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

year end BABY!!!!!

so, yeah, i just couldn't let myself go out like that, and somehow, ending with lensBABY pix seems far more appropriate for me....so, what to shoot - well, i've never shot a poinsettia before....

nor myself in the mirror of my new little Charlie Brown xmas tree red glass ornament (and let me just say - self portraits with a macro lens baby - woo, holy technical challenge...one which i did not master, as you can see!) - i always loved that little tree - i think if i were a cartoon character, i would be Charlie Brown (though my facebook quiz says i'm Schroeder, which also kind of fits) - i'm a complete and utter sucker for the underdog, and that little tree was truly the underdog of the xmas tree world!

by the way, on my list of new year resolutions, between looking at my facebook postings/notes and my posts here, i firmly resolve to try not to be the over user of the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there, think i got it out of my system now?

out with the old

in the interest of not ending a year with unfinished business, and my "must clean things up before a new year" mantra, i'm gonna go ahead and post up the last pix i've taken this year - it kind of sux that my final post of the year will be sports, average features (from sports) and a women's exercise class, but it is what it is...my post-xmas-back-to-work motivation has been sorely lacking, and i just couldn't manage to dredge up a single thing feature-wise the other day - i mean, everyone here must be hybernating in their houses - school's out, many are off work, but they're not outside, nor in the libraries, nor the community center...so, here it is....

girl's basketball

and yet more girl's basketball

as part of a New Year resolutions story, we covered a group of women who meet at one of their homes with a personal trainer and do a "bot camp" style workout once a week...pretty intense, non-stop 40 minutes these ladies put in - they kept telling me to join in, but i told 'em i was pretty okay with just staying behind the camera for this one....it was kind of hard, actually, a lot of their exercises were face down on the floor of this woman's basement, but eventually they flipped over or moved to squats and leg lifts against the wall.....

so, there you have it - the last of 2009, unless i manage to take a foto within the next 4 hours, in which case, i guess i'll have one final deadline to meet before the year is out!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

end o year catch-up

before the year ends, i want to get caught up on the posting back-log...i smell a new year's resolution on the near horizon - i.e., don't get behind on posting, cos, really it's almost silly to do this now - i don't feel what i felt when these images were made, i just can sort of remember what i felt - kinda defeats the whole purpose of blogging in a sense, but, whatever, since i'm here, may as well do it...

not going to post everything, cos frankly, a lot of it was pretty pedestrian - average portraits or features, not that what i am posting is so amazing, just a little better - don't want to make myself look like a total schlep (sp??)

so, yeah, sports, lots of sports - that's been still the bulk of my assignments it seems - basketball and more basketball (and based on the assignments sitting in the bin when i got back after the holiday, that looks to be my future postings for the week)

but there was a state silver gloves boxing tournament the weekend before xmas...i've always had a somewhat inexplicable liking for this sport - watched it when i was young and whenever i see it on tv...i really don't know why i like it so much, but i do....so i was kind of happy that i got this assn., though it is a tough sport to shoot technically (for me, at least)....silver gloves is all young kids - 8-15, so the bigger challenge is that these aren't real skilled fighters, especially the littler kids, who are kind of a mix of a tazmanian devil and fists of fury - the older kids are a little better and easier to shoot....really liked these 2 little brothers - one 9, the other 11, and dad says he got them involved in the sport because they used to spend all day beating the snot out of one another, so he figured he may as well put their angst to a more organized use....both won, and as you can see, they're very proud of their prowess...

then, there was the sole girl representing Monroe in the tourney - she would be the one on the left, who just beat the bejeesus out of this other girl - this was the only bloody fight i saw that day, and halfway through they stopped the fight, because this girl was just getting completely beat to hell....if i were the other girl, i don't think i could have kept going - i mean, she was just a bloody mess - but apparently that's just me, because not only did she NOT ease up, but she continued to go for the face! yikes

then there was the latest of the H1N1 flu clinics - i think this is the fourth or fifth one i've shot in the last 2 months - i guess the hook here was that it was the first open to the general public with all restrictions lifted, and they were expecting huge lines.....well, there weren't really any lines, huge or otherwise, so, yeah, so much for that idea.....i think the whole hoopla over the swine flu has passed, but still, the nurses there managed to persuade me to get one (despite the fact i'd decided i wasn't going to) - well, really, what else was i going to do while waiting for people to show up? posting this just because i liked the expressions on the kids' faces as they watched mom brave "the needle" for her vaccination - they all got the nasal spray version...at least i didn't suffer through any further hearing loss from the high-pitched shrieks of screaming children this time!

i'm losin steam, and must attend to laundry, so this'll be brief - shot from a cancer benefit concert featuring a headlining performance by Ruben Studdard of American Idol fame

and finally, just a portrait i like for a story on kids who can't play their sports due to inadequate GPA's

more to come!

xmas...here and there

first holiday season with our newly pared staff....got to go home at least thru xmas eve, which is when my family always celebrates - well, at least the opening gifts and party-ish side of the holiday...but i had to leave this morning to drive back to michigan to work the evening and weekend night deadline desk duties part...so, it was short and sweet, then back it was, and i am now here on the desk waiting to tone the page 1 fotos...really doesn't feel like xmas, and the wet, brown ground isn't making it look a lot like xmas either...anyway, at least i got to be home with my family at the holiday for part of the time, got to help decorate cookies, see my little kitty-boy - going on 16 years and still kickin! go Kashi go!!!! he's such a sweetie, but sadly, i think he is beginning to forget me some, at least when i first got there, but after the first day, i started getting lots of little nuzzles...or maybe he just realized i was another set of hands from which to elicit back scratches! oh well, doesn't matter, still good to get some love no matter what the reason...

although i have plenty of catch-up to post from the last week or so, i'm posting these now...just cause i feel like it, and i'm bored, and there will likely be nothing to do work-wise for the next couple hours, so i may as well get productive here....

this is what our little family xmas scene looks like to the outside world - you'll have to use your imagination to put me in the scene, as i was, familiarly, the girl behind the camera

except for the morning after before i got ready to drive back - clearly i had not yet had my xmas morning caffeine!

here's my Kashi! cute cute cute

and Mr. Lucky, my parents' cat

they've become really good buddies...well, for the most part that is

so, back to the xmas joyousness, from the inside now...while Mom gets things ready, lights the candles, Dad takes a few pictures of the tree and gifts and us...before we get down to the serious business of tearing our carefully wrapped and decorated boxes apart! this photo thing kinda runs in the family

so, we're opening, and we're having some champagne....a good time is had by all


especially when Dad opens one of my sister's packages....before the holidays, when we were trying to get some gift ideas, my folks gave us more of the what-not-to-get list - no more clothes, no more knick-knacks, trying to cut down on so much stuff - so when pressed they said, 'give us something useful, like a gift certificate to a restaurant, or soap....'

and yes, there you have it, my sister did indeed buy my father a 3-pack of Dial soap for xmas (well, that wasn't all - there were less utilitarian presents exchanged - just in case she reads this and fears i have told the world that she just gave our dad a bar of soap for xmas)...anyway, i was about doubled over laughing - it only got better when he later opened up the Speedstick deodorant!

so, here's the scene in michigan - my little home taste of xmas - thankfully none of it got stolen while i was away! hopefully i'll be home enjoying some of it tonight before the holiday officially ends...

merry christmas!!!

all things revisited

this week, i got a second chance at a story that i had begun several years ago, and at a feature/news assignment, got a chance to revisit with some kids i had shot a feature of several years ago, as well....so, either i've been here too long (which is quite possible), or i haven't quite accomplished yet what i was supposed to have done here (also quite possible)....and of course there was some other stuff inbetween, like the start of the next sports season (no break from it - i thought we'd at least get a week, but apparently i was mistaken), portraits, and play rehearsals for the upcoming holiday theater fare, and calls and arrangements, etc, etc.....

so, first things first....

a church has held a weekly give-away of clothes/food/miscellaneous items since the spring, and we were doing a story on it - it being the start of a new month when assistance checks roll in, it was pretty slow, only a handful of people came by to get things...there were a couple kids volunteering there, and as i was getting their names the boy asked - did you come by a house on 4th street a few years ago and take a picture of kids playing in a pool? well, i've done that about a hundred times, but i looked at these kids and then it clicked - yeah, i did shoot you and your twin sister playing in your kiddie pool, and good lord, yeah that was about 4 years ago now! so, here they are, all relatively grown up, teenagers, and i got to tell them how that picture actually won in our state's monthly clip contest - which they were super excited about, too...so, a sort of lame assignment turned into something pretty cool, despite the not so great photos...i mean, we go out and shoot so many people, especially kids, between sports, school stories and just feature hunting, as in their case, and it's always kind of interesting to run into them years later and see how they are now and what they're like....just a fun little aside to doing this job i guess....

about 4 years ago, i started researching a story on a facility for people who would be homeless and have co-commitant issues of physical and/or mental health that have compounded or often led to their financial difficulties - it's a huge old building outside of town, probably passed by it a million times since i first got here, and in the course of chatting with someone, i learned about what it was, and that it is one of only two remaining "county poorhouses" in the state...so, i made an appt. with the then-director, talked with him and got permission to work on a foto story - actually, they were incredible about pretty much letting me do whatever i wanted, come whenever i wanted, etc....that kind of access is hard to come by in most facilities, so i was really excited about the project....started it in december of 2005...but like so many open-ended, long-term projects, i let myself get caught up in the demands of the daily - well, especially that time of year, when there's so much holiday STUFF going on, the month flew by before i got back to it, then it was onto a new year, and you know, a couple mmonths or so go by and you realize you haven't gone back, and you feel bad and regretful, and then that feeling alone starts to make it feel harder to go back, because you feel like you must seem like a flake to them, and then more immediate demands come up and more time elapses, and well, now, i just really feel bad, so it lapses into another of those great project ideas that you seem to be letting slip through the cracks, and then, it just gets filed under the "things i started and didn't follow up on" regret file...

this is Ruthie - she mostly walks around in her own world having conversations with, as she calls the, her voices....she has been living there for about 15 or 20 years now, and she was one of the people that i really wanted to concentrate on for the story, because she so seems to embody the unique service that this home provides

so a couple weeks ago we get an assignment to go there - their funding is running out and the county has decided to put its fate up as a millage on an upcoming ballot, and we want to do a story so people are aware of what it is and what they're being asked to vote on funding....we couldn't schedule time til this week, and it's under new directorship, but again, i get pretty much full and unlimited access to do what i want, as long as the residents give their okay...so i went back a couple times - everyone there has such a great story - and i mention to the new director that i'd started something there years agop and let it slip, and i would be interested in trying tl pick it back up - even though this story is running this weekend, i'd like to come back and keep doing more - i almost envision this like some of the work that Eugene Richards did in the mental hospital that's in Americans We or something....i mean, not that i'm that good, but the idea of it, and hopefully it would be that good...anyway, this is my second chance i think, and if i let it slip again, then i think i really am an idiot....plus, that millage vote isn't coming up until the summer - got pushed back til then due to funding issues - so, it would be very timely to have something more in-depth come out before then - i mean, these are people that really couldn't (at least quite a few of them) function on their own, even if they got state funding for their own places - accident victims with brain damage, seniors, or schizophrenics not an immediate danger to themselves or others, but they simply wouldn't be able to live independently and would likely end up abused or dead if they were out there completely on their own...

anyway, here's a few from this week's shoot there....

Ruthie is still there, years later - "i love it here" she tells me, lining up to purchase nightly snacks with her tokens...i cannot imagine what would happen to her if Fairview were to close

lunchtime - the food at Fairview is provided by the kitchen staff at the Monroe County jail - granted, Monroe has been known to have the best jail food in the state, but still, it's jail food...residents say EVERYTHING is made with turkey

residents can use the facility's phone room - calls limited to 10 minutes

tokens in hand, residents begin to line up and wait for the snack shop to open for the evening snack time

naptime after the post-lunch afternoon meds have been dispensed

Jim has suffered several heart attacks and recently 2 small strokes, which have left him, not paralyzed, but without feeling in the left half of his body....he lost his home after separating from his wife and before coming here lived in his van in the parking lot at Meijer, where he was subjected to taunts and pranks from teens who noticed that he was basically homeless and living there....his wife also lost their home since he left and is living in the Salvation Army with their children - she has had trouble with their oldest daughter, whom she kicked out and got a no-contact order against - she is now living with family friends, isn't currently in school and comes by Fairview nearly every day to hang out with her father...Jim hopes he can get custody of all the children when he gets back on his feet...his daughter, Amanda, wants to get back in school and also loves photography - she learned about it in a class before she stopped going and told him all about photoshop and how she could remove that funny mole on the back of his neck with the cloning tool....

friday morning, went to the historical museum for a day-long visit/tour by students at a local elementary school...they were there to see the annual xmas tree festival the museum holds, but they also got to tour the museum exhibits, which they were far more interested in than the trees....it was pretty hectic - i mean, elementary kids running willy nilly thru a museum - bit of a challenge, but i wound up sticking with a group and got some pix i liked, as well as a couple random ones either for still life or our community page