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!"
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