Sunday, January 17, 2010

in with the new?

not quite keeping in good stead with that resolution to post regularly, let alone daily, but i suppose i was waiting for the first post to be something knock-out cool, and i waited and i waited, and it seemed i was just all about more sports and portraits, and feature hunting in the last couple weeks has been simply abyssmal - don't think i've struck out so many times in my life..i mean usually SOMETHING turns up, even if it is when you're just bout ready to give up on the search, but lately not even that has panned out...so, i can wait no lonhger, just gonna have to get the proverbial ball rolling on posting again.....
the strat of this year has been very much a continuation of the last - lots of sports....it seems that's almost all i've been doing, basketball especially, but there was a wrestling tournament in there last weekend, which i now realize i forgot to bring home with me to add in here, but, i suspect we shall all live quite nicely without it....
so, on to it......




hoops, there it is!

also got to shoot the portrait of the first baby born in the county in 2010 - this actually turned out okay, for what it is

had an assignment for a classroom page story - school newspapers, and we were observing one at the longest-running publication in the county - the Lotus Leaf at Monroe High (or, the "big high school" as everyone seems to call it)...this girl (standing right) was sarcasticaly thanking the page designer for upping her headline word-count....just liked how it reflected the camaraderie that exists in most every newsroom....and sadly, as i told one of the copy editors later, i think they had as many if not more people working in their newsroom as we do

i was back at the high school for an event that was meant to kick off the start of the following week's Winterfest activities - students would be having big wheel races through the commons...sounded like it had some good potential, and in the end it worked okay, but it's just funny how things so often have to be more complicated than they need to be...i check in at the office and they call down the woman who's organizing the event, and she comes and gets some kids to grab the big wheels out of the office, and she says "so, where do you want us to go?" and i just hate that - i mean, it's not MY event, and that kind of thing always makes me a little suspicious - am i here to document something that's going on, or are you organizing it for a photo?...so, i just tell them, wherever you were going to be doing it that's where i'll go, don't change anything for me...so, off to the commons we go, and i'm wondering howexactly they're going to do this, because the commons (lunchroom) is always packed and chaotic, and where exactly ARE they going to hold these races in the middle of all that....well, the middle of all that is pretty much it - they pick a walkway between two long lunch tables, and the "race" is all of about 15 feet, with kids walking to their seats and up and down the walkway at the tables' end (i.e., in front of me and the people i'm trying to shoot), so it's a little jacked up, and after a few pairs of kids do it, the big wheels break, and so, in about 15 minutes (as opposed to the hour+ it was supposed to go on), the whole thing is over with....i just stayed and hung out in the lunchroom for a while afterwards, people watching, seeing if there was anything i could pull for our community feature foto page, and just looking at the kids, how they dress, hairstyles, how they interact, etc....i really want to do a feature on hair, wanted to for a while, but i think i'm gonna organize something - like bring along a back-drop and lights and pick a day and just shoot kids during their lunch periods....it's light and fluffy, but i think it's interesting how kids express themselves and how divergent their styles are, and in some cases how much they conform to one another - like the clan of boys that all have the skinny jeans and the really long bangs that hang in their eyes or get the super sweep to the side - same old story, just new styles, but it's always fascinating

also shot the latest centennarian portrait - this woman i've shot before, and i think she's in an old post from last Easter-ish - i followed her on a nursing home egg hunt, and she was so cute and funny - i thought it might be her from the name, and i was glad to find that it was and to see her again...she was cute as ever, and it was interesting to stay and here her interview, what she's done in the 100-year course of her life....the one job that she remembered most was the first - working at the Blue Bell Overall Factory in Middleboro, KY, she even remembered her inspection number....such a sweetie, her name is Myrtle, but she goes by her middle name, a good old Southern one - Onlee....after i took her picture she gave me a kiss on the cheek - "thank you honey, thank you...come back and stay longer next time" i think that i will!

we're starting a new investigative series - drug use, heroin in particular...there have been so many od's, with families telling us we have no idea how big a problem this is becoming in Monroe....seems every young death and many of the crimes going on are coming back tied to heroin...so, we started with talking to a young woman who is going to prison after being convicted on a "delivery resulting in death" charge in the heroin overdose of a young guy last year - they had actually been friends since grade school...she'd started dealing heroin (among other things) after finding out that people in Monroe were doing it, pretty much just to make the money - she never actually did it herself, though she did have her own issues going on with pills - xanax and oxy, which is the other really big problem here....after his death, months before she was even connected and charged, she stopped dealing and even stopped her own drug use....she would like to be a marine biologist and plans to take classes to get her GED and maybe college, depending on how long she's there - her sentence is being appealled....so, the portrait is pretty lame - they wouldn't let me do anything except shoot while the reporter was interviewing her - i think i'm gonna contact the prison and see if they'll let come there and do something...anyway, this is the start as i said to a series, in which we hope to shoot people in recovery, families who have lost loved ones, and people who are actively using - should be interesting...any suggestions on how to approach and get people still using to participate would be very much appreciated

though feature hunting has been pretty tricky, it's still got to be done, and Friday, after the big wheels event, i gave it another go - HAVE to have fotos for that community page, difficult to find or no....so, driving around and around, i finally see these kids gathering up the last bits of slushy snow and forming them into balls, then trying to hit a railroad crossing sign, so i pull over and make a feature - nothing great, but it's kind of a nice slice-of-life moment, and just nice to finally find someone out doing something!

finally, got to shoot another wedding - this was a revisit to a story series the paper did in '99 on a high school girl undergoing brain surgery to replace a shunt in her brain - she was born with hydrocephalus, and the condition was caught early enough that she didn't suffer any brain damage (or death, as is the eventual outcome left untreated), but she has had to undergo several surgeries as problems with the shunt re-arise periodically....Saturday she got married, so the story was meant to be an update on her life, as she undertakes another milestone in her life and living with this condition....the family was very cool and they were extremely receptive and glad to have us there, and i knew the photographer they'd hired, so there weren't any issues with me being there and he even encouraged me to post up my fotos and give them to the family...very cool, that's not always been the case when i've covered weddings before....




so, that's been the start of the new year so far

1 comment:

silverdollarmoon said...

Great to stumble upon your blog! You ARE a people watcher! And a great people photographer to boot! You have some nice action photos and some realistic glimpses of people in their ordinary lives doing ordinary things but capturing the brilliance and vibrancy of it all. :)