Katrina Turns One

The one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is here and most papers, including ours, are doing follow up stories. I wanted to share what the Dallas Morning News photo staff did because it is by far the best I've seen yet. After seeing this you'll know where all those Pulitzer's are coming from.

Football Feature

I've been shooting a lot of college and high school football feature portraits the past few weeks to get ready for the upcoming season. You usually only have a few minutes to set up the portrait and shoot it; so it's been a challenge to always come up with something interesting. But I think I'm getting better at shooting these things on the fly. Hell, most the time these kids are only wearing shorts and sandals, which limits your choice of shots. Or their coach is telling them to hurry up because they might miss 10 minutes of practice. But, it's still a privelige to be apart of these kids 15 minutes of fame. And because of the time pressure, I always feel that much more pleased when I come away with something decent.

Slick

We had a brief shower this morning and I found this in a parking lot. I wanted to incorporate it somehow into a picture with a person, but it just wouldn't work. Besides, the only way to get the colors was to shoot a few inches off the ground, and it didn't reflect enough to catch a pedestrian strolling by.

On the Fence

Summer's coming to an end, so I guess it's time for the County Fairs. I walked around the 4-H booths for an hour before I found something I actually wanted to photograph. This little girl was helping to take Arts and Crafts entries and I immediately noticed the great light leaking through an open door and falling across her face. Luckily she didn't get too distracted when I knelt down and starting shooting some images. I was afraid she was going to drop her hands from the fence, which would have killed the scene. I like the relaxed, quite feeling of it.

School

This is from an assignment about Fayetteville's new elementary/middle school that is opening this fall. Pictured is a teacher hanging some posters outside her classroom. Remember kids, Larry the Lion says learning is AWESOME!

Summer Football

Most of what I have been shooting are advances for later dates, so I can't publish them here until the Morning News does. So here is something I shot awhile back.


Also, if you want to be a cool photographer like myself, or are just bored, check this out:

Superman Returns!

I simply destroyed this game the first time I played it because of my amazing photo skills.

Dianna

Me and my "lady friend" Dianna.

Flames

It's pretty obvious what's going on in this photo. To me it has a macabre beauty with all the color: red building with a blue sky and orange flames.

Salsa Festival

This is a shot from Salsa Fest here in Fayetteville. Its Arkansas...its August...its a million degrees outside...let's have a salsa contest!!

Space Girl

I had a lot of fun the other day covering a kids swimming tournament. Unlike most collegiate/high school meets, it was held outside which meant lighting wasn't a problem. I've always wanted to get an image of a swimmer's head just barely breaching the water's surface, so that's what I was looking for. I decided to bring the 400mm (maybe a bit overkill), since I wanted my shot to only show the swimmer's face. The backstroke event seemed the best opprotunity for the shot, so that's what I concentrated on, even though my favorite images by other photographers using this technique are of the breast stroke. I didn't expext the bubbles, so that was a pleasant surprise (gives it a spaceman look as one other photographer noted).

Number 1 Dick

I forgot about this. I covered Cheney's visit last week and shot about 200 images. Out of those 200 and some odd images, only in 3 did he actually have some sort of a smile. This shot made me laugh. I call it, number 1 Dick.