had two weddings in the past two weeks. One of them was a friend of a friend, the other was one of my friends. Both weddings turned out great. Beautiful days to hold them. The first one I did was at the Illinois Beach Resort in Zion. The second was near Rockford.

I wish it would have been a little nicer day for the one in Zion, but it turned out to be a nice day in the end. Just a little wet on the beach.

Overall I was pleased with the photos. I really like this photo a lot. My favorite wedding photos usually have nothing to do with the actual wedding. It's usually during preparation, which is why I really push to do at least an hour of prep photos.

Kyler

2008-06-23T13:01:00.004-05:00

Kyler is pretty cute.

Steph and I had to go home for a wedding this past week up near Rockford. Friday night we got the chance to spend some time with her family and Patty and her daughter Kyler. Kyler's just about 8 months old now and has some of the biggest eyes I've ever seen.

I shot a few more photos of her, but this was my favorite. I should be uploading some of the wedding photos either tonight or tomorrow.

I'll also be uploading photos from the weekend before at a different wedding I shot. I'll update the link when they're uploaded.

UPDATE - Here's the link to the wedding I did the weekend before.

Russert dies at 58

2008-06-14T08:49:00.003-05:00

I'm deeply saddened after hearing of the death of Tim Russert. For those of you who don't know, Mr. Russert was the host of NBC's "Meet the Press."

Mr. Russert was an outstanding journalist with a reputation for remaining unflinchingly unbiased. (Except for his love of Buffalo sports teams.)

I am a huge fan of "Meet the Press," primarily because of Mr. Russert.

Most of my Sunday mornings consist of waking up around 8 a.m., coming downstairs to eat breakfast, followed by a small nap again until the show would come on.

It's a little nostalgic for me too because I can remember my dad watching the show each morning. I think it might have been where most of my interest in politics stemmed from.

The show certainly won't be the same without him.

Still got the (photoshop) skills

2008-06-07T11:32:00.002-05:00

More wedding photos. I'm almost done.

I took a break from my normal editing to post this photo of Brenna and Stephanie. Carly wanted the photo with Stephanie's sasha colored red, so I triewd to see if I remembered how to do it. Turns out I haven't forgot everything I know.

In fact, the photo turned out pretty good. I like it a lot better this way. I'm excited to be done with the first editing round, but now I have to go back and decide what photos I need to re-edit for print.

Which then turns into buying frames. Which means more money...sigh! Oh well. As soon as I finish I'll post a link of all the photos.

Wedding photos part deux

2008-06-04T22:54:00.002-05:00

After months, I'm back to editing wedding photos.

I started editing wedding photos again. I just wish I hadn't stopped because I can't remember my workflow now. To be honest, it's quite the cluster*$@&.

I'm going to wait to get things organized before I add too many more. That way I don't use up my space on flickr.

Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to get some photos since Stephanie will be gone for a good portion of it.

From the Vault 1

2008-06-03T20:56:00.004-05:00

My first Tuscola Review photo.

Here's my first installment of "From the Vault." I can't guarantee how often I'll put up photos from it, but I'll try to keep going until I run out of them.

The reason I chose this photo over so many others, besides the fact it was my first in Tuscola, is because I actually like the photo.

I've been told it should have been cropped tighter, but I think if you cropped it tighter you lose the story. That being, that Mrs. Cottle is teaching a parenting class to high school students.

My argument says, tighter loses the teenager on the right. You would also lose the banannas which I think add to the foreground. The pots and pans add to the idea that you're in a home economics classroom. Some might say it's messy, but you're working in a classroom with very few clean backgrounds, so I decided to use it to my advantage.

Plus, the look on Mrs. Cottle's face and the look on the girl's face portrayed her personality perfectly. She really had a way with children.

Certainly not a profile picture, but one I like nonetheless.

Your thoughts?

You're face is gonna stick that way

2008-06-03T18:38:00.003-05:00

Little kids are the best.

Minus the fact that you get an onslaught of requests to 'put me in the paper' from little kids, they rock. Mainly because they will do anything to get in the paper. Plus, after a few minutes, they completely forget you're there.

It's kind of funny how little kids really look up to grown ups. It's even more funny I'm calling myself a grown up.

I've apparently got a little bit of a cult following in town. I imagine when the town only has 4,500 and you're one of the few people who shows up at everything, it's bound to happen.

I've just noticed a lot of kids who I don't know saying hello to me by name. Must mean I'm doing something right.

I'm going through my archives tonight, so hopefully I'll be able to post a few photos 'From the Vault.'

Dry as a bone

2008-06-01T18:54:00.005-05:00

Stephen came prepared.

Stephen got a new nickname after Friday. Pancho Gurerro. His long pancho looked funny to me. Unfortunately, you can't see the length from the photo. Trust me, it looked funny.

And I uploaded the photos as I said I would.

State Finals

2008-06-01T11:57:00.003-05:00

Mike Adams (top) sits with an umbrella during the rain delay while fans and players wait during the first game of IHSA state baseball finals Friday in Joliet. The rain delay lasted three hours and three minutes Friday. Tuscola lost 10-2. They will play for third and fourth place Saturday morning.
Well, it's been a real-long time. But I have been busy, and it's not like anyone was knocking my door down wondering where my posts were.

I covered baseball this weekend. I've got a lot of photos to share. I'll be posting even more later today on my flickr account.

Oh, and if you didn't know already, you can check out the Tuscola Review's blog site we set up a little while ago.

I'm going to start going through a bunch of old files, so don't be surprised to see some old archived photos starting to pop up here. Maybe I'll try to do like one a week or something. No promises though.

2008 IPPA Conference

2008-03-30T19:08:00.003-05:00

Judges pine over who will be crowned the 2008 Miss Tuscola.

I got to go to the IPPA conference this past weekend. There were so many ideas rolling around my head after seeing Rod Mar speak Saturday morning.

I had gone out with a group of Illinois photographer's Friday night and didn't get home until 4 a.m. I was seriously considering not even going to the conference because I had only a few hours of sleep, but luckily Max and Stephen were there to make me go. It helps that my car was still in Champaign from the night before.

I'm so glad I went though. I haven't seen a speaker that's motivated me so much. I've really needed it. I became so complacent over the past few weeks I put some photos I'm not proud of in the paper. I think that needs to be the goal for the most part. To always be proud of what I've done.

So many of the things Rod said hit close to home and I'm glad to have found his blog. I wish I could remember some of the specific things he said, but unfortunately I don't. The basis for everything though, was to always be thinking about smart photos. He laid a lot of his success on his ability to think while he's shooting instead of just shooting wildly.

I got this photo during last night's Miss Tuscola pageant. I really like it. I think it tells part of the story most people never really think about. And the lighting is dramatic, so that helps. I'm not sure if I would have shot this photo if I hadn't gone to the conference.

The other thing I've done to try and keep myself motivated is to put little notes on my camera and lenses to myself. They're more like motivators than notes I guess. The one I have on the back of my camera says "Is this your best?" I think it's something I need to continually remind myself of.

I'll probably change it up a bit later, but I'll stick to that one until I'm always doing my best.

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T11:17:00.002-05:00

I wish I had a web cam on my computer.

I've had to use Dana's computer while at Steph's because my battery is dead on mine. I forgot the charger too. I really need a new battery because mine suddenly dies on me all the time now. The thing that really sucks now is that it's going to cost me $120 for a new one. I can't wait until we get a new laptop too. Mostly because it will come with a built in web cam and a copy of photo booth. The effects are well worth it. I spent a good 20 minutes taking photos with it.

It's amazing how different you can make yourself look. I had to keep myself from laughing in most of the photos. Good stuff all around. Can't think of a better way to ~~waste~~ spend my Easter.

Self Portraits

2008-03-16T22:54:00.004-05:00

When the wife is away...

I'm bored. I miss my wife. Yeah, I know it sounds lame, but it's true. I wanted to shoot photos all day, but didn't have any good ideas. So I decided on a few self-portraits. I could have done a better job on these, but I was just playing around anyway. One thing I really noticed is how badly my camera needs cleaned. The sensor is rife with dust. Hopefully I can get it done at the IPPA conference in 2 weeks.

Oh, and don't tell Stephanie I miss her...she might start thinking I like her or something.

Wedding Crasher

2008-03-13T21:33:00.002-05:00

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Grabiec.

It took me a few days...or almost a week, to post photos from Jay's wedding last weekend. I've been busy and lazy. The combination of the two isn't good for blogging. Anyway, I hope Jay and Jill like the photos as much as I did.

It's always great when you get to photograph a wedding and the bride and groom are fun people that want interesting shots. The boys definitely got creative, which helped me get creative. My three favorite photos are the one above, the "Reservoir Dogs" photo and this shot of Jill. I also really liked this one of Jay and his brother. Congratulations.

Finally!

2008-03-07T07:52:00.002-06:00

Somebody in New York has finally seen the light like I have. The song "Danny Boy" has been banned for an entire month due to being overplayed and the fact it was written by an Englishman who never set foot on Irish soil. If I had a nickel for everytime the song was sung to me I'd probably take that bag of nickels and hit somebody with it. I even had a teacher who sent me a limrick using the the song because I wasn't showing up to class. I consequently dropped that class like a bomb.

Remembing my own mohawk

2008-03-06T20:59:00.002-06:00

Coolest mohawk I've seen on an elementary student.

I shot this photo last week without knowing what I would use it for other than I think mohawks are cool. Turns out it was kind of useful. Gives me an illustration to complain about the story where a kindergartner was suspended from school for having one. In fairness, it was a private school. You send you're kid to a private school you open yourself up to this stuff. Read your policies carefully people.

How come my initials aren't there instead?

2008-03-06T20:56:00.002-06:00

Just some random graffit.

CAP is hot....or CHP is hot...I'm not sure. This was just some random graffiti I found while doing our Street Sense section. Who marks up the Dollar General Store anyway. With gray marker on steel nonetheless. The photo was enhanced to bring the letters out if you couldn't tell.

Beer on the brain

2008-02-24T22:49:00.003-06:00

I've started brewing my own beer with my Mr. Beer kit. Thanks Mom and Dad for the money for my birthday which allowed me to buy this kit. Probably not what they had in mind.

I have beer in my closet. No seriously, I do. And not that crappy Bud Light or Guinness crap. Okay, so it's not crap. And I did just drink a few Guinness so I can't complain. But I did start my own brew of beer tonight. Well, actually it's Mr. Beer's brew, but I put it together.

Stephen mentioned beer brewing a few weeks ago and I started thinking that sounded like a great idea. So on my day off I did the only possible thing I could think of. I impulsively ran to the Tanger Outlet Mall where I had seen a brew kit.

Turns out it can be quite simple. Right now I have 2 gallons of Pale Ale fermenting in my closet. (To keep direct sunlight away.) If I stick with this I'll update you on recipes I use and new techniques I'll try.

The key to a good beer is sanitization from what everyone says. I'm a little worried abut that because I didn't sanitize the boiling pot, but I figure hell, I'm boiling it, should be good enough. Plus the basic instructions weren't entirely explicit about that. The indepth instructions were though.

I'm proud of myself. I actually read the entire instruction before doing it though. I never do that. I typically read as I go. Just wish I would have read the book before going.

The fermentation process takes between 7-10 days and then there's the carbonation period. I need to get some bottles before bottling day though.

I'll keep you up-to-date on how things go though.

Lamest wife ever

2008-02-24T22:43:00.002-06:00

I posted a photo of Steph for two reasons:

1. I haven't shot a photo of her in a long time.
2. She fell asleep on the couch at 8:45 p.m. tonight and I needed to make fun of her. Lame!!!

If I was really mean I would have shot photos of her sleeping, but I'm not that cruel. Not tonight at least. Wake up old lady.

Tis the Season

2008-02-24T11:11:00.004-06:00

Basketball season isn't quite over yet.

Tuscola squeeked out a win in Friday's regional championship game in Chrisman. Quite the display too. Clayton Meyer pulled out a three point shot in a last-minute play to put Tuscola up by two. Now I get to go to Parkland College Wednesday night for the sectional tournament. Should be a good time.

I was really worried it was going to be on Tuesday because it's my birthday, but I don't have to worry. Tuscola will be playing Fisher one Wednesday.

New Stylee ( the extra 'e' is for added effect)

2008-02-21T16:00:00.003-06:00

I think I embarrassed Joel when I shot this photo, but once he sees it in the paper I think he'll like it.

This marks two weeks in a row I've been ecstatic to see it come out. We're trying some newer things with the issues and I think they're turning out great. I just hope other people think so too.
I still can't say design is my favorite thing in the world, but I'm slowly learning from things that Jeremy and Rodney in the office do. Thanks for the help with all the projects guys.

Going home

2008-02-20T22:22:00.002-06:00

Basketball's not all that bad I guess. Or maybe I'm just too tired to care

It's 10:30 p.m. I'm finally leaving the office. There's some things I love about the news and somethings I dislike. The hours, not so much. The thrill of a job well done and capturing a great moment - unbelievable.

Regardless, I'm tired and heading to bed.

Wishing I was outside

2008-02-20T17:35:00.004-06:00

Football season was so long ago. I want it here again.

After another long hiatus I'm back. Nothing new to really report. I'm working a lot and going through some older photos. Maybe one of these days I'll finish my wedding photos. Regardless, here's an old shot of John Wienke from the first football game of the 2007 season. It seems like such a long time ago, but it really wasn't. Only a few months. How I wish I was outside covering football games instead of basketball in low-lit gyms. Stephen, Eric and I are planning to get together soon to put together our side business for weddings. Should be a good time.

If I come across a few photos tonight I'll post another one or two. I feel so neglectful when it comes to the blog.

Wind storm, ice and powerline, oh my!

2008-01-31T09:11:00.000-06:00

Sitting in a snow storm waiting for the utility company to repair a powerline might make you see funny things like this.

Work has been pretty exhausting lately. Lots to do, lots to do. Didn't help the weather turned insane earlier today. It was near 60 when I went out in the middle of the day. The next thing I know I go to leave and it's near single digits with gushing winds.

A powerline was called down west of town and I headed out to get photos of either firefighter moving it or utility men repairing. it

Unfortunately I couldn't sit around long enough for the utility men, but I did get a photo of it catching the grass on fire. Kind of crazy to see a fire sparking the ground and catching about a 5 foot wide area ablaze.

I probably sat there for about 10 minutes until I got bored and started shooting random pictures. This one was my favorite.

Heart attack anyone?

2008-01-11T10:59:00.000-06:00

They call this a horseshoe in springfield. It looks nothing like a horse or a shoe and is not shaped like one either. Maybe they call it that because it pads your arteries like a horseshoe pads their foot.

Last weekend Steph and I took a trip to Springfield to visit some friends. While there, our friends introduced us to something called a horseshoe at Darcy's, a restaurant there. It would be interesting to see where the name for it originates, but I'm afraid anyone who consistently eats these may have died from a heart attack.

We also got to go see the state capitol building and went to a really cool pub downtown where we played card games and sampled imported beers. My favorite by far had to have been the german beer I got. I was surprised the Chinese beer was as good as it was. It was called Tsing Tao. Tasted like Heineken but better.

This photo really caught my eye today as I'm in the middle of doing a Big Loser competition. My goal is to drop 25-30 pounds over 12 weeks. Quite feasible as I've done it before. I joined a gym and have been lifting and running all week long. Feels good to get back into shape. Well, minus those days where you can barely move your arms and legs. (i.e. yesterday!)

I go for my second weigh in tomorrow for it. I'm hoping to have dropped at least two pounds, but at least 1-2 would be good. I've changed my diet up back to when I was at the N-G. Roughly 1500 calories a day and lots of exercise. Difference being I actually have money to buy good food instead of Ramen and Pizza Hut.

2008

2008-01-01T20:14:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. Steph and I went to Indiana for the celebration and had a blast with her friend Julie and her boyfriend Ryan. If the photo makes me look a little rough, well....it was a rough night. I'm not in college shape anymore, but I made the best of it.

The best part of the night was probably indoor bags. Trying to avoid things like a ceiling and hot water pipes makes it quite an interesting game.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T19:44:00.000-06:00

This doesn't look OSHA certified to me.

I finally downloaded a bunch of photos from Steph's camera. I shot this picture months ago, but still have yet to download it, edit it or post it.

I just thought it looked really neat when I passed by it one day and against the bricks it looked even cooler.

So that's my Christmas present to you. Speaking of Christmas...I got an iPod Touch for my big Christmas present from Steph and her parents. I'm trying to get everything organized so I can get my contacts and calendars in order. Maybe I'll finally get a .mac account, but we're trying to save money not spend it.

I also got a few light stands from my parents with swivel umbrella heads. I'm pretty stoked about being able to use them. I also bought a bunch of cords from Lundgrens while I was back to use my flash units.

Portraits Round 2

2007-12-18T21:19:00.000-06:00

I make her look good.

So instead of sitting on our butts tonight I decided I'd like to go back to the office and play with the lights a little more. I've had these portrait obsessions lately. I know she doesn't find it nearly as fun as I do to go do this, but at least she brings a book with when I'm fiddling with lights or my camera.

I did successfully get some Rembrandt lighting done. It took me a little bit of testing, but I'm pretty happy with it. I guess it could be a bit more low-key, but not everything has to be. I'm starting to realize more and more that light is not always about where it is, sometimes it's where it's not. I know that so many lighting guys say this over and over, but you don't truly understand it until you're not getting what you want.

The other thing I'm finding is that you don't need a super-fancy studio to do really nice work. Something Scott told me today is that if you spend a long time on any project you can make it look great. "Heck, if you spent enough time in this lobby you could make a great photo story out of it," he said about the lobby of the Community Building today.

I know he was being a tad bit facetious, but in another way I know he was absolutely right. A New Year's Resolution of mine is to do at least one photo story by the end of May. That gives me six months from now. I already have an idea of what I want to do for it. It's perfect. It's close to work and I enjoy the people there. What better way of working. My plan is to spend at least one day a week there until the end of my time period or until I feel I have what I'm looking for.

I'd also like to find a shorter term story to do as well. Well, enough motivation for the night. Time for bed. Time to put words into action tomorrow.

Headshots

2007-12-18T18:47:00.000-06:00

She's a good sport.

Steph's letting me use her as a model for the headshot tests. Maybe I'll get to shoot a few tonight when she's done with dinner. I've got two more techniques to try for the basics. Then I'm going to start playing with some creative things.

I saw Scott Strazante at the FutureGen announcement this morning. I've seen Scott before, but never got a chance to talk with him. He's a very nice guy and very intuitive. I guess you kind of have to be in order to be Illinois Photographer of the Year.

We talked a little bit about his "The Season" project and he told me about how he finds time to be a photographer, a husband and a dad. Most importantly, he told me how important it is to work hard. And he's right.

Oh, and congratulations to Mattoon on getting FutureGen. I'm sad for Tuscola, but happy to see it here in Illinois.

Wedding photos

2007-12-16T22:15:00.000-06:00

Thank you Noise Ninja and Raw files....oh and thanks Stephen and Eric.

I've been editing a ton of wedding photos lately. I do have to say thanks again to Stephen and Eric for all the photos. You've definitely kept me busy the past few days. I actually felt productive this weekend. I got over 100 of our photos done. I got to read a little bit, read both the Saturday and Sunday papers and even played in my "studio" a bit.
I'm trying to teach myself class lighting techniques so I know the absolute basics of portrait lighting. I'm going to start bringing people in for headshots to just to play around.
I've got a business idea that I may try this spring just to get myself a little extra cash.
I'm also gearing up for the FutureGen announcement this week. It's going to be a long week at work, but it'll pay off when I get to see my parents this weekend and see Steph's family next week.

I love this game?!

2007-12-10T22:22:00.000-06:00

Shooting a lot of basketball lately. I really need a second light, but I liked the way this photo turned out.

I've been quite busy lately. Not really an excuse for not posting, just letting you know. I've been in full basketball mode lately. It's actually kind of nice b/c I don't have to switch from football mode to volleyball mode or anything, but I did shoot boys basketball the other night for the first time this year and boy was it different than girls.

So much faster than girls. I was going to try the Strobist light setup tonight for gyms, but forgot I need another pc to pc cord before I do that. I really need to buy like another five of them, but Xmas is coming up so we'll see.

I've got a few photos I'll throw up from work the other night in a day or so. I actually made prints. My next order of business is to get my wedding photos completely done. Hopefully I can do it before Christmas so the family can see.

In rememberance

2007-11-12T21:13:00.000-06:00

Flags are refelected in a war memorial at the Douglas County Courthouse Sunday during a Veterans Day ceremony.

Today was the government's observance of Veterans Day or as it was originally known as Armistice Day.

Likely to say that the past two days have been filled with flags and people clad in red, white and blue.

This is probably the first time I've ever really thought about Veterans Day and what the true meaning is. There's this sinking feeling I get when I think about how many World War II veterans are left.

Tom Brokaw wrote the book "The Greatest Generation" because he saw that many of these veterans were dieing off. I'm wondering if he had the same feelings I've been getting.

It would be cool if I could do a project with these veterans, but I need to finish some other things I've started first.

Football

2007-11-11T11:23:00.000-06:00

Zack Martin watches his Warriors defeat Mount Olive on Saturday during the quarterfinals.

I love covering state football. Truth be told, I hate working Saturdays, but I have no ideas what I'm going to do when football is over with in two weeks. Basketball is right around the corner, but unfortunately it's really no comparison to the excitement of football.

I've had a blast covering TCHS all year long too. I think next year I'm going to try and cover it a little different. Stephen's been posting about Scott Strazante's coverage of a volleyball team and I'd love to do that as well, but I want to really make it my own next year.

As soon as I figure out how I want to do it I'll let all of you know.

As you can tell, I've fallen in love with hard burning the edges of my photos too. It's kind of the style that everyone has right now and I guess it's always been a style of photographers, but I'm just now getting into it. It makes photos look a lot nicer most of the time and can really draw your attention to something you normally wouldn't have. I think I'm going to make a print of this photo for his parents because I like it so much.

Foot graffiti

2007-11-08T22:12:00.000-06:00

I wish I could still get away with writing on my shoe, but I think my wife would get mad.

I saw this when I shooting photos of Atwood High School's assembly with Rupert from "Survivor:Paradise Island" and "Survivor: All-stars." I wasn't sure what to expect from him when I got there. I assumed it would be a lame speech about practically nothing and mostly just promoting himself, but I was proved incredibly wrong.

Rupert ended up being a very nice guy and one of the few speakers or people I've met in awhile who really cares about children. He cares what happens to them and can really relate to those who need attention the most.

I may actually write him a letter. He said anyone who writes him gets a handwritten response guaranteed.

It's not like I should expect anything less though. He's just another person, but I'm glad a person like him has got some fame and turned it into something positive.

As for the shoe, it just reminded me of something I woudl have done. I wouldn't have chose to put a big heart on my shoe, but I do remember writing "Erin Hurley sucks" on the side of my shoe during class in college one time and turning to Erin to show her when it was dead silent in class. She immediately burst open laughing getting dirty looks from the teacher and the rest of the class. God, everyone in that sociology class hated us. I think they were just jealous because of how much fun we had. Or it could have been how annoying and obnoxious we were, but either way I know I had a lot of fun.

Sweet Thursdays

2007-11-08T21:51:00.000-06:00

Matt Meyer claims his coworkers are to blame for his hard hat, but I think he's just a super Illini fan.

Today was a pretty nice day. Got to shoot a lot of photos. It seemed like each time I showed up for an assignment I kept feeling like I was lost and didn't know what to shoot. As soon as I just started shooting I slipped into the groove. I'd step back after a little while, reanalyze what I had and shoot for something new and creative.

I think one of the biggest things I need to do is to realize when I already have a certain kind of shot and not shoot that one again. I find myself shooting a lot of the same image just a little bit different. I guess in a way it's because I always think the next frame will be better than the next, but I end up missing shots I'd be much happier with if I wouldn't concentrate on one particular angle.

Here's a few shots from a couple of assignments I did today. Mostly had a lot of fun doing my assignments. As soon as some of the other shots run I'll post them, but that won't be until at least next Friday.

This weekend Lucas and I are in for the long haul down to Mount Olive to watch the Warriors move to another round in the playoffs. Let's just hope Arcola can win theirs and we can see the return of the Cola Wars.

APAD

2007-11-04T18:47:00.000-06:00

Ted Dibiase, the Million Dollar Man, speaks to Arcola students about premarital sex, drugs, alcohol and abuse in their gym on Friday. Dibiase joined the ministry after his professional wrestling career ended.

2 posts in a day??? What, what, what??? I know, crazy huh? Mostly because I feel I neglected my blog for so long and partly because I'm bored. I'm home alone waiting for Steph to get back from a wedding. I just finished a book and I'm not in the mood for television, so this is the next best thing I guess.

I'm trying to start shooting a photo a day right now. It's difficult because I don't get out of the office every single day to shoot now, but I should stop making excuses and just do.

This photo is one I shot on Friday, but didn't get to post until today. This is a link to Saturday's shot, and I don't have one from today mostly because it's my day off and partly because I spent most the day cleaning, exercising and lounging. Felt pretty good all in all. Exactly what I needed to get me up and running for the week.

I try to send in a photo each day to the "A photo a day" Google group, but not always successful. Good thing they don't pay me. I'm mostly hoping this will just help me start seeing things differently as there are a lot of really good photographers on there.

The last thing to plug today is Strobist. I plugged this a lot on this site, but John Dixon, a News-Gazette photographer sent out a group email about this article. He's definitely right in saying this is what we do. It got me really thinking about my minimum level of quality. So Stephen, you'll be happy to know that found something to break me out of that slump we talked about. I knew if I looked for something it would help.

Return to home

2007-11-04T09:24:00.000-06:00

Watching a sunset from a plane is quite awesome.

I'm finally getting to posting the last part about our honeymoon. It's been a few weeks, but here it goes.

Saturday we wake up and roll out of bed. We go down to eat breakfast because we're going to make sure we don't miss it.

We sit out near the beach for a little while to enjoy our last few hours before we have to return to our everyday life. We both have this odd feeling of wanting to see our friends and family, but part of us is depressed we can't stay. Over the past week the two of us learned how to use the bus system, how to barter with the merchants and how to try new and exciting things.

In a way, some of the people and things we saw we're beginning to become normal and to have to fly back felt like we were being up rooted all over again.

We both knew the feeling wouldn't last, but there was still a feeling of hesitation to leave.

We went back to the hotel room and picked up all of our stuff in the room. We checked, rechecked and then checked one last time to make sure we had everything. Steph's pretty adamant about doing that.

The only thing that sucks about having all this done early is that now it's only 10 a.m., our ride to get to the airport doesn't show until noon. We decide the best thing to do now would be go sit at the hotel bar. I mean seriously, what would you do?

While we're down there we run into our British/Scottish friends again. We talk with them for a little while and Steph finally finds a drink that she actually likes from the hotel bar. The guy bartending that day made her his homemade bloody mary and a I drink a few pina coladas.

Our transportation gets there right at noon and we take off. We get to the airport only to find out our flight has been delayed 2-and-a-half hours.

We get some food, look at the duty-free shop and wander around until sitting by our gate and waiting very impatiently. Finally we get on the plane, take off and start heading back to Chicago.

We get into Chicago around 8:30 and get through customs at 9. Luckily we never get checked by customs either on the way there or on the way home. It saves us a ton of time. Krissi picks us up and takes us to Steph's car. Of course Steph falls asleep on the way home and I end up calling Stephen and my parents to check up on what's going on.

We make it back to Steph's parents and fall asleep pretty quickly. Next day means a lot of packing and another long drive home.

2007-10-18T21:10:00.001-05:00

One of the coolest things at Chichen Itza was the arena that they played a crude form of basketball and soccer combined. The walls were acoustically perfect to determine whether the ball was in play or out of bounds simply hearing the echoes.

So finally we make our way to Chichen Itza. I'm pumped because it's something I've wanted to go there all week long. I wouldn't call myself a history buff, but I'm really interested in most of it. Stephanie's been fed so she's calmed down and I'm just admiring all the small villages we've been going through. They're pretty awesome.

We finally make our way into the city. One of the coolest things I notice on the way in is a worn out baseball field off to our right in a school yard. Something about made me feel nostalgic. I could almost imagine that it was a ball field that some latino player got his big start on. Chances are not because of the condition of the field, but I like to imagine it that way.

We finally arrive. It's a fairly typical tourist trap. Gates, tickets and vendors. We wind our way through the turnstiles and find our way to our English speaking tour guide. His English is maso menos (s0-so).

As we said before Stephanie and I didn't really plan too well for this trip so when we got there we realized we forgot sunscreen for the two of us. Not too bad for me, but not so good for Steph. I'm wearing a thin white shirt and she has on a strapless top exposing her shoulders and back.

We start the tour and of course everything is in the open sun. Barely any trees. Our guide doesn't make a ton of sense so Steph decides she's just going hang out under a tree to minimize the sun.

The most disappointing thing though is that I find out I won't get to climb to the top of the most famous ruin there. They closed it down two years ago after two people died from falling down the steps. Probably a good thing.

The guide knows his information really well he just doesn't do a good job of conveying it. He tried to explain way too much symbolism that didn't make any sense. After awhile I just kind of quit listening to him and looking at things on my own.

Between every new stop inside the park we're approached by more vendors. "One dollar. Almost free. One-dollar, Mayan souvenir."

It was brutal. Finally they just release us on our own. We get to climb on one of the ruins and look around. They called it the observatory, but no one's for sure if it really was an observatory. Few records were left by the Mayans here because the Spanish explorers never found it until 200 years after it had already been abandoned. It starts to get a little cloudy and begins to rain so we take cover under shelter and wait for it to subside. On the way back I find a silver bracelet I really like so I barter with the vendor for a bit and end up paying about $20 for it.

After we go out front Steph gets bling envy because now I have a ring and a bracelet so we find her a neat little ring for her thumb that has the Mayan symbol for the God of Rain on it.

The bus loads up about 10 minutes later and we head back home. We relax and enjoy the drive back. It's all I can do from keeping to look out the window constantly. I think it's the photographer/journalist in me. Always looking, never wanting to miss anything.

After we get back to the hotel, we eat dinner and make our way back to our hotel. Make it an early night because of how early we got up in the morning.

Ik Kil

2007-10-15T22:17:00.000-05:00

I wish I could have spent a couple of days running around Mexican villages to photograph the old architecture.

Friday started early. We had to be up at 6 a.m. in order to be ready for the bus that was going to pick us up by 7 a.m.

We decided Friday would be our tourist day where we went and saw some of the countryside and some of the villages.

We bought an all-day trip to Chichen Itza, which is the Mayan ruins located southwest of Cancun in Yucatan.

Unfortunately breakfast didn't start until 7:30 so we didn't have anything to eat. As we hadn't asked too many questions about the trip we weren't sure about breakfast. Nor did we pack our books for a long bus trip. We thought the trip might only be a half hour, but it ended up being several hours.

So with no food and no entertainment we set off for a long bus trip with few people who speak English. If anyone knows Steph, they know the 'no food' part is a recipe for disaster.

Luckily she's trying to be as cheery as possible. Luckily the guide on the bus tells us about all the interesting facts about Mexico.
It was really interesting to hear him say everything in Spanish and
English. I actually picked up on many of the things he was saying in Spanish.

On the way he tells us we will be stopping by a little place called Ik Kil. It's a natural cenote before you get to Chichen Itza. The drop from the top is about 60 meters and the water depth is about 40 meters once you get to the bottom. There's a cool stairwell that leads to the bottom where you can take a dip if you like. I was all about it. I actually took a leap off the top stairwell that is about 20 feet up.

It was kind of scary, but really no higher than a high dive. It was really thrilling to jump into a pool and know there was nothing below you to keep your body up. The closes thing to the bottom was 120 feet.

Steph did get a blurry photo of me jumping in.

I climbed up out, dried off and got Steph a small snack to tide her over until lunch.
After a quick stop here we all loaded back up and headed to our lunch destination in a small village between.

Lunch was a pretty nice spread and everything except drinks were paid for already. It was cool that they actually had dancers/entertainers during the dessert of our lunch.
I snapped a few shots within the block we were in, but I would have loved to been able to spend a whole day in the villages. Stuff like that is really interesting to me. It was absolutely nuts to see people in huts made of sticks watching televisions and on computers. Another thing I noticed was a multitude of internet cafes. I guess if not many people in town had computers this would make sense to have a common place for them to be used.

Everything was loaded backup and we headed for Chichen Itza. More to come tomorrow.

Day 4: Hard Rock rocks

2007-10-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

My first trip to Hard Rock Cafe was awesome and so was my meal.

I missed posting yesterday because the football game ran late and I didn't get a chance to edit Thursday's photos from Cancun. Tomorrow may be a 2 part blog because Friday was just so cool and we took so many photos. I had to struggle to decide which photo to lead with today, but then I remembered this blog is supposed to be concentrating on detail so I lead with this one. Look at this photo anyway.

On Wednesday we decided to go on a snorkeling trip through the marina, but Steph was feeling sick so we decided to wait until Thursday. The trip was supposed to be from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., so when we woke up at 9:55 a.m. that was kind of out of the question. We didn't even make it out of the hotel until 10:35 a.m. so we missed breakfast at the hotel.

We made a quick trip to the super deli next door and headed to the beach. Today was another relaxation day of not doing a whole lot.

In the afternoon we did take the paddle boat out in the middle of the lagoon for awhile. I hadn't used one of those for a long time. The funniest part of that whole trip was Steph freaking out when we nearly hit one of the posts that was about 200 yards out in the water. Normally, nearly crashing into something wouldn't be funny, but when you're going to hit a wooden post with a plastic leg-powered boat at about 3 mph while you're floating it's actually pretty funny.

After that we showered up and headed downtown for dinner again. Tonight's restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe. I've never been to one and have always wanted to go. Dinner was great as usual. The restaurant was amazing. It was almost like heaven for me. All the music memorabilia and the video playing were great.

I loved that the server kept calling me 'boy' and calling Steph 'girl.'

"Are you ready to order boy?"
"Do you want another drink girl?"

She didn't mean any disrespect. I had kind of noticed it all week with other people too.

Anyway, she did let us know there would be a band playing later on which was great. As we were getting ready to ask for our check it somehow came up that it was our honeymoon. And she goes, "Oh, why didn't you tell me before boy? I'll be right back."

Next thing we know all the servers are coming out there with her to our table. I see two full shots of some unknown black liquid and I think, "Oh, great."

They made each of us take a shot in what I'll call a less than appropriate way in front of everyone in the restaurant. I guess I'd call it PG-13. Funny and entertaining to most people. Shot didn't taste horrible, but didn't taste great either.

We walked around for awhile after that to burn off our food, but then went back to Hard Rock for the concert.

Band is amazing. I'm pretty sure they're called Sombra, but not 100 percent sure. Great guitar players and just put on a great show. Wide variety of covers.

We then head back to the hotel bar for a bit and hang out with our British friends again. Steph's turn to get drunk. I get a little buzzed, but not bad. Steph starts repeating some song line of "A Be be be." Which to me sounds like she's trying to sound like Yogi the Bear. "Hey Boo boo."

Despite missing the boat on snorkeling, literally, we had another great day.

Day 3: Best/Worst/Best Day Ever

2007-10-11T23:22:00.000-05:00

It can't be all beaches and fun in the sun.

Wednesday starts off a bit slow. Steph doesn't feel the greatest. She's got a pretty bad cold. Can't hardly breathe. I'm in great spirits. Still riding high off Tuesday's fumes. We go down for a little bite to eat and some R&R.

Breakfast is good and we go to lay on the beach. About an hour or two after laying out I reach in the bag for th camera to take a picture when I notice sand bits in the bag we're carrying the camera in. I freak out because I'm a parannoy with the new camera. After a year working in a camera store I've seen way too many sand cameras come back.

I tell Steph I'm going to shake the bag out and tell her to hang on to eveyrthing in the bag. Here's where things get good. I grab the bag and start shaking. Seems like no big deal. But those who have been married before know that after you get married your wedding ring might not be the tightest as it hasn't been sized for your finger.

On the fourth shake of the bag I feel my brand new ring fly off. My heart drops. I'm freaking. The 10 seconds it takes me to tell Steph seems like an eternity of misery. I quickly say, "Steph, my ring just fell off." Her reply, "So get down and find it," in a not really paying attention manner.

She thinks I lost my new Mexican ring I bought. Then comes the bombshell, "No Steph, my wedding ring."

"What!!??!!? Oh my god, start looking."

Natural reaction. We start looking. People on the beach think we're playing a game until they ask us what we're doing. Wives begin searching frantically as us. Guys pretend to care. I feel dumb. No metal detectors in sight and apparently none to rent in Cancun.

After 15 minutes 15-20 people help us search. Another 5 minutes of searching leads me to a little spot of uncovered sand where I dig my hand like a shovel into the extremely fine sand where middle finger lightly taps a piece of silver band as well as picks up my heart.
Exuberance. The cool part is we meet a few couples while we're searching. Everyone's really nice. The ring stays in the hotel room from now on.

I get a few drinks with one of the British couples we met. Nice people. Very funny people. She's Scottish, he's English. Makes for a lot of jokes. 4 or 5 vodka tonics later I'm buzzing....okay a little drunk. Steph still isn't feeling well so we go back upstairs to the room. I try to take care of her, but quickly pass out on the bed. I wake up 3 hours later. It's only 4 p.m. I feel fantastic though.

We decide to head down to get some food at 5:30. While Steph gets ready I get to watch part of the NLCS game which gets me pumped. We actually decide on going to Hooters for dinner. Steph thinks the hotwings will open up her congestion and I'm just excited to go in general. The best part, the Redsox game will be on.

When we get to Hooters we're the only people in there practically. I ask which tv will be showing the game. They direct me towards the 20 foot cinematic screen right in front of the bar. I'm ecstatic. While eating I realize Stephanie is the coolest wife ever. Honestly, tell me what wife would let there husband go to Hooters and watch a baseball game with them while letting them consume more alcohol after already being drunk once in the day. Let alone on their honeymoon. Luckily I didn't just marry my wife, but my best friend too. Forty hotwings and a Redsox victory later we head back to the hotel.

We go down to the hotel bar for a few more drinks where I get drunk with our British friends again. The night ends as good as it began.

Day 2: A fresh beginning

2007-10-10T19:04:00.000-05:00

How can you have complaints when your day starts like this!

Day 2. We wake up. I slowly drag my bruised body out of the rock hard bed. My sleepy eyes focus in and out of the curtain hanging on the slideing glass window. The dark color of the curtain lets little light through. By the looks I assume it's a rainy day.

I go over to the curtain and pull it back. I'm pleasantly surprised to find it's a beautfiul day with the sun shining brightly across the lagoon behind our hotel. Today's going to be good.

We head down for breakfast. I'm a bit worried ti's going to be as bad as lunch. Luckily it's omelettes. You can't screw up omelettes. They end up being delicious.

Time for a little R&R. We relax and peruse the list of marina activities. We finally decide on parasailing for our first activity. It's a life goal of ours so we're pumped. The guys running it speak very little English and I'm pretty sure make fun of my little extra weight in the front, but that's okay. I've got a beautiful wife with me and they only have a couple of smelly guys on a boat.

The 12-minute ride is awesome. 45 feet above the water flying behind a boat is phenomenal.
Next we decide on the wave runner. I've been on one, but Steph hasn't. It's amazing as well. Nothing but pure throttle on that thing. "Have you ever tried not smiling on a wave runner?"

Next back to the beach for a little lunch. Lunch is just okay again. A little disappointed by the food again we decide to go back downtown for dinner later on, but still a little more time for sunbathing. Luckily after two days of fun in the sun Stephanie is still not burnt.

We ride the bus back to the downtown area. Rainforest Cafe for dinner; Mexicani style. Food is great, waiter is very good and I get to see a monkey crawling around on some guys head. It was awesome. We run around the downtown area for a bit. We decide to get our souvenir shopping out of the way. It takes about an hour and a half of running around a place called the Mexican Depot.

Finally it's time to head back to the hotel for a little her and me time.

On the bus ride back we run into this Mexican musician playing for tips on the busy. He starts with a Spanish tune and switches to Oasis' "Don't Look Back in Anger." It's beautiful. Not only is he a great player, but his voice is awesome too. It makes me want to do a photo story on him. I start imagining the multitude of available photos from a story. I even makeup my own little story about him. Where he's been, what his parents do, why he has to ride the bus. All of these things pass my mind as we wait to be dropped off. I tip him a few dollars which seems to be more than most people, but I really loved it.

Sadly I don't talk to him. I never ask him his name, I leave everything to my imagination. In some ways I hate this and in a wierd way I'm glad I'm letting my imagination run wild. Chances are his real story isn't as cool as the one I've made up.

We get back to the hotel. We go get a few drinks from the hotel bar and head back to the hotel room. Day 2 ends up being a huge success.

Day 1

2007-10-09T22:31:00.000-05:00

Luckily the blisters on my feet have healed.

It's been awhile. I apologize. I've been busy. You know, marriage stuff. I'm going to update once a day with a photo from each day of the honeymoon. Each day has a photo to go with the stories. Without further ado....

So let me first off tell you that anyone who says going to Cancun is just like being in the U.S. must have a really distorted view of the States. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure it's the most Americanized place there, but still quite a ways. Many people are fairly bilingual there, but not as much as most people think.

We arrived around 1 p.m. on Monday. It's raining. Immediately get out of the plane and go through customs. Thank god customs was a breeze. Didn't get searched or anything. We leave through the gates and get a van to our hotel.

I have to say the hotel was a little unimpressive when we showed up. I think the both of us were expecting a little bit more out of the resort, but being wore out from the flight, the lack of sleep and being pretty hungry gave us a bit of a negative attitude.
We go to eat in the hotel restaurant why they finish cleaning up our room.

The food ends up being horrible. Strike 2. The only way to describe the food was American food gone bad. Finally, we get all checked in. The room is even less impressive.

No remote for the tv, all tile on the floor and the beds are hard as a rock. And apparently they don't believe in rags for bathing in Mexico.

We still try to make the best of things. Get changed, head down to the beach. Luckily after 30 minutes on the beach the weather gets beautiful. Around 4:30 we start to get a bit hungry and want to go to dinner, but since we already discovered the hotel food sucks we head to the downtown area.

We're unsure how far it actually is, but we're up for a walk. Should've brought walking shoes. I made the mistake of wearing flip flops. We end up walking 8.5 km until we get to what they call the hotel zone with all the shops and restaurants.

We finally get settled in at a restaurant called the Mexican Pub. We're the only people there at 5:30 p.m. which seems wierd. Waiter speaks little English. I order a Bud Light, but get a Modelo Light, which is essentially there version of it. We get a stroke of luck though. The owner is sitting there and speaks very good English. We end up finding out everyone in Mexico eats 2 hours later than in the states becuase of their siestas.

We eat our meal which is fantastic. Try to pay with a traveler's check, but we mess it up and he can't accept it. Luckily he lets us pay with US dollars. He then explains to us how use the bus system and exchange our money. We ride the bus back which is kind of cool. If it's one thing Cancun has, it's a very good transit system.

We get back to the hotel and nearly pass out. I've had a few drinks for the day, my feet are pounding with blisters from walking and we're exhausted.

Luckily we're both positive tomorrow will be better.

I'll update the flickr section each day with new photos. Eventually I'll have all them up. Hopefully in a week or so.

Mr. Bigshot

2007-09-27T22:44:00.000-05:00

Who’s Mr. Bigshot now?

Stephen likes to refer to me as Mr. Bigshot now since I’m managing editor for my paper, but I saw his photos all over the front page today, so who’s the real Mr. Bigshot?

Tonight’s probably my last post as a single man. I don’t know if that’s really true or not. Knowing my absolute nerdiness I’ll be posting one tomorrow night. I’m sure I’ll have photos from the bar and the rehearsal dinner.

I actually do have a lot of photos to upload, but haven’t had the time. Hopefully I can do a better job, but don’t count on it.

Bored on a Thursday night

2007-09-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

Transformers were so much cooler in the 1980s.

I just had to add this photo really quick. I saw this transformer logo on the back of a car in the parking lot of IHOP during Stephen's wedding day. It's crazy how all the shows I watched as a little kid have become movies. I'm still boycotting the transformer movie because Michael Bay produced it.
I'll hopefully have some more detail shots coming. I've been struggling to come up with creative ones, but the more I look for them the easier it gets. Tomorrow I'm shooting more football and loving it. Saturday is my bachelor party in Chicago. I'm looking forward to hanging out with the guys, but I'm not looking forward to the feeling on Sunday I'll have.

A look back

2007-09-11T07:44:00.000-05:00

The look of excitement or the look of fear?

Stephen got married this weekend. I don't think I've ever been to a wedding with so many photographers and with so much coverage. It shouldn't have come to a shock to me that a news station was at his wedding. After all, he is THE Stephen Haas and now Mallory is THE Mrs. Haas. She has a pretty big shadow to stand in. And not just because of his enourmous chest and bear like qualities.

In all seriousness though I had one of the funnest times of my life and I really didn't do that much. It makes a huge difference when you're surrounded by the best group of journalist/friends a college education could buy.

I realized after this week how much I missed out on in college. Not to say I didn't make my own memories and that my friends weren't awesome in college. I just wish I would have spent more time with the DEN crew as well.

Despite the fact that I didn't really hang out with everyone a lot during college I still felt like a key piece to the group Saturday night. Chances are everyone would have gone about their business as usual without me being there and everyone would have still had a blast, but I like to think I contributed to the good times and maybe, just maybe had I not been there someone's night wouldn't have been complete. I feel incredibly vain saying that, but that's not how I mean it.

Either way, Stephen and Mallory looked radiant Saturday. Kevin German, their photographer extraordinaire gave a very nice and endearing description on his blog, but I got to hang out with Stephen for a good part of the day and want to describe what I saw.

I've never met a man on his wedding day that was so anxious. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean it in the best possible way. Not that he wanted it over with, but he wanted to be part of the rest of her life more than words can explain.

The night before he barely slept. He told me he only got 30 minutes of actual sleep which I originally thought was really odd. I didn't know if he was nervous or worried or scared. From the time we hit IHOP for the groomsmen/usher breakfast I could tell it was going to be a long day for him.

Mal had already told him no caffeine, so when he tried to order coffee and a coke the groomsmen, in their so not so subtle way, reminded him 'no.'

Luckily the guys kept him busy mostly through breakfast with an onslaught of jokes and stories that were funny only to us. As breakfast trudged along I could tell he was starting to get a little antsy so luckily everyone finished up and out the door we went.

The car ride to the church was a bit of a stretch. Here was my second indication of Stephen's anxiousness. He was speeding. Shhhh!!! Don't tell anyone. He wouldn't want it to get out. In the past couple of months since he moved her I've never seen the man speed. He actually brags that he doesn't. But on the way to Fithian his foot must have grown lead because even though rain was pouring down Stephen pushed the needle up and around 65 on a main highway. Never dangerously speeding, but enough to let other drivers know he meant business.

The next few hours were a little less intense. He calmed down a little. We wandered the church after getting dressed and found Stephen in the basement cooling himself with a turbine-like fan doing his best Darth Vader impression.

Pretty soon we were on our way to the photo shoot in a park. Stephen looked so happy to just be standing next to her. As corny as it sounds I've also never seen someone be so unabashedly sincere with their significant other in front of their friends. The way Stephen touched her face and her hands was like he was touching a expensive porcelain vase. Utter gentleness. At times it made sick and other times I was incredibly jealous that I don't have the self confidence to do it myself. Mostly the latter.

Once we were back to the church the pressure started building for him again. I tried to stay clear as much as I could and do what I could to help. I'm not good with being part of wedding parties because I never really know my role. I never have that comfortable feeling. I always feel like I'm either not doing enough or doing way too much and stepping over my boundaries.

This was no different as I had missed the rehearsal dinner because of work and felt out of the loop. It wasn't anyone's fault. The guys didn't make me feel like that at all. In fact, they only helped to include me and without Josh's help I would have been really lost.

Once all the guests were sat it was Stephen's turn to stand at the front with his groomsmen. Josh and I opened the doors for Mallory's grand entrance.

I could tell Stephen was holding back tears. In some ways him and I are a lot alike. I have a feeling I'll be fighting them back all day when I get married. Especially if Steph can't control the waterworks herself.

Stephen wasn't overly fidgety, but I could hear the "Let's hurry up and get to the 'I do' part" in his voice.

Some may attribute it to his ADHD like qualities that are no stranger to Stephen. He openly admits that he may have it. This is the man that started cleaning our hotel room after the bachelor party because us bums wouldn't get up.

But after seeing the look in his eyes as Mallory was walking down the aisle with her father I understood his excitability all day.

It's rare you get to see that look. I know people say it all the time at weddings, but I think most of them are over exaggerations. He let down all of his tough guy persona for everyone to see at that moment and just soaked his bride-to-be in. Sadly there are few words to describe it.

The rest of the day was obviously a success. I'm sure the two of them were incredbily relieved at the end of the day. As stressful as weddings are they're only truly worth it if you end the day with your one true soul mate.

It seems a little naive to think there's one person out there for each individual, but this weekend solidified my belief in that.

So with that, I say congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Haas. Thank you for the great time this weekend and I look forward to bugging the two of you as my neighbor. I only hope my wedding day is just as special as the two of yours.

When in Memphis...

2007-09-03T21:53:00.000-05:00

Why does beer in Memphis taste so much better?

I love Memphis. Anyone that has ever talked to me about their favorite cities knows this. I can't think of a single better city that I've visited. Chicago is a close second followed by Nashville in a distant third. My first visit to Memphis came with my fraternity a few years ago and this weekend marked my emphatical return. My favorite bar on Beale Street is Silky O'Sullivan's. It's a dueling piano bar playing live requests of all your favorite tunes. I know they probably get a request for Mark Cohn's "Walking in Memphis" at least five times a night, but I had to do it. I mean how could you not. Anyway, I think I made a believer out of the guys for the most part. Maybe we could make a yearly trip with just the guys to go down for a weekend. I don't know if my body can handle more than a whole weekend.

I just hope Stephen had as good of a time as I did. After all, it was his bachelor party. Check out some more photos from the weekend here.

I watch too much television

2007-08-31T23:18:00.001-05:00

I saw this commercial on tv the other day an couldn't pass up posting it. There's so many things making this commercial funny for me. Some of them are inside jokes, but funny none the less.

Bridging the Gap

2007-08-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

A chainlink from a decaying bridge is wrapped around a steel beam.

I shot my first AP assigment today. I got a call out of the blue and they said they needed a shot of this decaying bridge west of town. I'm really interested to see what the full story is about. The best part about the assigment was I was in the mood to shoot detail shots. I have one shot from volleyball the other night I'll post later, but for now I'll leave you with you a few of these. The chain links one is my favorite.

I really liked the way the spray paint textured with the rusted steel looked. I could probably come up with some really artsy/political name for this photo, but I'll spare all of you.

It's hard to believe that in exactly one month from today I'll be married. I'll just be happy to have Stephanie down here. It's not fun being here by myself all the time.

Detailing

2007-08-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

Amish buggy wheel.

I've decided I'm going to try and shoot a detail shots from almost everything I can and take this blog in a slightly new direction. I'll have minor updates on what's going on in my life, but I want to try and get as creative with detail shots as I can think. This wasn't the most creative shot in the world, but I only had a few minutes to shoot it, so I just cropped it a little differently. The crop creates tension in my opinion because most people would have left wheel centered. I'm not sure if it works on anyone, but it's a start.

Horseshoes and hand grenades

2007-08-22T18:35:00.001-05:00

Caption goes here

Over the weekend I shot some photos of horseshoes. I could see myself playing horseshoes later in life. For now I'll stick to bags since I'm still too close to college age.

I think you should be at least 30 before you start playing horseshoes. I'll start practicing now so I'm a master when my time comes.

Speaking of bags, I'm going to make set for for Stephanie and I. (Read Stephen and I.)

A night of power tools, beer and minor injuries may be just what I need.

Here we go again

2007-08-22T18:20:00.000-05:00

Caption goes here

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1414/1186302443_9900b0ffdb.jpg?v=0

I have to watch what I say from now on because people insist on taking this blog and trying to get me in trouble. I don't put anything on here that can't be learned just by asking me. If someone in town asked me what I thought about something I would tell them the god honest truth.

As for photos on other blogs of me, I can't control what other people post nor would I want to. Plus, making a joking gesture toward a friend shouldn't be something that anyone finds interesting. If I decide to do that I know full and well that someone else could see it. I wasn't at work, I wasn't doing it to someone in the community and it wasn't done maliciously.

I was pretty angry at first when I found out about the situation, but I've since let that go. If someone or some people think it's their job to tear me down and try to get me fired or pit people against me then so be it. I can think of hundreds of things that might be more important than worrying about what they will do next. I can only be myself and hope people like me for who I am.

Possible career change?

2007-08-09T20:14:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not changing careers yet.

The ad guys at work thought this would be funny to ad my name to this flyer. I guess if this whole editor thing doesn't pan out I could always change careers. Hell, I'd already have flyers made up. Then I'd just need to get a new cellphone number.

This week is going pretty good so far. I feel a little more confident and I think the staff is appreciating my planning and organization. Or they're doing the same thing I would have done. (Nodding yes to everything I say and then talking smack behind my back.) Either way, there's been no controversy.

I have become incredibly jacked up on coffee all day long though. I completely understand why some editors get ulcers at an early age.

Chimps

2007-08-06T20:16:00.000-05:00

2 chimps are better than 1!

Last week at the Coles County Fair, Kevin Kilhoffer and I used the spray and prey method during the Donkey Races. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it's essentially putting your camera on drive mode and shooting anything that moves.

After shooting you wait for your camera to load the images and then quickly see what people you need to get ids from before they run away. Ken Rufener, another photographer got this shot quickly after the first race. He said he couldn't help himself even though he had the same urge.

This was my last big Coles County Fair photo page since now I work primarily for the Tuscola and Regional papers. And for those of you who don't know I got promoted to editor this past week. I put out my first Regional paper today and put out my first Review paper on Wednesday.

Erin Update

2007-08-02T15:58:00.000-05:00

Erin as a naughty Brit.

For those VH1 watchers and EIU students not keeping up with Rock of Love, Erin is still on the show. Her enourmous breasts are still taking up most of the screen each Sunday. I've heard rumors she doesn't win and I'm pretty sure Brandi, another girl on there doesn't win either as other sites have been talking about her being a porn star and Brett missing out on a 3-some.

It'd be nice if Erin won, but I see it unlikely as she will most likely be sabotaged by other girls on the show and Brett is already questioning her loyalty because she was once engaged. I think he'll keep her on until she at least lets him see the two watermelons she's concealing and then he'll make up some excuse like they just don't have a connection.

The one thing I think this show has going for it is that B.M. knows how to keep conflict in the show to boost ratings. It's working on me. I'm so trapped in the show because of Erin right now I'll probably have to watch it all the way through.

Sunbathing

2007-08-02T15:50:00.000-05:00

This kitten caught my softer side last night as it sunbathed in the evening light at the fair.

I happen to see this cat hiding behind a wheel of a buggy used for harness racing at the Coles County Fair Wednesday. Normally I don't shoot pictures of ordinary animals, but this cat had a little soft spot in me because my mom just had to put the family cat down.

I guess Pepper couldn't even lift her head anymore so it was better for her. I'm not much of a cat person, but i never like to see animals in general suffer. It was a bit wierd just seeing this kitten hanging out at the fair.

I guess it was an animal theme all the way around as you can see from my previous post. Stephen had a few bird shots up as well, but his was a little morbid with a dead bird hanging on a wire.

Takin' a break in Charleston

2007-08-02T15:36:00.000-05:00

There are a barrage of jokes I could come up with for this photo about you, your mom, or your girlfriend...I'll leave it to your imagination.

I love wide-angled shots. I think I like my 17-40 lens more than I like myself sometime. This is one of the few shots I really liked from the other night at the Coles County Fair.

I seem to be in a slump right now. Little motivation and even less creativity. Part of my problem is I'm not looking at enough photos by other good photographers and part of it is I've been worrying about something. I'll explain that one later though. The details aren't concrete and I don't want to jinx anything.

Sorry for not updating in awhile for the 1 person that cares, but let's face it. You live 4 doors down from me now and anything going on in my life you probably already know about. If by chance you're reading this and you don't live 4 doors down from me then you should look at this more often and post comments.

Stephanie is having her bridal showers this weekend. One at my parent's house and one at her parent's house. I'm just excited because this means free shit for us. The wedding is t-minus 58 days.

Time to head back into the hot sun and get some more feature fair photos.

Scrambled

2007-07-22T01:20:00.000-05:00

A scramble of lights blur together Friday night during Bagelfest in Matoon.

I absolutely loved this shot from the other night. I'm going to play with it more at the Coles County Fair. I'd like to try it at dusk to get a better looking night sky, but this worked very nicely. And I'm going to try and light paint with a flash light rather than my strobes. I have another one from the Octopus that I'll post in the next day or two.

I'm just hoping for good weather tomorrow and a clear night sky for more star trail shots with Stephen.

More Strobing

2007-07-17T23:24:00.000-05:00

Light falloff was this weeks lesson. Well technically last week's, but like clothes, life and everything else I'm a week behind.

The coolest part of today was setting up my studio upstairs in the Review building. It's technically the morgue for all the dead publications, but since ours isn't filled and nowhere close to being so I took it upon myself to relocate a small studio up there. The drawback, a very low ceiling. About 6.5 feet. The good news, my camera equipment all fits up there much nicer than in my house. Plus I get to play around all I want whenever I want with no one bothering me. I did lesson 1.2 up there tonight. Just one more thing to draw me into the paper at night. I'm sure this will be completely fine until Stephanie moves in with me.

On the flip-side, if she ever kicks me out for the night there is a cot up there. Could come in handy for those midday siestas as well. If she did kick me out for the night it would be like a kid getting punished by being sent to his bedroom where all his toys are.

Anyway, I have to say I'm starting to understand the inverse square law a little bit. To most photographers that's near blasphemy. If you're not a photographer than my apologies for this senseless rambling about stuff you don't care about. Scroll down to see some big boobs while I talk to the rest.

Basically the inverse square law says that light falloff is much greater when the light source is much closer and much less when it is further away. Hence the really light background on the right and the darker background on the left. I could have used this at an assignment today as I would have really liked to cut the background down significantly more to eliminate a distracting sign. A very oversimplified explanation, but good for most people to at least get them started.

I'm really getting the hang of this off camera lighting stuff. Now I just need to buy a set of pocket wizards. If you know anyone wanting to sell some off let me know. I'd love to pick up a set of used ones, but not many people get rid of them because of how handy and reliable they are. If I can find a new remote trigger for the Quantum Slave II's Stephen gave me I'd use them too. They actually work very nicely, but either the cords Stephen had were bad or the connection inside the trigger is faulty. I'm going to try my hand at trying to fix it tomorrow, but I don't have a solder gun nor am I very good at it. Well enough for tonight. I'm tired from so many different things it would take too long to post them.

EIU, Can we get any more popular?

2007-07-17T12:09:00.000-05:00

I'm betting it's not just Erin's personality that moved her to round 2 of the reality show.

Stephen sent me the link to this photo. In Urlacher's defense, somebody yelled 'fumble' right before this photo and he grabbed the first inflated thing he saw.

Chris DeRosa told me at work today that he was watching the new reality television show Rock of Love with Brett Michaels last night and realized one of the girls was an Eastern grad. The girl Erin is a former Delta Zeta. Sure enough I look it up on the website and he was right. It doesn't list her as an Eastern grad, but doe say she's from Bloomington, Ill., and a former Miss Hooters Illinois 2002.

I also recognized her as I used to see her in the gym with her former boyfriend Greg Collier all the time. *Secret confession* I used to try and choose the elliptical machine behind the stair stepper when she was in there.

It's crazy how EIU keeps breeding more and more quasi-celebrities. Check Erin and all the other lovely ladies out on VH1.

I'll add more info if I can find her facebook or myspace, but I don't know how to spell her last name right now. It's something like Chaddock or Shaddock. If you find out let me know.

*Update*
Her myspace is set to private and she only accepts friends she knows. I'm truly disappointed. She's going to have to start a new myspace page for fans.

Star Trails

2007-07-16T16:14:00.001-05:00

Stars streak the rural Tuscola night sky Sunday night.

Stephen and I headed out southeast of town last night to shoot star trails. We needed an area with little or no light pollution. This was nearly impossible as Charleston gives off a decent amount of light, Champaign gives off a ton and all the plants west of Tuscola give off a ton of light. The photos still turned out pretty cool. This photo took 1024 seconds or roughly 17 minutes. The long exposure is how you get the star trails. The downside is that you get a lot of grain from doing a long exposure. I still like the effect. We're going to try it next time we go fishing out at Lake Charleston. There's really not much until you hit Effingham, south of Charleston and nothing east until you hit Indianapolis, so maybe the light pollution will be significantly less out at the lake. I've got a few more photos I'll post on my flickr page when I get them edited.

I have to admit though. There's something a little creepy about sitting in the middle of country road late on a Sunday night. Especially with another dude. The way stars reflect into his eyes....did I say that out loud?

Silhouettes

2007-07-14T11:59:00.000-05:00

The North Star shines brightly as the sun sets west of Arthur Friday night.

I had to go shoot the fair for the last night Friday. I haven't been very excited about the fair event though it could breed a whole bunch of good photos. In fact, I had some really good ideas for photos, but no motivation to shoot them.
Steph, Dana and Patti came down this week so the last thing I've wanted to be doing the past couple of nights is working.
Plus I put in a ton of hours last week. Hopefully this weekend will give me some rest so I'm motivated for the next week.
I think I'll start a silhouette collection on here. I shoot shots of these far too much, but I guess as long as I make it part of a collection I can see how different I can make them.

Strobist+Time+Insomnia=This Post

2007-07-12T00:21:00.000-05:00

This was the closest I could find to a life-like subject.

I haven't been following Strobist's newest lessons as much as I would like to, so I decided to go ahead and start following a bit closer. These are my shots from section 1.1 about angles. The lesson revolves around moving the camera rather than the light source and how it affects the dimensionality of the object. In this case a keepsake ornament. (Because I don't have a live subject.)

It's an easy, basic, but very knowledgable lesson. I'll try to work on lesson 1.2 dealing with distance in the coming days. Steph will be here tomorrow with her sister Dana and friend Patty. Should be a good time this weekend.

I'm getting severely pissed at my ebay slaves. They won't sync any higher than 1/125 and most the time no higher than 1/30. I need the 20D back severely. It should be here late next week I'm hoping barring no setbacks.

Then it's time to get serious about shooting. I'm going to emphasize portrait personalities. It may seem a bit different than what I do on a normal basis, but it's something I love doing. I did another one with John Wienke, the Tuscola quarter back who verbally committed to Michigan the other day. I'll post it after Friday when it runs in the paper.

Paper's getting a bit of a shakeup in the next couple of weeks. My editor resigned Monday. We'll be looking for a new one soon and I can only hope we can get a fresh face with some serious newspaper design experience. I think that's the only thing lacking from our paper right now is the design aspect. It may take time to transform it, but it will get there. If you know anyone interested let me know. I'll try to get the word to the right people. And they have to promise to run absolutely no more than 3 photos on the front page and one of those must be at least 4 columns wide and above the fold. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying...

Oh and if you didn't notice I redesigned. I'll probably be tweeking stuff for the next few days trying to give a different look. I'm not entirely happy with this, but it something new and more appealing than my last template.

He's Going the Distance

2007-07-10T21:05:00.000-05:00

Nike+iPod continues to change my life.
Do you have what it takes? When you hit the point of wanting to quit or pushing on will you choose to grit your teeth and accept the blisters you knew you were going to have or will you quit, giving excuses as to why things didn't workout for you? Today I taught myself just how mental running is.

In celebration of the 10th of July I decided to run a record breaking 10 miles today. Farthest I've ever run. Actually it's purely coincidence I ran it on the 10th. In fact I didn't realize until about 10 minutes ago. My previous record is 7 miles, so ya, I blew that one out of the water. I'm not looking forward to the aches tonight when I try to go to bed or the blisters I'll have in the morning, but I feel very accomplished. I wanted to know if I could do the 15k EIU will be holding at the end of the month and I can. I'm a bit of a slow runner when it comes to very long distances, but at least I can do them.

I've always held the belief that running was purely physical until today. I understand why long distance runners typically go through deep psychological hypnotisms each week to prepare for incredibly long distances.

You hit a point where you say to yourself, "Well, I think this is far enough," but you have to push beyond. Then comes the stage where you start to ache. It could be lack of oxygen, blisters on your feet, in my case my hip. I favor one side over the other so at about mile 5 my hip was trying to tell me to just give up. But I didn't. I knew I would have felt unaccomplished if I did.

My next step is a half marathon. I think I'll try to improve by a mile each week until I make it to 13.1 miles. That way I could do the San Francisco Half-Marathon sponsored by Nike in October. All you have to do is pay a nominal fee to participate and complete your run on I think October 21. One of my life goals is to finish a marathon. I'm clearly not going to break any records, but how many can ever say they completed a marathon? Not many.

Rock Stardom

2007-07-07T16:04:00.000-05:00

What a way to celebrate your freedom.

I got to hang out with Tony the other day for the first time in a long time. Apparently he's had an idea for a photo he's wanted to do for a long time so when I showed up the other day he wanted to go ahead and try it. I shot this with the umbrella off to the left trying to underexpose the background slightly. I should have tried to underexpose even more, but I was pretty happy with the slight blur effect I got here too. I would have liked to been a bit closer, but Tony was nervous he might hit me with a piece of debris or the strings would ricochet off and hit me or him. Either way I had a lot of fun.

One thing I realized I need to do is hack my camera's sync speed. By doing this it allows me to overpower the ambient light for extremely bright days. This wasn't necessarily one of the days that I would need it, but I had an instance this week it would have been really helpful. Or I could just buy a portable ac power supply for my white lightning. I should probably buy a lightbulb for it first though. Well back to more Sesquicentennial photos. I can't wait until I don't have to say that word ever again.

Rally Cap Hope

2007-07-03T14:40:00.000-05:00

The rally cap. A sure sign of hope.

I'm getting ready to hit the festival circuit tonight so I'm going to be busy for the next few days. Updates probably won't come until after the 8th. I had to post the above photo. There's something about this kid and his hat that reminds me of my younger days of little league and t-ball.

When I showed up for this game on Saturday I pulled into my parking spot west of the ball field. When I shot off my car I couldn't help over hear a conversation between two older gentlemen and this boy. At first I didn't think anything of it, but I noticed the boy was wearing a uniform for the team I was supposed to be covering. The conversation looked as if it was pretty serious and my natural curiosity got the best of me so I pretended to be fiddling with my iPod.

During the conversation I realized they were explaining to the kid why they couldn't allow him to start the day's game as the pitcher. At first I thought it might be a situation where he was a fill-in pitcher who led them to the tournament, but now the real starter was back and he felt wronged. After a minute or so I realized this wasn't the case at all. In fact, he was the normal starter for the team. The kid was the ace arm of the little league team and they were telling him he couldn't start. I thought how strange this was since this was a do-or-die situation, not just an exhibition game. The boy had apparently acted inappropriately towards his coaches and had an overall bad attitude. If I understood the conversation correctly, the coaches had asked him to do something and he had a temper tantrum.

This astounded me. I realized the two coaches were actually doing something I don't think 90% of coaches would have done. They were giving the boy a lesson on the importance of sportsmanship.

Over the years I've noticed an ever increasing drive to push kids to win at all costs necessary. This probably isn't new to anyone, but I see it as a major problem among our coaches. This isn't a problem with out children, it's primarily the fault of our coaches. Sure kids want to win, but there's more important things in life than winning.

Either way, these two guys were sacrificing a win and further advancement in the playoffs to teach their team a lesson. I think the whole team learned from the experience, not just the boy.

Call it cheesy, call it reading too much into a situation, or call it whatever you want, but I was profoundly affected by the situation. It made me realize there are good coaches out there who are teaching today's youth the way they should all be taught. I think the other reason it affected me so much was because they actually took the time to explain to him like an adult, why he wasn't starting. They didn't just punish him and say so long. They made him understand why this was important and how he could do better in the future. So many people just punish a kid and never take the time to tell him/her why it was wrong and what can be done better.

By the end of the game the kid was cheering for his team, telling each of his teammates what they did right and never once focused on the negative aspects even though they lost the game. He congratulated the entire team on a job well done and a great season. When other kids hung their heads he was there trying to cheer them up. I just couldn't believe how much the conversation had affected him. It just goes to show how important explanations are. I have no doubt in my mind he would have been one of the kids moping had they not talked to him before hand.

I'd like to thank them for doing this, but at the same time I think this should be something everyone who coaches or is a parent should do.

Coming to the end and an end to a new beginning

2007-06-29T15:58:00.000-05:00

The greatest part of this picture is this is after I watched Justin, left, walk in the reception triple fisting Jack and Cokes. They were devoured in minutes.

Justin was a groomsman at Chad's wedding. I spoke with him briefly at the head table as I was shooting photos. He reminded me of a cross between Scott Parino and Grumpy Bear/Kevbot. Shortly after which he claims to his whole table that him and I are "boys." (This was the first time him and I ever met.)We are boys though!

I've been holding off on posting any of Chad and Monica's photos until they're all available. I'm 90% done. I have a bout 20 photos left to edit, but I just did about 30 so I'm done for the day. I couldn't resist posting this one for two reasons. I really like the black and white look of it for some reason. I'm not sure if it's tone, the expression or something else. I just know that it works for me.

I do have some bad news. My Canon 20D died last night. Well I shouldn't say die as much as it went berserk. I shot a few photos at a meeting for work last night and all the sudden it goes into rapid fire mode. It wouldn't quit. I took the batteries out and tried everything short of throwing it against the wall, but it wouldn't quit doing it. Come to find out 20D's have this issue when the shutter wears out. I thought the shutter was actually firing, but upon a little more inspection found it wasn't opening at all, the mirror mechanism was just going up and down repeatedly. I knew something was up as my lenses were coming up "00" in the apperture field. And no, those aren't boobs.

Luckily because I was using it for work so all repairs are going to be covered under the paper. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be within $200 of the purchase of a new camera and I can just buy a 30D. That would make my day. (Probably wouldn't make the accountant's day at work, but that's why I'm in editorial.)

For the time being Eric's going to let me borrow his rebel so major kudos for him. I sent my camera off today and I should have it back within 2 weeks. I just wish it would have waited for after festival season, but that's okay too. No major complaints about it because it does have probably close to 60,000 actuations on it.

Now that I've bored the one non-photographer who reads this and reiterated everything I already told to the one photographer who reads this I'll get back to editing more images or watching tv until Steph gets off work.

You're Face is Going to Stick Like That

2007-06-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

Caption goes here

I never miss a chance to make fun of Stephanie. Today is no different. I was editing my photos from Chad and Monica's wedding from the 9th and found this little gem. I'm going to make a whole collection of photos with Stephanie making faces such as these. Why? Mostly because I can and it's funny to me. Stay tuned for more funny photos as I come across them.

My Crazy Life

2007-06-25T16:21:00.000-05:00

Hey there gypsy. You can't have me.

This is by far the most random lady I have ever met. After covering a meeting in Charleston Wednesday I left the Panther Paw to head back to Tuscola. While walking out I see this lady starting at me as she's pulling into a parking space. The conversation goes a little like this:

Lady: He..He...Hey!
Me: Uhhhh...ya???
Lady: Is it...Is it..busy in there?
Me: MMM....not really, sort of, I guess it depends on your idea of busy.
Lady: They're really nice to me in there. The kids give me cigarettes and beer.
Me: Oh yeah? Well that's nice of....{cutoff by lady}
Lady: I'm 64.
Me: Cool!!??
Lady: My landlord broke my leg today. This is my daughter.
Me: {awkward silence}
Lady: My birthday's July 17.
Me: That's pretty soon.
Lady: Take a picture of me.
Me: {Beginning to laugh as I take a picture} Sweet!
Lady: You're kind of cute. I'm hitting on you.
Me: Thanks, I don't think my fiance would like that.
Lady: Bye!

Apparently because I have a fiance she was done talking. I called Kevbot to tell him about this lady and of course during our discussion he realizes he and Peaches have run into this lady before too. The whole time I was talking with her I kept thinking how great it would be to run into her with those two. Peaches would have definitely found a new best friend. This is just another incident to prove my life is a series of random episodes spiraling out of control.

5 mojitos later

2007-06-24T21:40:00.000-05:00

You're an animal Chris!

I had a real tough day at the office Friday as I was golfing 18 holes with my regional manager, Chris, and the head of advertising Dean. We we're playing in the Charleston Chamber of Commerce tournament. I had a blast out there. I was introduced to the mojito which is fantastic. Though Katie, Derek's wife told me is out of style. I've always been just a little behind the times I guess. No real news to report that most of you aren't aware of. So I'll say so long for now.

Daniel Williams Tent for Those Who Can't Fish Well and Want to Do Other Things Well Too

2007-06-03T19:21:00.000-05:00

I can only imagine the person who designed this model of a tent got the repsponse, "How are the children going to read if they can't even fit in the tent? It's going to have to be at least.....3 times this size."

I got my fishing license for the season today. Stephen and I spent most of Sunday at Lake Charleston. I forgot how much I love to go fishing. I'm going to try and do it more often. I found out the Embarass River runs about 5-6 miles outside of town. Maybe I'll try catfishing out there. I'm going to pick most of my equipment up from home when I go to shoot the wedding this weekend. I need to do a little research on river fishing this week too because Stephen and I both realized we know nothing about river fishing. When it comes to lakes I think I know how to catch pan fish, but I'm still not that experienced with bass or anything large. I did catch the only bass out of the two of us in the river today. Too bad it was about 6 in. long. I did manage to catch my own shoe as well. I'm sure Stephen will share the picture.

A Day at the Track

2007-05-25T18:30:00.000-05:00

How long do you think his hair took to cut?

I spent the day at IHSA Boys Track Finals today. I love this shot. I like finding interesting things to shoot other than the actual action. I have to cover graduation tonight, select two of my best photos, send them to the N-G and then head to Steph’s. It’s going to be a late night.

I got to hang with Stephen for a little bit and saw a few more photographers I haven’t seen in awhile. I can’t wait to see Poulter’s updates on what he was shooting today. He says I outshot him last week, but I think he definitely took it this week. I’ve been horribly unmotivated lately.

I hit that burn out mode every few weeks now because of all the reporting mostly. If I was just doing photos it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but both things combined wears me out. I’m sure I’ll find a permanent photo position somewhere eventually. I’m just happy to be in journalism for now.

I’ll probably have a few photos from Dana’s graduation this weekend. I’ll update if I get anything good.

Pugilism, the Greatest Sport Ever

2007-05-16T21:08:00.000-05:00

Hoey is awesome

*Edit* *This was written last Tuesday. *Edit* Work has got me stressed out. I typically don't get like this, but I'm just busy and feel unappreciated at the moment. I probably won't feel that way tomorrow, but I definitely do now. If you're really interested I'll tell you about it over the phone. So there's my little complaint blurb. Now that we've got that out of the way I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way a couple of my photos turned out this week.

This was one to go along with a Kelsi Hoey story that we did about her being a multi-sport athlete. We ended up using a different one so I don't mind putting this one up. I imagined this photo as a bit better, but with as big as it was going to run and the time constraint I was under I chose one with a closer view and a different angle.

I also have to say that boxing is probably the best sport ever. As I sit here watching USA vs. UK on ESPN, I got wondering a bit about boxing history. I didn't realize how old of a sport it really was. I assumed it started in the 10th or 11th century for some reason, but Wikipedia says it could have begun as early as 3000 BC. I'm not sure what I love about boxing. Maybe it's my pure animal instinct of watching someone kick someone else's ass that's so awesome about it. I'm really going to try to watch more boxing and learn a little more about it.

I've actually done a pretty good job at learning how to score. I could probable be a judge for a match sometime. So far, watching the last round of this show I've scored all the rounds correctly accept one round.

By the way, USA wins.

(cont. today)

Work has gotten better. More photos, less writing. I can't wait to see Stephanie again. I may see her Sunday if I drive all the way to Rochelle. It's going to be a long day on Saturday if I do. Boys track finals all day long and then a 3 hour drive up to Rochelle is not my idea of fun. Plus I'd have to come back the next day because I need to be here for Memorial Day events.

I've gotten to read a bit more as well so that's got me happy. I just need to write in my journal more often. it's so hard to balance everything.

The Red Sox are doing awesome right now in the season so that's got me excited, but I realize it's still very early in the season.

Good Weekend

2007-05-13T08:04:00.000-05:00

Name that bird.

I finally put up the 2 pictures of birds from this past week that I have. One is red breasted Robin and the other I'm not quite sure on. I'm sure Stephen will know as soon as he sees it, so I'll update the info in the picture as soon as he gets it. I need to get myself a field guide.

I went home for a weekend. It was really nice to have a weekend off since starting my new job. I've put in a ton of hours over the past couple of weeks and this was exactly what I needed to recharge.

We had an editorial meeting the other day and I just felt very underachieved after it. I don't think that was the purpose and nothing was aimed specifically at me, but it felt like none of us were getting the job done that we needed to be doing. Things like taht usually work as a motivational tool for me, but for some reason I left this one negatively. Maybe this week I'll start to hit a groove and it won't be such a big thing.

I'm almost done with my Margaret Bourke White book. I should be considering it's only 120 pages, but I haven't had much time to read it. I read half the book on Thursday night and then 20 pages over the past two days.

The brightside is that I got to visit with my parents and Stephanie this weekend. I haven't seen Steph in about 2 weeks now and it's really wierd not having her around all the time. I'm excited for summer to come and go so she'll be down here with me.

Before I leave I need to take a picture of the necklace Stephanie and I gave Mom for Mother's Day. It's perfect because now all the women have heart jewelry for the wedding.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the 3 hour drive home today. Maybe I'll stop in at Borders on my way home, even though I know I shouldn't.

I'm a Big Let Down

2007-05-10T13:24:00.000-05:00

I think it's pretty safe to say Stephen is a walking multimedia communication center.

So Post 100 will not be a cataclysmic event revealing the meaning behind life as some may have thought it would be. And by 'some' I mean all 1 of you that reads this (Stephen). Because it's been so long since I've written in this thing I'll recap the past month for all of you.

-Interviewed for a job in Tuscola in early April
-Accepted job with East Central Communications in Tuscola for the Tuscola Review and Coles County Leader in Mid-Aprill
- Found out I'm partially colorblind. Felt like the kid in "Little Miss Sunshine" when he finds out he'll never be a pilot. I literally threw the book that had the test in it and said "Fuck this thing, it was published in 1986 anyway!"
-Quit Lundgren's.
-Moved to Tuscola.
-Started my job in Tuscola.
-Joined the Tuscola Chamber of Commerce board
-Worked non-stop for the past 2.5 weeks.
-Bought a washer and dryer.

So that's the past month to 2 months in brief. I know I always say I'll write in this more so I won't say that this time. I will however say I'll make every effort to keep this more updated in order to attract new readers and show off some of my photos. I have some bird photos to put up soon too. Hopefully tonight. *Sigh* Never enough time in the day for everything I want to do. I am however getting to running a lot more which is awesome. I ran 6.2 miles (a 10K for those metrically inclined.) I'll probably do 4 miles tonight. The last thing to comment on is I may be reactivating my other blog of "Musictopia Reviews." I think now would be a good time to do it since I live alone and need to find something to do. I want to concentrate on local music acts. I need to get a hold of the music teacher at TCHS and find out if there are any cool younger bands to do a story on them.

I'm All Over the Place With This One

2007-04-01T10:42:00.000-05:00

T-mount ring and a Pentax Bellows = Macro

As you can see I've started experimenting with Macro work. It's all part of my upcoming Spider series I want to do this Spring/Summer. I'm excited about creating a series. I've never tried to do a photo series before and this one should be interesting. Plus it's all my own idea. I shot a few more the other night, but nothing too big. I'll definitely be doing a lot more detail shots in the future.

I'm waiting to hear what the News-Gazette is going to tell me soon. I should hear back from them either tomorrow or Tuesday. I'll update all 1 of you that looks at this when I get the call. Besides, you'll probably get a phone call from me before you read this anyway.

MLB's opening day is today. Cardinals vs. Mets. I typically don't watch these games, but I generally make a point to watch the opening day game no matter who it is.

I came up with what I consider a brilliant idea for a screen play this morning. My idea is loosely based off of "This is Spinal Tap" combined with the ever popular reality television theme. No full ideas, but I'd actually like to do research for it and write a really funny script making fun of everything from Music videos to bands outrageous backstage requests.

My next post will put me at the Century Club of blogging. I don't know if that's sad or an accoplishment. Either way I'll make it a good post. I have a little news, but I think I'm going to let it wait for the next post. It's nothing extremely exciting, but something that really freaked me out when I discovered it....is that enough of a cliff hanger for ya?

Killbuck Creek

2007-03-28T11:41:00.000-05:00

My first bird isn't an exciting one, but I promise it will get better.

In my attempt to actually BE Stephen Haas I went bird watching yesterday for the first time. I figured I should give it a try. It was mostly nice just to be outside. I went to a habitat that I've seen on my way to work several times but never stopped. I had never seen anyone out there and it was right a long the highway. Now I know why know one ever goes there. One, there is no easy access to the place. It's apparently sponsored by Ducks Unlimited, but I can't find anything about this place. It hardly even mentioned anywhere on the web. It's called Killbuck Creek. The most information that I can find on it is that it drains into the Kishwaukee River. Maybe I should do some research on it and either do a story or at least create a wiki for other enthusiasts.

The biggest reason I wanted to stop is because I know I've seen a heron there before. No herons today. I'm surprised there's any birds there at all because of all the traffic noise. Nothing peaceful about it. All I got to see was Canadian Geese, ducks, sparrows, and Redwing
Blackbirds.

If I'm going to continue to do this I really need to get a Nikon P series camera with a digi scope. I don't know how Stephen does it with his 70-200. I can't get close enough to them to get any really good photos. Oh well, that's why he's Stephen I guess.

*Added later*

I actually came into work today and the store was completely rearranged. We had a ton of new stock. Oddly enough in the new stock was a Promaster 18-36x field scope with attatchments for slr cameras. It's going to work out perfect for me I think. It's probably not the best thing in the world, but It's going to cost me 1/8 of what it would to buy a new point and shoot and a Nikon scope. Stay tuned for more blogs to come...

Newspaper Goals

2007-03-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

Nalla pokes her head out of my Coors Light box on Saturday March 17, 2007.

Here's another ferret picture for you. I haven't had a big chance to do much photographically this week. I did set up a self-portrait and had Shawn help me at work with it, but other than that it's mostly just been playing around.

Tomorrow starts the search for a printer so I can get some prices on starting my own weekly community paper. My goal would be to eventually put it out a couple of times a week. I want a graphically based paper with strong community content featuring mini essays and regular local news. I would provide free classifieds to begin with and charge only for the commercial advertising. I want to start off by selling just enough to cover my costs and turn a profit later on.

My goal isn't to make a huge profit. It's to provide the well needed journalism for this community. I think I could sell many of the ads myself if I had a prototype of the paper and have someone design the ads for me. I could design the paper to start and maybe hire a designer later on. The great part about designing a weekly like this is that I could enlist the help of some colleagues not in the immediate area to put it together and email me the design back. For a fair price obviously.

Oh by the way, Creative Vision Photography will be listed in the paper as their highlighted business of the week. I about started laughing when they called me the other day. I'll throw up a shot of the article after it runs on Tuesday or I'll link to it. Don't expect much out of it. I did the photo for it more of a survey than an article. This is the exact reason I want to start my own paper.

Fun in the Tub

2007-03-12T17:01:00.000-05:00

Caption goes here

I've been looking to shoot more often so I decided to shoot bathtime with the ferrets the other day. I'll have a few more pics of them from time to time now. Basically when I have nothing to shoot you'll get to see the ferrets.

I got a chance to go to IBOP this weekend sponsored by IPPA (Illinois Press Photographer's Association). It was really nice to get back to a setting where people really cared about photojournalism. It just made me realize how much I want to shoot again. I'm thinking about trying to start a new blog and possibly posting to The Photo News. Clark Brooks talked with me a lot and got me fired up about possibly starting my own weekly newspaper. I think I might start seeking out some ideas this week on my day off.

I shot a few photos at IBOP that you can look at if you want. I also won a 512 High Speed card while I was there so double word score for me.

There will be a new blog of mine up soon. I'm planning on starting a Rochelle Community Blog. Name and specifics to be determined at a later date. I got the idea from a small section that Steve Jessmore from Flint did, only mine will be online based to begin with. It's something I would eventually want to incorporate to a paper.

Last thing to mention is Creative Vision Photography is going to be featured as business of the week in the Rochelle News Leader next week. So I got that going for me...

Strobing

2007-01-25T20:39:00.000-06:00

My buddy Kyle from work wanted some pictures of his tatts so I hooked it up. Canon 10-22, 1/250 second f/11. 1 Canon 550EX to the right with a softbox and 1 SB-24 behind him.

We were just a little bored at work today so I decided to bust out the strobes and play around a bit. Here's a few other photos if you're interested. I was fairly pleased. I can't wait until I get to the chapter in my "Skin" book where they talk about black and white toning.

I hope to try and get some more strobing photos soon. Now that I've actually started playing with it a bit it's got me a lot more interested. I'm officially up to 3 Nikon SB-24 flash units and 1 Canon 550 EX. Luckily I have Strobist to help me out a bit with some ideas.

Shawn decided to start a seperate blog about his coffee shop so I may decide to start one based solely on creating a studio. I'll decide on doing that a bit later. Tonight I'm going to start a list of items I need to get in order to do a studio though. If you need a wedding photographer hit me up. I also put an ad in Tuesday's paper. I'll take a pic of it and post it.

Oh, and Steph and I have a website on The Knot's website. Check it out and sign our guestbook.

Tough Day at the Office

2007-01-21T17:56:00.000-06:00

Can you say Superbowl Shuffle!

Without this work would have been a huge bummer today.

Just because I could.

As you can see it was a rough one around the store today. When the hardest part of your day comes from trying to hook a VCR up to a projector and then literally having customers come in and hand you a paper and say I want everything on this list, you know you're going to have a pretty easy day.

I think after the Bears game started there were maybe a handful of customers to walk through the door. No worries off my back though. I got what I needed sold for the day, enjoyed bits and pieces of the game, and even finished my little ring light flash project. Didn't work as well as I would have liked so I'm going to try again. This time I'm going to take a bit more time on it and try to figure out why I can't get the bottom half of the circle to fill up as much as the top. If you have any ideas let me know.

Other than that, look for some new photos on flickr too. I'm just in the mood to shoot random stuff lately so who knows what will pop up. I may go to the paper tomorrow on my day off to see if they have anything for me to shoot. I won't get paid for it, but at least I'm still shooting. I feel so out of practice lately and have a loss of creativity.

Oh, the photos above were shot with a 10-22 Canon Lens. I want one so bad. I'll blog more about some other equipment I want tomorrow, but my eyes are falling down as I type so it's probably time to put on the Simpsons and fall asleep.

Marlin Stoneking-1937 to 2007

2007-01-14T22:34:00.000-06:00

Marlin Stoneking - September 19, 1937 to January 07, 2007. Beloved husband, father and grandfather.

I got some bad but relieving news on Tuesday. My grandmother called me Tuesday to tell me my grandfather had died. As sad as this news was it was a relief and a blessing because my grandfather had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease or a stroke for about 2 years now.

No one is completely sure which was the problem because Alzheimer's can only be diagnosed after death and through and autopsy. My grandmother as far as I know opted out of an autopsy. My grandfather also died on Sunday and I didn't hear until Tuesday.

It's hard and complicated to explain. My family doesn't really have the most normal communication skills nor is our family life very normal. My mother and my uncle refuse to talk to my grandmother and have for years. My cousin doesn't talk with her father and he hasn't been allowed to see his newest granddaughter who is now 6 mo. old.

I'm not here to air dirty laundry though. The only thing I can say is that I felt bad for my grandfather. Because of the family issues, the only people at the service were my grandmother, my cousin dave, his mother and step-father, my cousin kirsten, one of my uncle's and his girlfriend, my father, and my sister.

It's not that no one cared for him. In fact, grandpa was kind of the glue that held most of us together. People just felt they couldn't get along during the ceremony and one of my cousins didn't even know about it because he was in Cancun on vacation and no way of getting a hold of him. My grandpa deserved better than that. He had a lot of friends and a lot of people who cared for him.

Anyway, I left work on Wednesday night. I drove to Alpha. Spent the night and took off for Nashville at 7:30 am. Made it by 5 pm. Ate at Outback with my grandmother, father, sister and cousin Dave. Spent the night with Dave and grandma. Drank with Dave until 12:30 am. Woke up at 6:30 am. Services were at 11 am in Pegram, Tenn. about 70 miles away. Ate at Cracker Barrell after the service and drove immediately home. Got caught in freezing rain. Finished the drive home the next day. Drove from Alpha to Rochelle. Showered and went to work at 2:15 pm and returned home by 5:30 pm.

So that's my end of the week wrap up. I have a few pictures from the gravesite if you wish to take a look. At least I have the day off tomorrow. Hopefully I can do something productive with it. Last thing I would like to tell you about is the poem my grandma had my dad read at the ceremony. It's called "The Dash." I felt it was very fitting.

I'm BAAAAAAAAACCCCKKKKKK! (inshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifert voice of Kyle from Southpark)

2007-01-08T23:46:00.000-06:00

Congratulations Ed and Carol. So many people I know are getting married now. It's about as contagious as the flu.

Okay, so it's been awhile. I'm not that exciting therefore there hasn't been that much to write about. I'm stuck in a quandry of whether to find a new job with a university so I can go back to school, stay where I'm at and continue to pay bills, or go for the gold and start my own business.

I'm just so confused. If money was no problem I would definitely start my own business right now, but as that's not the case I just need to do some sidework I think and see how that goes. My portraits seem like they're getting a bit better. I read a book on posing last week by Jeff Smith that helped me a little bit I think. I think I may go back and get his book on Lighting. I thought I had lighting down pretty good, but everytime I think I have a hang on it I find a small glitch.

I think sometimes I get too down on my own work. I know there's a time to be critical and a time to just be satisfied, but I'm having a hard time finding that fine line. Either way, here's the portraits I did the other day with Carol Hendricks and her fiancee Ed. (Sorry, I don't know Ed's last name.) I promise to get a few more posts here and there from now on. I'm almost done with the Wills Chiropractic site too. At least I feel accomplished. My next blog will be on the how cool my Nike+ shoes and sensor are for my iPod.

Portraits Abound

2006-12-10T22:13:00.000-06:00

White backdrop, $20. Light, stands, umbrellas, and backdrop holder, $250. Love after over 55 years, priceless.

I had to shoot some portraits for Steph and I tonight and do some for a girl she works, Carly with and her daughter Brenna tonight. We did them out at her grandparents house because we didn't have enough room in our apartment. On a whim I decided to go ahead and take her grandparents portrait while I had everything still set up.

This was my favorite picture that I ended up with. Along with the one of Steph and me. I hope Steph and I are young enough and still as much in love as Jim and Audrey are at 73 years old too.

I've been going full boar photos lately. I'm really excited to have the motivation to do a lot of work. I'm really pushing myself to come up with a plan to possibly open my own portrait studio eventually. It may still take a year or two, but I would really like to work for myself if I never work for a paper.

Even then I would still like to work for a paper. It could give me the time to do what I want when I want. I can make my own hours and dictate my own wages by how hard I work. I'm really going to push an at home portrait studio this next year. Another one of my many goals for the new year that I'm working on. I only completed half of last year's but at least I got those.

I also have some stuff from the basketball game the other night where I got to use my White Lightning for the first time in a while. First time for a basketball game too. It was so funny to see how many people freaked out because of the lights. None of them had really seen a lighting system like mine before. I'll add them after the paper gets published on Tuesday. I don't want to step on any toes.

Typical Day Off

2006-12-07T23:55:00.000-06:00

Steph looks very cute with her snowman. One of these days she'll get sick of being my model.

I just wanted to play with my strobes tonight even though I don't have my radio slaves yet. Nothing too new in the works right now. I spent my day off the same way I always do. Breakfast at Olive Branch, laundry at the laundromat, exercise, video games, and then television. I unfortunately missed 'The Office.'

To those of you who don't know, Stephen got engaged this week. Congrats to him and Mallory. They're getting married about 3 weeks before mine. He's making me look really bad because he's getting married earlier than me, but I've been engaged for over a year.

I actually got to listen to my photography history class podcast today. I'm really getting down with it. I'm hoping I get the book for the class that I wanted for Christmas. I'm not actually enrolled, but I can follow along with it and email with questions just like I was participating.

I also signed up for satellite television today. I'm excited to actually have shows to watch other than Will and Grace, which is on right now by the way.

Snow Day!

2006-12-01T23:06:00.000-06:00

At least I accomplished something on my snow day.

Today was a snow day from my job. I didn't get plowed out of my apartment until 4:30 today. It was kind of nice because I got to play my game all day and watch movies, but I wish I would have done a little more with my day. I should have gone out and shot more photos of snow related things for the paper, but I just didn't have the motivation to go out. Who knows if they would have used it anyway.

One thing good is that the apartment is pretty much spotless. Steph and I took a trip to the video store and rented Me You and Dupree. It was a pretty good choice. A lot funnier than I thought it would be. The guys that did the soundtrack for it were awesome. I looked them up on IMDB and found they had actually done a lot of good soundtracks.

I think my favorite was the use of the band "The 88." I heard this band on another soundtrack a long time ago and forgot about them until now. If you get a chance check them out.

I also filled my day with watching a few more episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Charlie Day has become one of my favorite comics.