a hiatus, chosen, and then again, maybe not

i know that's a bit of a strange title for this thread...i suppose i should explain, so let me explain, no, let me sum up (sorry, i just had a "Princess Bride" flash!)...

ahem, so, i feel like the impact of our staffing scenario has been getting to me - frustrations, miscommunications (or no communications), a somewhat persistent sense of unease/unknowing, the feeling that you are flying without a net all the time coupled with never really knowing where the next trapeze bar you're supposed to be grabbing is coming from - if that makes any sense - anyway, for a good 2 weeks or so, i just felt like i wasn't making any pictures that i liked, that i was not only stymied but perhaps going backwards and that i was feeling a little too down and frustrated to do much about it other than being uncomfortable, unhappy, uninspired and just plain worried! by the time i got to a pre halloween party that turned out to be kids running like maniacs thru a gym with the activities being face painting, bean bag toss games and the giant inflatable slide, i found myself standing in the midst of it all, just trying my best not to burst into tears...

so, yeah, some serious frustration going on - none of which inspired me to post here - i mean really, the idea of facing a "photo-oriented" blog with no work i feel i can share is pretty much just a reminder of how unhappy you are with what you've been doing - i may have some self-defeating tendencies, but i'm not a complete masochist!

anyway, don't know what has happened, maybe it's the assignments recently, maybe it's me, maybe it's the weather, but things have been picking up some, and i've felt better about what i've shot, and i've, more importantly, gotten that spark of being excited to go out and make something good....so, even though it's no ground-breaking, prize-winning bit of photojournalism, here are some from the last couple weeks, mostly to catch up - you don't have to look at them all, or really any of them; in fact, if you've gotten this far into the post - well, god bless your kind, good soul, my friend!

guess i'll just start with the most recent and work my way back....

feature hunting for our community foto page since i'd made all the calls i had to do and no other assignments had come in - it was fairly warmish outside, so i found a few teens and their respective god-kids/siblings out for a "kids' day" of pizza and playground time outside one of our now no-longer used elementary schools, which is a sad story in and of itself - but, it seems the beautiful, architectural old building may have a new career of its own on the horizon - it is to be used in the filming of an upcoming movie starring Danny Glover and someone else pretty big - go, go Monroe!

veteran's day celebration at a local elementary school - kids, local/state pols, and then luckily later they let kids who had vet family stay and visit with them after the assembly

H1N1 vaccine arrives in Monroe County - people were lined up around the high school building, whose gymnasium was transformed into vaccine clinic - people were waiting a good 2 hours to get in for their shots, some of course to be told they didn't meet the requirements to be able to get it yet....good thing it wasn't horribly cold and/or rainy - if they weren't getting sick from the flu, they surely would have gotten sick waiting outside for 2 hours to get the vaccine!

before heading out to a volleyball game, i decided to put my down time to good use and go feature hunt - the night was rather nice, leaves had fallen en masse from recent rains and winds, and i figured i'd find someone outside doing something cool - i'd actually pulled over to shoot a family i saw out raking when i noticed these kids loading leaves into a wagon to pull to their house, so i just went with them - they'd decided to load up leaves from the nieghbors' yards, since theirs had all blown away - and they were having fun jumping into the piles, throwing the leaves skyward, and merely resting in them like a giant crunchy bed...ironically, the girl in the foreground i had happened to photograph with friends at a downtown pre-Halloween trick-or-treat event, and the girl in the background i'd shot the weekend before at the annual historical re-enactment "Lantern Tour" event, and to make things even crazier, it turns out i'd photographed the old barn in their backyard several years ago when we did a piece on remaining old barns within the city! so, this family has been well-documented by me, to say the least!

election night - the new mayor gets his props

shoot something that says "bus safety importance" for a recent story about how, due to the state's budget cuts, the bus inspector positions have been cut and no further inspections will be funded by the state for their state-mandated school bus yearly inspections - about 70 buses in Monroe remain to be inspected, but now the money is gone, and they are in the position of having to comply with a state-mandated safety program whose state funding has just been cut - not to mention what happens to all the buses next year - guess the schools, with their infinite budgets (all irony intended) are now stuck coming up with the funds on their own or risk being cited for not complying with state safety regulations - yet another wrench in the state's budget/education woes...anyway, just basically had to go shoot something of school buses, so i hung out at school's end at the big middle school, which gets plenty of bus traffic and looked for something moment and/or graphic that would illustrate the story - this kid plastered himself against the back window as his bus pulled away, which needless to say, given the nature of the story would have been a completely editorialized image to run, and we didn't, but it was a funny moment, particularly given that very story

Monroe's "biggest garage sale"

halloween - while scoping out a house to go to, i spied a bunch of costumed kids playing outside - their family and their friends and children were having a big pre-trick-or-treat halloween house party, and they let me come on in and hang out - shot that and then went across the street to shoot at what is probably one of the coolest decorated houses i've ever seen - these people went all out, very cool stuff, though i think they probably gave the local tots some serious nightmares!

a pampering day held for single mothers by an area church

while shooting a high school bio class out on a bird-watching field trip, we came upon this backwater pond in a clearing - just thought it was pretty

the annual Lantern Tour - one of those events that somehow i have managed never to shoot in the nearly 8 years i've been here - another record broken!

so, that's it for now - if you're actually still here and reading this, you are officially a good egg!