friday night

i went driving east after my shoot at the school carnival below...just wanted to see if i could come across anyone out searching for the still-missing little girl - more people were organizing to search throughout town tonight, and we still haven't really shot it...this is such a familiar sight in Monroe - whenever you're going anywhere, there always seems to be a train that crosses your path, not that i was in any particular hurry - i just loved the light and colors, and so, i'm just sittin there waiting with everyone else for the thing to go by, may as well shoot it, eh? despite the call for good weather today, it sprinkled off and on during the carnival, and then the sun just burst out and looked so cool against the passing storm clouds....then it was back to being overcast....get it while you can, right?!

so, here's what i turned in for the school carnival assignment tonight...even though i've shot this kind of thing a million times, i was kind of looking forward to this one...maybe in part because this is at a little school that i like going to and it is also one of the 4 schools closing after this year due to budget cuts...anyhoo, some of the frames from the night - nothin out of this world, but not bad for a night's work i suppose....

the composition is kind of awkward, but still, there's something about this that i like - maybe it's the awkwardness itself - not sure if this works or if it's more of an almost

this is my favorite of them all, though...i like the graphics of it, the near silhouette and body language with the hands in the air on the left and that hand pointing to them on the right - it was actually the inflatable volunteer worker telling them who could stay and whose time was up....so, that's my visual input to the world for the day...

the scrum and then some

last sunday a young girl went missing - a playmate at her apartment complex turned up at the family's door to tell them Navaeh was gone...later, an Amber Alert was issued, and today, the search continued, this time with search and rescue teams scouring the two quarries in town - i had no idea there even were two of them - this one was remote - tucked behind a park and the holiday inn out by the highway - i went here first, because, frankly, if it's this out of the way, i kind of thought that it was a more likely place to be - pretty gruesome way of thinking i know, but it just made more sense...trekked through the woods to the open area where the teams were assembled and made some pix as they made their sweep, canine search dog aboard...animals are so amazing..i was talking with one of the team and i'm like - can that dog really sense something on the water bank from out in the boat? - not only can he do that, but he told me how they can smell a body that is at the bottom of the water - a body under water starts to emit gases that bubble to the surface, and while we'd never notice that, the dogs can smell it and know there is a body below - amazing, but still, very gruesome and particularly sad given the context that this is a 5-year-old girl

while i was at the quarry, i got a call from the reporter that the grandmother of the little girl (who actually has the legal custody, but mom lives there, too) called all the media to tell them she'd like to hold her own kind of press conference, show everyone Nevaeh's favorite toys and tell them about what kind of child she is - that was in about an hour, so i hung out a bit longer and then headed over to their apartment complex after running home to scarf down a yogurt

the regional press - toledo and detroit - have been all over this story, and before grandma and other family came out, a great aunt agreed to speak - there was some rumor that grandma and the family had decided perhaps not to come out and talk - as soon as one tv reporter asked if this woman would talk, it was an absolute onslaught of cameras and mic-bearing reporters/anchorpeople - here's my "hail mary" of the scrum...

so, knowing how this thing was gonna go if and when the immediate family came out, i made sure to be up front, which meant maintaining a very squatty, leaning angle beneath the cameras, mics and arms jutting out all around me - but i would have had no shot any other way...let's just say, that is one core body work-out - the kind of weird position that you maintain until you feel your legs and stomach start shaking...being so close in their emotional moment, i didn't want my pictures to be like that "in your face as you go through trauma" view that i hate, but it was hard not to be in their face, given the position i had to take to get any pix at all, so i struggled with which of these to pitch as dominant or single, but such is the stuff of this job i guess

from left, the little girl's dad, her uncle, and the grandmother with whom she lives

this is getting into place before the cameras and tv people descended - the family was walking out and getting ready to face the press pack - just stick close, back up and don't get shut out i'm thinking as they walk out, and this is at least clean and i think what we may be using in tomorrow's paper...just on my personal rant, i wonder how it is tv and still people can all go thru the same journalism programs and come out with such divergent practices - i.e., one of Nevaeh's favorite toys, which her grandma brought out, was a toy guitar - she turned it on so that we could hear her granddaughter's song, and this tv reporter bearing a mic just reached out and turned the thing off! i guess it was interfering with the audio of the interviewing or whatever, but the worst was that grandma kept turning it on to listen to it, and this woman would just lean in and shut it back off....wtf???

made me feel really not so bad that my camera was right by their mic clicking away and probably also disrupting their nice, clean audio....so ends my rant and post for the day

just for fun

the annual memorial day parade begins just a block from my doorstep, and though it was a long weekend, and this was my day off to get all my "stuff" done - planting, shopping, bills, laundry, cleaning, etc etc - i had a real urge to shoot the parade with the lensBABY...sadly, this year's parade seemed to be over really fast, but i made a few frames that i kinda liked

sunday night, i shot a memorial day tribute to the fallen ceremony, which is basically a glorified slideshow - really hard to shoot - and there's one really nice pic there, but my boss shot it last year, so, quite the challenge...anyway, when i went out to the parade, this was the first float i saw, which was funny, because this statue was onstage at the ceremony the night before!

spotted this little girl from across the way...just pure americana, no ifs ands or buts...

the start of a very long day

worked the night desk friday - which, by the time i get out of the office, i am always wide awake after and up for a few hours later, which ain't too pretty when you're facing a 12-hour solid day starting in the a.m. with 4 assignments and running through to that saturday's night desk duties...this was the first assignment of the day - boy scouts placing flags at the grave sites of veterans in one of the local cemeteries...to make it manageable, i tried to stick with a small group of kids, and this first image is what ran dominant on a little back-page package a couple days later

this little boy was running like a maniac through that cemetery...scanning the site, he'd suddenly yell "i see one" and go running and screaming to the next headstone - it was a chore keeping up with him

seems like there's always that one kid that just kind of gets to you...this little boy started talking about how his grandfather was buried here he thought - he got lung cancer and died, and his uncle got "the cancer" too and then he died too...the other kids weren't really paying any attention to that, but i started talking to him, and he just kind of stuck to my side after that...i'd start shooting some other boys, and i'd notice him standing there just kind of waiting for me to come back, so i did, and he told me about how much he'd like to have a toy flying plane, and that he was going to a Tigers game soon and they had seats right behind the dugout...later, after they'd put out all their flags on the graves, he started playing with his handful of left-overs - "i have funny ears" he'd say, sticking them about his head, until one of the parents scolded him and the others for mistreating the flag...they are kids after all, and really, amidst all the seriousness we all face, and of which this little boy is obviously aware in his own family, can't kids just BE kids?

oh, this one is SO still life - bound!

sports o' the week

at a track meet last monday, and i know this has been done before (by one of our interns i believe even), but i  just wanted to play and see what i could see...not totally into these, i think they're kind of "almosts," but not so bad i s'pose

saturday's weekend shooting included a doubleheader, and i just liked this dive back to first pic - this is one of my safety shots, but i'm usually shooting it from the third baseline, so this was a little different and cleaner

on the lighter side

just some natural prettiness here....

while in line at the grocery check-out a couple weeks ago, i saw this pretty bunch of tulips on sale for a couple bux, so i got 'em, and before they totally died, had to break out the lensBABY and make some frames.....

making my way back to my car after shooting golf, and i was struck by how the roots of the very old stately trees had come up out of the ground and woven themselves over the base of the trunk, and the texture of the lichen growing...just liked the feel of it...and it suddenly reminded me of when i was six, and my first grade teacher (whom i loved - Mrs. Beavers) held her own little workshop over the summer break - she took us to the museum, introduced us to her neighbor and his big boa constrictor pet that he told us all about and let us touch, and one day we went to the park, where she told us that the green stuff growing on the trees was called "lichen" and we got to make our own little glass bottle dioramas (or whatever those things are called) of 'foresty stuff" - strange how the mind works - one day you learn what lichen is, and over 30 some years later, suddenly your mind goes right back there....a good memory

dirt, worms and color

so the last two days have been simply gorgeous - a complete hint of summer - the nice summer, not the very hot, sticky stuff that will be sure to rear its rather ugly, dehydrating head the week of the county fair - and i have the days off - my weekend for working through the typical-work world weekend yet to come....a-planting i shall go, a-planting i done gone....this is the garden so far....with a few close-ups of some of my favorites - dahlias and daisy varieties, i'll have to hold up on the beauty of the gazannias, because they have already closed up and retired for the evening!

dahlia

i decided this year to try and plant some veggies, and i bought a tomato plant....i was so very excited to see the flowers and this little nubbin of a tomato that had just started to grow....just as i was putting stuff away yesterday, i accidentally knocked over the pot, and the plant toppled, breaking the stem completely off its roots - so here's the first tomato i WOULD HAVE grown :(

 but, i was inspired to try again, so hopefully i will have more home-grown produce in my future!!

another dahlia - they are so beautiful!!

the front plot

one side of the porch - dug up the grass (which never got mowed anyway) and made this bricked-in area to set the pots on - the circular nature was a little tricky, so i left a middle space and planted some flowers in there....still a couple flats of to-be-planted things and extra pots set out on here, but you get the idea- it's no martha stewart, but whatever.....