A Study of Color: Film

This weekend I shot a roll of 800 color film for the first time in a while. It turned out okay... I think I need to work on my exposures a little (it's hard when you can't chimp), but over all I was pretty happy. I truly miss film. I actually had to think about each shot. What a concept. Anyway... here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Mud-Bogging

Enjoy!

Outside The Box

I wrote a column for the paper earlier this week. Enjoy!

Variey Is The Spice of Life

There are moments when all photojournalists stop dead in their tracks, sometimes even in the middle of an assignment, and think, "I can't believe this is actually my job." For me, one of these moments came just over a week ago on a small farm outside of Gladwin. There I was at my first ever mud-bog, barefoot and covered in mud from head to toe, climbing in the back seat of 18-year-old Joe Lobodzinski's Chevy Silverado. Up until a moment ago, Joe and I were strangers, but now I was sitting in his car taking photos as we bounced along the rugged terrain. Just the day before I had been in downtown Midland attending the Good Friday service at St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic Church. My assignment was to shoot a photo of the church's recently renovated interior to accompany an article that was being written by my friend and colleague, Josh Grosteffon. But today, today was different. I had exchanged my dress pants for a pair of ratty jeans and my button-up shirt for a hoodie. No more communion wafers and wine; now it was hot dogs and beer. Sticking my camera out the window of Joe's Silverado, I released the shutter, capturing Joe as he scanned the open field for other mud-boggers who might be in his way. Just like me, Joe was covered in splotches of thick brown earth, the same brown earth that had drawn hundreds of people out of hibernation to this 40-acre tract of land along Nettleton Road. Maybe it was the fumes from the exhaust, or maybe it was just the mud between my toes, but this was the most fun I have had on an assignment in a while. In fact, assignments like theses are exactly why I chose this profession. What other job gives you the opportunity to go to church one day and a mud-bog the next? No two days are ever alike. You never know what tomorrow holds and that's what makes my job so interesting.

Rolls Royce

A portrait from tonight. Enjoy!

P.S. I have a lot more images from the past couple weeks that I need to post. Check back soon.

The Best Comment Ever!

So... check out the comment that followed an article on our website about the Midland Daily New's upcoming photo gallery.
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27-yr. MDN subscriber wrote on Apr 11, 2009 1:13 AM:
" Ummm...would it be possible to actually have a newspaper write about NEWS? Touting that someone with a camera won some award that no one cares about is NOT NEWS! Oh, and should anyone else notice, the Rocky Mountain News that came in second in the editing dept....oh, they just went bankrupt, so does that mean that since the MDN won some worthless award, that they are next to go bottom up?

Holding a camera is not work. If someone that actually WORKS at the newspaper won an award, that would be NEWS.

Since the MDN decided that they must reduce the size due to cost issues, I would be perfectly happy with removing the silly pictures and actually using the space for NEWS. If I want to look at pictures, I will goto a museum. But I expect NEWS from my NEWSpaper!Pictures don't do anything for a NEWSpaper other than waste spacek, where NEWS could be placed.

What is so much worse is the ego factor, in that Wood and Morgan seem so full of themselves that its just sickening. If they were so important to NEWS, they would not be working for a smal town paper like the MDN, but at something artsy-fartsy (where people actually care about pictures instead of NEWS, perhaps in san fran?) "
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You've gotta love this town.

Here is the link... if you don't believe me:
http://ourmidland.com/articles/2009/04/10/local_news/1703738.txt

Laying Line

Blog Blitz 3

Just playing catchup. Enjoy!

Feelin' Blue

These are some of my favorites from my trip to Arizona. Enjoy!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Last night we (The Midland Daily News photo staff) found out that our editor, the great and wonderful Ryan Wood, won third place in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism 2009 contest for Newspaper Picture Editor of the Year. Plus, we also won third in Best Use of Photography by Newspapers with less than 75,000 circulation. I'm so fortunate to have this job. Check out the linkage below!

http://bop.nppa.org/2009/photo_editing/winners/index.php?cat=N12&place=3rd