Born To Be Wild

Yes. More stuff from Bikes, Blues and Barbeque. This event just gets bigger every year. I'm glad I'll be heading out of town when it peaks Saturday night.

Easy Rider

Bikes, Blues and Barbeque kicked off this week so it's time to get ready for the constant rumble of over 100,000 motorcycles rolling through town. This shot is from a story I was working on, but kind of fell apart. I was hoping to document a custom bike being built to be published during the festival, but the builder wasn't able to finish the bike in time. So there went the story! Maybe I'll get a chance to finish it in the future.

Trash

This is from a story on how trashy the interstate is in Northwest Arkansas. The lady is part of the VFW chapter in Springdale helping to clean up. I'm not the biggest fan of having assignments at 8am, but it's hard to complain when you have great light.

Storming the Field

Last night while shooting Friday night football some crazy storms rolled through the area. They delayed the start of my Springdale v. Bentonville match-up and then evacuated the stadium for about an hour while a sorm cell, filled with intense lightning, rolled through. They finally cancelled the game right before half-time because another system moved into the area. I shot this when Bentonville ran onto the field. This is right before the second storm hit, and it was at sunset, so it made for a beautiful backdrop.

Allie and Josh

Mark your calendars: 22 Dec 2006, Allie and Josh are making it official. Congratulations!

Double Vision

Another feature shot from Springdale. It's a window washer in case you can't tell. I really don't like the photo all that much, but I haven't posted anything in awhile and figured it was time for an update.

Knock Knock

This week Springdale police, firefighters and building inspectors spent the day performing surprise inspections on run-down housing complexes in one part of the city. They were looking for housing that wasn't up to code, in an attempt to get landlords to fix the buildings. But, the part of the story that stood out to me was the humiliation of the people who lived there having city officials show up because their home was a piece of shit. While covering the event I saw a half-naked little girl amazed at the show of officers invading homes along the run down hispanic neighborhood. She then rested on the doorway after running around the parking lot amidst the excitement. While this went on I slowly walked up and squatted on the sidewalk, placing my camera on the ground (away from my eye so she wouldn't look at me) and waited until an officer was framed next door to shoot my image. Lately I've been making an effort to learn a bit of Spanish, and it paid off because I was able to get her name and age, which allowed the image to see print.

Playing in the Band

Well football is in full swing so that's what I've been shooting. I saw this shot while wandering around the field before the start of Arkansas' game against Utah State. I like to walk around with just a wide angle lense before the game to try to find features. But when I saw this scene I knew I needed a telephoto to get the right compression with the fans in the background. So I sprinted back to my gear to grab the 70-200 and luckily this guy was still standing in the same spot. I had to shoot through a group of about 6 other band members, but they finally moved around enough for me to fire off about three shots before the gap closed. I was also glad to get a good facial expression from the guy to add another element.

Karate Kicker

Okay, I don't really understand why the Arkansas kicker does this, but he performs this wierd alingment thing before he punts. It looks as if he's about to break out some kung-fu.

Wade in the Water

Shot an old-fashioned baptism the other day at Beaver Lake and I managed to not drop my camera in the water! "Grab the kids ma, we're a goin' baptisin'."