beginning

this is the first post from what i suspect will feel like a marathon-long week by the time it's over..and i will be SO ready to have a couple days off!

was supposed to be off monday - we hired a freelancer to shoot the sport event, but when i got in the office friday evening, i saw 2 news assignments for monday in the basket - one the reporter could definitely do, but the other, which was locals taking part in a state-wide rally to support michigan schools and most likely dominant page one, i felt like we couldn't have them shoot - and it was the same time as the freelancer's game, and all the editors are gone and not returning email, so i really felt like i had no choice but to shoot it - only a few hours, but still, knowing i was looking at a long week as the sole fotog, any pre-rest/personal stuff i could get done was pretty precious...but, whatcha gonna do...

so, inbetween getting the laundry done and cleaning, and gardening, i went out to shoot the rally...

tuesday morning went in to figure out where my early assignment was - it just said St. Joseph's - but there are 4 St. Joseph's scattered throughout the county, and like i said, i wasn't getting any response on email or skype as to which one i'd be heading toward, so i went in early to figure that out - soon as i got in, had to download, edit and put in the system the monday assignment that the reporter shot, then i dashed down to the school to shoot kids shooting off their hand-made rockets...this was kind of cool - just liked the reactions of the kids watching mostly

the actual shooting off was tough to shoot in a cool way

and there were some side things that i liked just as extras (probably like these the best)

especially the one of this girl...she just seemed like one of those kids that's definitely her own personality....pretty quirky, bit of a loner, maybe gonna be pegged as sort of a geeky kid, but the sort that is gonna be either super smart and/or really uniquely cool when she gets older...went to get her i.d. and age, and she totally fulfilled my initial impression when she kept telling me she was not just 11, but 11 and three quarters....seriously kid, i'm thinking, you're gonna get SO made fun of if you keep that up! but this is probably my favorite foto from that event....not sure it totally works, the fence is distracting a bit, maybe i just want it to work, because i like the mood of it, or of what i saw and reacted to, even if i didn't quite technically capture that in the most effective way

after that, stopped back in to the paper to check in, get this edited and turned in, so i didn't have all my assignments to do later - had an after school assignment, and an evening track meet (yes, one of the 2 remaining!) to shoot later...

so, get that done, help download something one of the editors shot, get a gallery made of it for the web, then home to take a break before the later stuff...was home maybe a couple hours, when i got a call about a head-on wreck...high-tailed it out to that - an suv rear-ended a garbage truck that was stopped on the road - he never even slowed down apparently, so i suspect there may have been some other medical issue going on, bu they're still investigating all that...

anyway, i roll up, the whole top and sides of the car have been cut off to extricate the driver - the sole occupant of the vehicle - and i see the rescue firemen and emt's surrounding him on a stretcher next to the car....the first sheriff tells me to make sure i don't show the victim in any fotos, so i work my way around the other side where the other sheriff yells at me and says this isn't the time to be taking pictures - "it's not very tactful" - so, i just shoot the totally messed up car, and then they wheel him over to the ambulance, and i just kind of wait to see if they're going to Life Flight him out on the waiting helicopter, so i can get that image...

and i'm watching, and i see that they're doing chest compressions, and then they must have used paddles, because suddenly i see his body leap up from the gurney and he practically flies off the side (he is a pretty large guy, too, at least 300 if not 400 pounds), so everyone hustles to strap him down, then just constant cpr, and i'm standing there on the road, and i see his arm, and it is hanging just totally limp like a rag doll off the side, and it is covered in small round bruises, and i don't know why, and then they stop the compressions, and they're listening to his belly and wrists with stethoscopes, and then they start to unhook the monitor, and i think, jesus, i'm standing here watching someone die in the road right in front of me, and i'm pretty sure he's just died, but then they take him to the helicopter - okay, he's just stable i guess - but the emt's on the way back are talking, and all i catch is "he ain't gonna make it" and then they go and get water and start to clean up...and i'm around back of the car waiting to shoot it as the helicopter takes off in the background, and i notice his license plate and the letters are BYE...

and i just want to ask one of the firemen or emt's or cops if they noticed it too and is it kind of creeping them out like it is me....but i don't, and the helicopter takes off

and i make my fotos, stick around for a bit more and then head back into town for my assignment

which is a group of kids planting flowers at a neighborhood little park - just speaks so completely to how crazy this job is...i mean, going literally from life and death to something so fluffy, featurey...and i normally deal with the accident stuff pretty well, but there have been ones that have really upset me, and this was one of them - i just normally don't see the victim and don't see someone's life essentially end right in front of me...and just thinking that it's all happening amid strangers and imagining what his friends and family will be feeling later...he did pass away, by the way, as i learned the next morning...i would be surprised if it didn't happen mid-flight to the hospital

after the gardening kids, it was off to the track meet...maybe these things are really good distractions, or delays, for dealing with some of the tragedy you see - all i had to focus on was getting action and something different from what i've shot before...it was a good distraction

after all that, back in to edit and submit and then home...i stopped by the store first, and i pulled up into the drive at home...the days' events were running through my head....i turned off the car and just burst into tears...just a combination of the long day, stress, and what i'd seen...i guess i'd be worried if i DIDN'T have a little break-down at the end of all that

and we're walking, we're walking

it's that time of year again - relay for life season - schools like to get in on it, too - hosting hallway versions of the events - seems i shoot at least 2 or 3 of these every year, all crammed within a week and a half period - bit of a challenge to shoot essentially the same event not only every year, but 3 times in a week!

always lots of side activities going on at this event - these little girls found fuzzy caterpillars beneath the bleachers and were playing with them

one of the things we did a little differently this year, the reporter told me she'd found a high school girl who'd organized within a month (apparently, these things take much longer typically) a relay team for her boyfriend, who is battling hodgkins lymphoma - so, after i shot some general event stuff (for the daily and the bedford weekly), i caught up with her and just hung out - her boyfriend was there, but he was resting in the camper in the parking lot - had just taken his meds and they wipe him out, but she was with her friends in their tent on the track - just waited for some kind of moment, and it's not an earth-shattering photo, but i like the story behind it and doing something more personalized and story-telling from what can be a pretty generic same old, same old story

and when i'm not shooting people walking around a track, i'm shooting them running around it apparently

not just school track, but throw in the annual special olympics, too - i feel like i never quite get the moment or photo i hope to at this assignment - the moment and the action - but i kind of liked this group of kids playing rock, paper, scissors

not sure what's going on, but sports seems to have some kind of track fever! maybe it's because they're the sport that doesn't get cancelled for bad weather - and there has been plenty of that....in fact, it seems the weather has been really nice UNTIL the day of track, and then it gets freezing, windy and wet...it's gradually paring down to only one of the unhappy elementals - this event was just wet

and to top it all off, i got wacked on the head with the falling pole while shooting pole vaulting...thought the kid had cleared it, and i was reaching down for my notepad, when whack! ouch! didn't even see it coming...

and just to think, i have 2 more track meets this week! oh, karma, what have i done???!!!? i just feel so darned blessed!

in the mix was a prep feature on a girl who plays soccer and is a valedictorian - she didn't have a lot of time inbetween all her activities, so i was to go shoot her in practice - not getting much, and the coach let me pull her aside for a few minutes for a quick portrait, so no time to light it, but i s'pose it's okay

did a little feature hunting afterward and found these 2 guys playing guitar in the park...they sounded really good

there was a baseball game, too, but i don't really like anything from that - wasn't the greatest game, so, no post...but before that was a portrait of one of the fishermen who found Nevaeh's body in a shallow grave at a remote riverside fishing spot - i did light it, but it's so subtle, you can't really tell, which is okay - nice guy, he had a bunch of cool old barns on his property, and a pet red fox, whom he found as a pup inside his barn - gorgeous animal - wish i'd taken a picture of her to include here

as a follow-up to the very big fire at the historic building in Maybee last week, a reporter and i went back - the owner was there and the other residents came by later - he's still trying to go through things and see what he can salvage, as well as checking out the damage to the building...the place is made of solid oak, and amazingly, the ballroom floor on the third floor is barely damaged - i mean, the roof is all in, and the place is charred or water damaged, but structurally, it seems (and he believes) it's sound and could be rebuilt - problem being, no insurance, and he's out of work - if he can get it on some kind of historic register, he may be able to get funds that way - regardless, he has 90 days to either get repairing, or bring in the bulldozers...i really hope he can save it - just hearing more of the history of the place, it would be really sad to see it get torn down....i just can't believe, given how bad the fire was, that days later, i'm inside walking all around - fires are just so crazy

saturday's assignments were to start with people building a rain garden, but there wasn't a sole to be found when we got there - it had rained earlier, so all we could figure was that they cancelled due to weather - kind of ironic that they decided not to build a rain garden due to the fact that it was raining!

later it was out to the moose lodge, which was hosting a day-long event in honor of the 1-year anniversary of Nevaeh's abduction....not as somber as the event they had there a couple weeks ago, and not nearly all the media insanity either...it was meant to be more of a child safety informational thing with family activities - i.e. carnival style games and a bouncy house for the kids - ooh, my favorite!!! the rain put a damper on a lot of the activities, though - but, i got a couple frames i like okay - one from the prayer

and then one just more featurey....

and this is my "almost - really wanted this to work, but it just didn't come together..."almosts" are so darned frustrating!

later that night, as i was waiting for the sports and page one photos to tone, a call came in about a nearby house fire - got there, and it was just smoke, and not a lot of it, and no one was home - shot a few frames, but really, it just looked like firemen standing in the driveway of a house that looks like nothing's going on, so i was about to leave - and this car whips up, and it's the homeowners - a young couple and their 2 kids - they'd just gone to see a movie when they got a call to rush home - one of the officers tried to calm her, because she wanted to go in - their dog was inside in his cage.....i shot a few frames of this, and i wasn't looking forward to having to get her name at a time when they're all obviously freaking out and i'm just going to seem like an insensitive pariah for photographing it all

but, thankfully, one of the firemen comes out with the cage, and the dog is fine, and so that makes it a lot more comfortable to get the family's names...

and this couple did have insurance, thankfully!

after talking to them for a bit, i headed back to the paper - i had just about lost any light anyway - so, get that in, tone sunday's fotos, then "home James!"

flood, fire, and tragedy of yore

rain, rain go away - at least that's probably the mantra going through several area farmers' heads right about now....a reporter turned in a foto request 2 weeks ago about the spring planting season, with contact info for a local farm, but everytime we'd called, their work was delayed due to the ground being too wet - and then the rain kept coming and coming and coming....the reporter decided to change the lede to how the weather has been delaying crop planting, and now the story was slated to run today, which we found out yesterday - so we called the farm and said - we're coming out today and whatever you do when you can't plant, that's what we're documenting...or a portrait, whatever works best, or both....we kind of got the feeling that the farmers really wanted us to show them planting, but that just wasn't an option, so, off i went....

well, the one brother didn't want to be in a portrait, and he wasn't really doing any work - i did manage to make this frame as he just stood inside their workshop barn, staring out the window at the rain coming down, which i actually like best and think is the most story-telling


then the other brother came - he was just doing paperwork that day, and he didn't really want any portraits on the farm, but he offered to take me out to their tomato field, where he'd gotten a few rows in (well, a few being relative to a couple hundred acres)

the field turned out to be about 20 minutes away, and this isn't the greatest foto, needless to say, but we had a really interesting conversation while driving the round trip - just about farming and all the business involved in it, particularly in terms of managing laborers, migrant workers, and all the new state and federal laws he has to contend with in those regards - it was pretty fascinating - i'm sure there are a few good stories there - which i intend to tell the editor about when they get off deadline this morning
shortly after we got back to the farm, i got a call about a fire at an apartment building in a town called Maybee, so i headed up there....i could smell the smoke from a couple miles away, even with the car windows up, and the wind was blowing it through town, so it wasn't hard to figure out where to go


i could barely even make out the building the smoke was so thick - you couldn't really even make out half the block - but once i got on the other side of the wind i saw the flames shooting out the attic windows and roof - they got one of the ladder trucks on that within a minute of me getting there, so the "big shooting flames" didn't last long, but the smoke just continued to billow through town

tons of people out watching, too - they actually seemed a little excited that something this big was happening in their little village - "did anyone call the tv news? where's channel 7?" i heard some of the kids saying amid bursts of oohs and aahs as flames would shoot up in another window or parts of the building went flying from the force of the water cannons....

multiple departments were there, but really all they could do was stand there and watch as cannons doused the building from all angles...

turns out this place was one of the, if not the, most historic buildings in the town - was a hotel and ballroom back in the day, and henry ford would stop there for lunch on his way from detroit to factories in toledo...

after about an hour and a half, i didn't think i was going to make any pictures different than what i had, and i was soaked to the bone - it was still raining all this time, mind you - and freezing, and i wanted to get that in and maybe change if i could before going to shoot a play rehearsal in a couple hours....
but, by the time i got those 2 assignments in and posted the fire up to the web/foto gallery, it was time for the play, so i just went over to shoot that - they were in their downtown rehearsal place - not the theater - so it's pretty much a bare empty room with a few folding chairs, and some people in costumes and others not - with the big overhead flourescents - so, yeah, not a terribly visual presentation of Romeo and Juliet, to say the least

but, as always, you just do what you can and hope the editors don't give you scowling looks when they get what they get...


and then you go home

roll 'em & then some

this week was a mix of some things, well, actually make that one thing, new, and others that are yearly repeats, or weekly repeats...such as it is

first day in, went out to shoot a prep sports feature on a girl who blew out her knee in hoops season and is still out for softball - but, she still suits up and goes to every game and practice to support her team

later that night, i was on something new to me - a michigan-based (but, i gather hollywood-esque) movie production company has been filming some scenes in monroe, which they chose because we have been one of the economically hard-hit communities in the state and this could bring some money (how, i don't know exactly) to us....not sure how they chose us, cos pretty much EVERY community in michigan has taken a pretty big economic hit, but whatever...tuesday night, after a month delay, they were going to be filming the car chase scene through downtown monroe...got the permits to close down the streets for filming between 6 pm and 6 am - finally got a hold of the asst. producer to see what time they'd be doing the filming - should i plan on being there at 8 or like 2 in the morning? he was actually really cool and helpful, considering i'm sure that the local paper getting pictures while he's making a movie is probably pretty far down on the list of priorities....

turns out they'd be setting up at 6, but probably wouldn't start shootingt til 9 ish or so...so, that gave me some idea of how to plan my time...

got downtown around 8, because i figured people would be out watching, and more than shooting them shooting, the community's response/interest is really the most important part to our coverage - which was oddly only me, kind of surprised they didn't have a writer covering this as well, because a lot of people did turn out to watch, and really, it was pretty interesting to see what all is involved in shooting something of this scale, and also, for people here, just cos it's pretty cool to have a major motion picture filming in your town...

whole families came out, beautiful night, got ice cream and lined the streets to watch as crews lit up our downtown on crane lifted massive lights

when it came time for the first take of the car screaming down the street, everyone was told to pack into the bars/restaurants lining the way to stay out of the shot - these kids thought it was very cool that a movie was being shot here and thought it would make people maybe want to come here...

milling around, i saw this monitor showing the camera view and was trying to work that, when these 2 guys came up...after a bit, i kind of got the idea that these were probably the director and lead actor - of course, i'm not gonna ask them and look like a total dork, so i just keep shooting as they talk and joke about the scenes, and i asked a crew guy later if that's who they were.....and it was, so that was kind of a lucky picture...

especially since i thought the director was the movie photographer, because when i saw him before, he was running around with a pro looking camera shooting stills, which he also did later when they wet down the street to get some more dramatic car fish-tailing down the street shots...guess he was just documenting the process, too

just including this shot because, as bryan and i try to learn more about lighting in our own work, i thought it was especially interesting to see how you light not just a portrait but an entire city block! this particular set-up, according to the crew, is called "moonlighting"

next morning, back to usual stuff - had a local school participating in a state-wide exercise campaign - kids exercising simultaneously - i.e., walking around a half-mile walking path - not as easy as it sounds, cos the kids all want to mug for the camera (which teachers don't necessarily help by saying, "Smile everyone, she's with the paper!" - i know they mean well, but we're just not about those kind of pictures...it takes a big leap for people to get behind the idea that we're not into scrapbook fotos, but "in the moment pictures" that aren't about addressing the camera, but simply going about your business and having it documented)

but, i did what i could

next day, pretty slow - went out to shoot a tutoring program at the community center - the kid we had as the one to focus on was there, but his tutor wasn't, and the program director said he was the only one for whom they had a photo release...still, made some pix that could work with the story, and shot other kids and they were gonna call to get permits for them later...

as i was shooting, i saw kids out in the garden plots where they yearly grow veggies and flowers which they well in a weekly market stand throughout the summer....and we needed InSight (weekly community foto page) fotos, so i went out there to make a pic for that afterward

next morning, it was off to follow a local school's field trip to detroit, visiting an african-american historic museum - this almost didn't happen, cos the museum had told the reporter that they were very happy to have coverage, but no pictures of their exhibits...well, that's a little tough - i mean how do you show kids looking at things that you can't show? but, after further correspondence, it turned out we could shoot in one part of the exhibit - when kids make their way from africa to the slave ships and then on to america, and it was "interactive," so they could experience how it felt to be aboard the slave ships...so, we decided to go and shoot this in lieu of "Ag Day," which i've shot umpteenth million times and would have been particularly difficult since friday was to be pouring rain...

so, off we went, in the pouring rain, up to detroit, and after getting way-laid by an accident and getting lost (should have know that when the reporter said she got her directions off mapquest, i should have completely ignored them and gone the route i'd found), we finally arrived...

this museum was really cool, but it was a lighting nightmare! we went from pitch black, to normal room lighting, to faux candle lighting, and as for the interactive experience, that just really wasn't what i was envisioning at all, which i kind of half-expected, but still, it was a little disappointing...

so, all in all, cool museum, not so cool/expected photo results...but still, way better than shooting kids walking around the fairgrounds in the rain on Ag Day.....

glass half full, glass half empty....in the end, it was just......a glass

saturday was a long one! started out with a track and field invitational...no rain, thankfully, but it was a high in the low 40's with horrid winds, which gusted to regular intervals of about 50 mph! so, yeah, that's no fun, and it really didn't have good effects on the kids' performances either - hurdles events delayed as they had go keep uprighting the hurdles being blown over, and pole vaulting? - forget it, they'd get up to the pole only to be blown backwards by a sudden wind gust - not real fair, or more importantly safe, in my opinion, but sports must go on i guess...

after getting that in, i headed out to the courthouse - the starting point for a torch relay which was part of a fund/awareness raising effort for out county's CASA (court appointed special advocate) program, which has volunteers lobbying for children in abusive homes within the court system....hmmm, no one was there, so i headed toward the park - my plan was to shoot the start then get them coming into the park and whatever else was going on there...but, since the courthouse was devoid of life, i just headed toward the park, passing the torch runners along the way- yeah, so, turns out, the times they gave us were a "typo," so i just stayed put to shoot them coming into the park, whereupon other group volunteers would be taking the torch and making a final mile-long loop through the park...

so, i got that stuff, and what we ran was this image of the final torch-bearers, including 2 CASA volunteers and the adopted son of one of them, who had been a child recipient of the program, at the torch's end arrival...

but, i kind of liked this side image of 2 kids who were there - their older sibs were in one of the high school bands providing entertainment - i thought it was funny that this little girl kept trying to blow on her pinwheerl, cos the winds was so strong, she really didn't need to blow - in fact, more likely she just had to hold onto it with all her might!

took a bit of a break, and then it was in to the paper to get the torch fotos in, then out to the college theater for the 4th annual "Monroe Biggest Idol" event - just what you'd think it is - local people playing simon and paula, et al, as judges, and local talent competing....so, here's all that....

then, back in to tone sunday's pix, get all the foto galleries made, and then, finally, home!