ballroom

There’s something about December, it seems like there’s a steady pattern of dance assignments that pop up this month. This is just the beginning, I’m shooting two more dancers this afternoon.

Ah Basketball,

Nothing like a new gym. I was spoiled the first week of basketball season I shot in two new gyms. Stansbury’s gym is so bright, even compared to Tooele’s which is less than 10 years old. I highly recommend Westlake’s gym too. Its got a lot of different vantage points along with being bright.

more shots in the dark: tuba style

I guess the reoccurring theme for me in October is shooting stuff in the dark… This was in the wee hours of the morning at the SHS band practice.

the football

Before starting at the Transcript I had never shot a football game in my life. Lacrosse, soccer and hockey I’d shot a plenty but football was a foreign concept, and frankly I couldn’t tell you much about football today, I know which way the ball is moving and thats about it. Last Wednesday was one of the rivalry games out here, 4A Tooele vs 3A Grantsville. I went in knowing I needed a feature for the front page to jump to sports and at least 3 action shots for the sports page. The game was close, really really really close so my front page photo kept changing every time a team scored. I did the usual- kids with team flags, face painted fans etc with about 12 min in the third left the power went out while Tooele was in scoring position, the game was tied. Now dark in Grantsville is not like city dark it was really dark. At this point I was freaking out and attempting to use cell phones and heaters as light sources. but it was DARK even at 3200, 2.5/20 on spot metering I would have to still hope that photoshop could have brought them up a bit. Thankfully the power came back on and I resumed looking for something to do with the game for my feature photo. With 50 seconds left, Grantsville scored and they celebrated. I shot this with my backup camera and I’m surprised it didn’t turn out grainier- wait is it still considered grain in digital land? anyway. the 30D surprised me.

hiking with flares

I remembered red and I remembered worrying about lighting myself on fire with a flare, ten years ago I hiked up the side of the mountain with the rest of my senior class and lit the T on the hill. Monday I did it again as a last second oh crap we need a feature photo for tomorrows paper. Little has changed, other than I was worried this time that someone else would light me on fire with a flare, but its still red.

A summer off from blogging

Ok, I didn’t intend on taking months off from blogging. I did intend to get the new and improved blog with a shorter name up in June but then things stayed busy and blogging was put on the to do below teeth whitening and random blind dates. And I have yet to get to either of those items but I figured it was about time I stop waiting to find the perfect design for this damn blog. so here it is, at the new address. I’m not sure if the design will stay this way for long, this isn’t what I want the blog to look like but this is the only design I’ve been able to settle on that I didn’t hate. feedback is welcome.

back to school….

I’ve spent a lot of time at schools lately, did a photo essay/page on the opening day of Stansbury High School, a new charter school and a dozen other things at other schools. With all that said the catholic school is still my favorite.

Rodeo roundup

In small paper land summers can be a very long time for the sports section without high school sports taking up a bunch of real-estate. fortunately out here we’ve got Miller and we’ve got some mighty fine rodeos too. Here’s a smattering from the summer rodeos.

Superbike

Every year at MMSP I learn something new, ’secret’ tunnels, where to find the bottle water, how to get from a decent turn to the finish line before the victory lap ends… you know the little things. This years bit of enlightenment- claim some space in the media room early. I ended up in the middle of the middle this year and it sucked. It sounds like world superbike will be returning next year and the year after that so I’m hoping next year I’ll remember this small bit of info, leaving me more time to chase around Spies, Haga or even Michael Jordan next year.

The last two were for a feature on the campers, I’ve got to say the view up there is impressive.

Dugway

A lot of land and climate described as similar to Afghanistan brought a troop of special forces out to Dugway for training. This was a few months ago, before we got drenched during the month of June the rain made me wonder if they rethought that whole climate thing. Nice bunch of guys, I wished I could have spent more time out there.