Warm weekend

Sunday was no cooler as the temperature jumped up to 95-degrees at one point. This had me sweating profusely as I lugged around my camera backpack during Dunnellon's Boomtown Days and during a park dedication on Sunday.
Late Night Football--


Apparently the football game on Saturday night didn't get done until around 11:45 p.m. so they ran the article today not yesterday.
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Boomtown Days--



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Festival of the Horse

Yesterday I photographed Festival of the Horse at the Ocala Horse Park. It was slightly unorganized but fun because I got to watch a mini game of polo for the first time. Oh and it was hot and humid, not a good day to wear long pants. But here are the photos that ran today as a stand-alone photo package.

This is a Gypsy Vanner horse, a relatively new breed that was only brought to the US in 1996.

The polo action was hard to shoot but I got one nice photo, but we chose this one instead for the humor factor.

This was the first time I got to shoot Cross Country jumping and it was interesting as I stood next to three other photographers on the side of the water jump and we waited for each horse and rider to come by.

The 7:30pm football game I covered started two hours late and will run tomorrow.

Easter Sunday

Yes journalists have to work on holidays and this Easter it was my turn.
I began with a 6:45 a.m. sunrise service in McIntosh, Fla. where the sun rose right over a lake down the hill from the service, it was gorgous but because there were a line of trees between the sunrise and the people my idea of an overall shot of the sun behind the group didn't quite work as I had hoped but I think I got a few shots that worked.


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Taxes on Easter Sunday --
If you didn't file your taxes by today April 17, 2006 you're late!

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Suspect of attempted murder --

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Story 1 places 3rd in NPPA student quarterly clip contest

This was a story I did on a young woman with Down syndrome who turned 21. The idea behind it was to show how as she officially became a grown-up she was still very much a child. I had a good time completeing this story as Vicki, my subject, grew attached to me, much like a young child would to an older sibling. It was hard to not interact with her as she tried to tell me things, but her mother was very understanding and would explain to her that I couldn't play. I did once the story was over however. I played tag and shot hoops with her. She was better at basketball, I was better at tag. :)
Enjoy!
LINK TO STORY (click on the red slippers to see all the images)
Also my good friend Danny Ghitis won first place in the picture story contest... his new photo blog is http://dannyghitis.blogspot.com.

POW service at The Villages

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This was quite an experience. It was apparently ex-POW day and Veterans of The Villages gathered to honor them. Amoung the veterans were about 10 ex-Pows who were each given the opportunity to tell their story. Some kept it brief, seemingly still uncomfortable talking about their experiences and others openned up as we listened to their entire military career. It was interesting to hear each ex-POW's story of how he was captured in either WWII or the Korean War. Another man didn't want to tell any depressing stories so he told of how he and his fellow men discovered cases of whiskey and liberated them.
This was one of those situations were I wasn't sure how far to stay back and how close to get at times because of the serious nature of the ceremony. There was another young female photographer there probably only one year older than me and once I saw her running all over during the ceremony I felt I could move around a bit more too. The only thing that bothered me was how she ran in front of the flagpole as they were doing the parade of flags. She was a bit obvious and I decided to stay still. Perhaps she got a better shot, but I felt I was more respectful. Where do you draw the line? I feel I must respect the ceremony and all those being honored as I do my job to cover an event and yet I wonder if others even consider this as they flitter around to get the best shot. Hopefully this won't hinder my photographs as I cover events but I feel it has already twice. What to do? Any thoughts?

Regatta

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Cloud Chasers

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Thoughts on photo stories

So I'm nearing the end of Advanced Photojournalism 2 right now with Prof. Kaplan here at UF and realizing that I REALLY enjoy doing photo stories. I was pretty scared of them before this semester, but now working on my second one I realize how much I have the possibilty to enter a person's life and document their experiences and it just means so much more to me than to snap one shoot of a person on a daily assignment for the paper. I now understand why I've heard that professional photographers live to work on their personal photo stories and work to even be allowed to proposal a story.
I've also realized access is key to making the best out of a photo story. I was fortunate with my first story to almost have it handed to me, but with my second it has been a struggle to get where I am right now. And where am I? Well literally I am in room 215 of Gator Lodge right off of University Avenue, pretty much living with a homeless family until they get kicked out of the hotel tomorrow at 11 a.m. They don't have any shelter lined up right now but are full of "well maybe..."s. As the mother explained to me, poor people, even when they have money, don't save their money. It gets spent right away, it's just the way it is. The father worked on Wednesday doing manual labor for a friend and earned $70, but later that night they spent $40 of it. And that's all the money they have. They want to send the mother and child on a bus up to Cincinatti, Ohio on Wednesday, but they don't have money for a bus ticket. They actually only need half the money and a local charity will give them the rest but they don't have half yet, although they did on Wednesday before spending that $40. So how do I sit there and just watch all this happen? Well first off they don't want pity and the father refuses to ever panhandle, but I think time will tell on that one. I befriended the mother on the first day I spent with her as we gossiped and shared life stories about high school and growing up while her son was napping and there were certainly no more photos to be taken. She's only 5 years older than me and she says I remind her of her little sister. I guess that's one reason she openned up to me. When I say openned up I mean it. I heard everything. She also said it was nice talking to someone close to her own age because most of the homeless people they hang around with are older.
In summary, because I have to leave soon to go meet up with them again, I really enjoy doing this type of work. I am not that social of a person but this somehow makes me overcome that as I try to get them to open up and share everything about their life and their struggles.

Back from Break!

Back and ready to roll...
I actually had more work than appears here because most assignments were being held for the weekily papers that come out on Thursday.
The Party Shop - I shot this before brake but it was finally published while I was gone. I thought another portrait I had from the store was better, but oh well. It was published in a small magazine called B2B, Business to Business, that circulates in Ocala and Gainesville.

Day 2 of the Pine Oaks Invitational Golf Tournament was the big event for Sunday. I feel I did better shooting golf, but then they go and print the easiest shots to get that I turned in. The other highlight of the day was learning to drive a golf cart for the first time. Okay I know it's not that hard but I was by myself with my two cameras bouncing all over on the course.
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State Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman - Once again they didn't publish my favorite photo, grr..., in either publishing of this article! The article ran twice, once in the next day paper of the Star-Banner and again in the weekly edition of The Villages paper.
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Another photo that didn't make it to the "reprint" page but did appear in the online version of the article was a portrait of Maria Rea. Here's that article:
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A little behind...

I know I'm a little behind but here are some of my most recent photos from last weekend:




This week I'll be in Montreal and Quebec for Spring Break, look for pics when I get back.