New Stylee ( the extra 'e' is for added effect)

I think I embarrassed Joel when I shot this photo, but once he sees it in the paper I think he'll like it.


This marks two weeks in a row I've been ecstatic to see it come out. We're trying some newer things with the issues and I think they're turning out great. I just hope other people think so too.
I still can't say design is my favorite thing in the world, but I'm slowly learning from things that Jeremy and Rodney in the office do. Thanks for the help with all the projects guys.

Going home

Basketball's not all that bad I guess. Or maybe I'm just too tired to care



It's 10:30 p.m. I'm finally leaving the office. There's some things I love about the news and somethings I dislike. The hours, not so much. The thrill of a job well done and capturing a great moment - unbelievable.

Regardless, I'm tired and heading to bed.

Wishing I was outside

Football season was so long ago. I want it here again.



After another long hiatus I'm back. Nothing new to really report. I'm working a lot and going through some older photos. Maybe one of these days I'll finish my wedding photos. Regardless, here's an old shot of John Wienke from the first football game of the 2007 season. It seems like such a long time ago, but it really wasn't. Only a few months. How I wish I was outside covering football games instead of basketball in low-lit gyms. Stephen, Eric and I are planning to get together soon to put together our side business for weddings. Should be a good time.

If I come across a few photos tonight I'll post another one or two. I feel so neglectful when it comes to the blog.

Wind storm, ice and powerline, oh my!

Sitting in a snow storm waiting for the utility company to repair a powerline might make you see funny things like this.



Work has been pretty exhausting lately. Lots to do, lots to do. Didn't help the weather turned insane earlier today. It was near 60 when I went out in the middle of the day. The next thing I know I go to leave and it's near single digits with gushing winds.

A powerline was called down west of town and I headed out to get photos of either firefighter moving it or utility men repairing. it

Unfortunately I couldn't sit around long enough for the utility men, but I did get a photo of it catching the grass on fire. Kind of crazy to see a fire sparking the ground and catching about a 5 foot wide area ablaze.

I probably sat there for about 10 minutes until I got bored and started shooting random pictures. This one was my favorite.

Heart attack anyone?

They call this a horseshoe in springfield. It looks nothing like a horse or a shoe and is not shaped like one either. Maybe they call it that because it pads your arteries like a horseshoe pads their foot.



Last weekend Steph and I took a trip to Springfield to visit some friends. While there, our friends introduced us to something called a horseshoe at Darcy's, a restaurant there. It would be interesting to see where the name for it originates, but I'm afraid anyone who consistently eats these may have died from a heart attack.

We also got to go see the state capitol building and went to a really cool pub downtown where we played card games and sampled imported beers. My favorite by far had to have been the german beer I got. I was surprised the Chinese beer was as good as it was. It was called Tsing Tao. Tasted like Heineken but better.

This photo really caught my eye today as I'm in the middle of doing a Big Loser competition. My goal is to drop 25-30 pounds over 12 weeks. Quite feasible as I've done it before. I joined a gym and have been lifting and running all week long. Feels good to get back into shape. Well, minus those days where you can barely move your arms and legs. (i.e. yesterday!)

I go for my second weigh in tomorrow for it. I'm hoping to have dropped at least two pounds, but at least 1-2 would be good. I've changed my diet up back to when I was at the N-G. Roughly 1500 calories a day and lots of exercise. Difference being I actually have money to buy good food instead of Ramen and Pizza Hut.

2008

Happy New Year



Happy New Year everyone. Steph and I went to Indiana for the celebration and had a blast with her friend Julie and her boyfriend Ryan. If the photo makes me look a little rough, well....it was a rough night. I'm not in college shape anymore, but I made the best of it.

The best part of the night was probably indoor bags. Trying to avoid things like a ceiling and hot water pipes makes it quite an interesting game.

Merry Christmas

This doesn't look OSHA certified to me.


I finally downloaded a bunch of photos from Steph's camera. I shot this picture months ago, but still have yet to download it, edit it or post it.

I just thought it looked really neat when I passed by it one day and against the bricks it looked even cooler.

So that's my Christmas present to you. Speaking of Christmas...I got an iPod Touch for my big Christmas present from Steph and her parents. I'm trying to get everything organized so I can get my contacts and calendars in order. Maybe I'll finally get a .mac account, but we're trying to save money not spend it.

I also got a few light stands from my parents with swivel umbrella heads. I'm pretty stoked about being able to use them. I also bought a bunch of cords from Lundgrens while I was back to use my flash units.

Portraits Round 2

I make her look good.



So instead of sitting on our butts tonight I decided I'd like to go back to the office and play with the lights a little more. I've had these portrait obsessions lately. I know she doesn't find it nearly as fun as I do to go do this, but at least she brings a book with when I'm fiddling with lights or my camera.

I did successfully get some Rembrandt lighting done. It took me a little bit of testing, but I'm pretty happy with it. I guess it could be a bit more low-key, but not everything has to be. I'm starting to realize more and more that light is not always about where it is, sometimes it's where it's not. I know that so many lighting guys say this over and over, but you don't truly understand it until you're not getting what you want.

The other thing I'm finding is that you don't need a super-fancy studio to do really nice work. Something Scott told me today is that if you spend a long time on any project you can make it look great. "Heck, if you spent enough time in this lobby you could make a great photo story out of it," he said about the lobby of the Community Building today.

I know he was being a tad bit facetious, but in another way I know he was absolutely right. A New Year's Resolution of mine is to do at least one photo story by the end of May. That gives me six months from now. I already have an idea of what I want to do for it. It's perfect. It's close to work and I enjoy the people there. What better way of working. My plan is to spend at least one day a week there until the end of my time period or until I feel I have what I'm looking for.

I'd also like to find a shorter term story to do as well. Well, enough motivation for the night. Time for bed. Time to put words into action tomorrow.

Headshots

She's a good sport.



Steph's letting me use her as a model for the headshot tests. Maybe I'll get to shoot a few tonight when she's done with dinner. I've got two more techniques to try for the basics. Then I'm going to start playing with some creative things.

I saw Scott Strazante at the FutureGen announcement this morning. I've seen Scott before, but never got a chance to talk with him. He's a very nice guy and very intuitive. I guess you kind of have to be in order to be Illinois Photographer of the Year.

We talked a little bit about his "The Season" project and he told me about how he finds time to be a photographer, a husband and a dad. Most importantly, he told me how important it is to work hard. And he's right.

Oh, and congratulations to Mattoon on getting FutureGen. I'm sad for Tuscola, but happy to see it here in Illinois.

Wedding photos

Thank you Noise Ninja and Raw files....oh and thanks Stephen and Eric.


I've been editing a ton of wedding photos lately. I do have to say thanks again to Stephen and Eric for all the photos. You've definitely kept me busy the past few days. I actually felt productive this weekend. I got over 100 of our photos done. I got to read a little bit, read both the Saturday and Sunday papers and even played in my "studio" a bit.
I'm trying to teach myself class lighting techniques so I know the absolute basics of portrait lighting. I'm going to start bringing people in for headshots to just to play around.
I've got a business idea that I may try this spring just to get myself a little extra cash.
I'm also gearing up for the FutureGen announcement this week. It's going to be a long week at work, but it'll pay off when I get to see my parents this weekend and see Steph's family next week.

I love this game?!

Shooting a lot of basketball lately. I really need a second light, but I liked the way this photo turned out.



I've been quite busy lately. Not really an excuse for not posting, just letting you know. I've been in full basketball mode lately. It's actually kind of nice b/c I don't have to switch from football mode to volleyball mode or anything, but I did shoot boys basketball the other night for the first time this year and boy was it different than girls.

So much faster than girls. I was going to try the Strobist light setup tonight for gyms, but forgot I need another pc to pc cord before I do that. I really need to buy like another five of them, but Xmas is coming up so we'll see.

I've got a few photos I'll throw up from work the other night in a day or so. I actually made prints. My next order of business is to get my wedding photos completely done. Hopefully I can do it before Christmas so the family can see.

In rememberance

Flags are refelected in a war memorial at the Douglas County Courthouse Sunday during a Veterans Day ceremony.



Today was the government's observance of Veterans Day or as it was originally known as Armistice Day.

Likely to say that the past two days have been filled with flags and people clad in red, white and blue.

This is probably the first time I've ever really thought about Veterans Day and what the true meaning is. There's this sinking feeling I get when I think about how many World War II veterans are left.

Tom Brokaw wrote the book "The Greatest Generation" because he saw that many of these veterans were dieing off. I'm wondering if he had the same feelings I've been getting.

It would be cool if I could do a project with these veterans, but I need to finish some other things I've started first.

Football

Zack Martin watches his Warriors defeat Mount Olive on Saturday during the quarterfinals.



I love covering state football. Truth be told, I hate working Saturdays, but I have no ideas what I'm going to do when football is over with in two weeks. Basketball is right around the corner, but unfortunately it's really no comparison to the excitement of football.

I've had a blast covering TCHS all year long too. I think next year I'm going to try and cover it a little different. Stephen's been posting about Scott Strazante's coverage of a volleyball team and I'd love to do that as well, but I want to really make it my own next year.

As soon as I figure out how I want to do it I'll let all of you know.

As you can tell, I've fallen in love with hard burning the edges of my photos too. It's kind of the style that everyone has right now and I guess it's always been a style of photographers, but I'm just now getting into it. It makes photos look a lot nicer most of the time and can really draw your attention to something you normally wouldn't have. I think I'm going to make a print of this photo for his parents because I like it so much.

Foot graffiti

I wish I could still get away with writing on my shoe, but I think my wife would get mad.




I saw this when I shooting photos of Atwood High School's assembly with Rupert from "Survivor:Paradise Island" and "Survivor: All-stars." I wasn't sure what to expect from him when I got there. I assumed it would be a lame speech about practically nothing and mostly just promoting himself, but I was proved incredibly wrong.

Rupert ended up being a very nice guy and one of the few speakers or people I've met in awhile who really cares about children. He cares what happens to them and can really relate to those who need attention the most.

I may actually write him a letter. He said anyone who writes him gets a handwritten response guaranteed.

It's not like I should expect anything less though. He's just another person, but I'm glad a person like him has got some fame and turned it into something positive.

As for the shoe, it just reminded me of something I woudl have done. I wouldn't have chose to put a big heart on my shoe, but I do remember writing "Erin Hurley sucks" on the side of my shoe during class in college one time and turning to Erin to show her when it was dead silent in class. She immediately burst open laughing getting dirty looks from the teacher and the rest of the class. God, everyone in that sociology class hated us. I think they were just jealous because of how much fun we had. Or it could have been how annoying and obnoxious we were, but either way I know I had a lot of fun.

Sweet Thursdays

Matt Meyer claims his coworkers are to blame for his hard hat, but I think he's just a super Illini fan.


Today was a pretty nice day. Got to shoot a lot of photos. It seemed like each time I showed up for an assignment I kept feeling like I was lost and didn't know what to shoot. As soon as I just started shooting I slipped into the groove. I'd step back after a little while, reanalyze what I had and shoot for something new and creative.

I think one of the biggest things I need to do is to realize when I already have a certain kind of shot and not shoot that one again. I find myself shooting a lot of the same image just a little bit different. I guess in a way it's because I always think the next frame will be better than the next, but I end up missing shots I'd be much happier with if I wouldn't concentrate on one particular angle.

Here's a few shots from a couple of assignments I did today. Mostly had a lot of fun doing my assignments. As soon as some of the other shots run I'll post them, but that won't be until at least next Friday.

This weekend Lucas and I are in for the long haul down to Mount Olive to watch the Warriors move to another round in the playoffs. Let's just hope Arcola can win theirs and we can see the return of the Cola Wars.

APAD

Ted Dibiase, the Million Dollar Man, speaks to Arcola students about premarital sex, drugs, alcohol and abuse in their gym on Friday. Dibiase joined the ministry after his professional wrestling career ended.


2 posts in a day??? What, what, what??? I know, crazy huh? Mostly because I feel I neglected my blog for so long and partly because I'm bored. I'm home alone waiting for Steph to get back from a wedding. I just finished a book and I'm not in the mood for television, so this is the next best thing I guess.

I'm trying to start shooting a photo a day right now. It's difficult because I don't get out of the office every single day to shoot now, but I should stop making excuses and just do.

This photo is one I shot on Friday, but didn't get to post until today. This is a link to Saturday's shot, and I don't have one from today mostly because it's my day off and partly because I spent most the day cleaning, exercising and lounging. Felt pretty good all in all. Exactly what I needed to get me up and running for the week.

I try to send in a photo each day to the "A photo a day" Google group, but not always successful. Good thing they don't pay me. I'm mostly hoping this will just help me start seeing things differently as there are a lot of really good photographers on there.

The last thing to plug today is Strobist. I plugged this a lot on this site, but John Dixon, a News-Gazette photographer sent out a group email about this article. He's definitely right in saying this is what we do. It got me really thinking about my minimum level of quality. So Stephen, you'll be happy to know that found something to break me out of that slump we talked about. I knew if I looked for something it would help.

Return to home

Watching a sunset from a plane is quite awesome.


I'm finally getting to posting the last part about our honeymoon. It's been a few weeks, but here it goes.

Saturday we wake up and roll out of bed. We go down to eat breakfast because we're going to make sure we don't miss it.

We sit out near the beach for a little while to enjoy our last few hours before we have to return to our everyday life. We both have this odd feeling of wanting to see our friends and family, but part of us is depressed we can't stay. Over the past week the two of us learned how to use the bus system, how to barter with the merchants and how to try new and exciting things.

In a way, some of the people and things we saw we're beginning to become normal and to have to fly back felt like we were being up rooted all over again.

We both knew the feeling wouldn't last, but there was still a feeling of hesitation to leave.

We went back to the hotel room and picked up all of our stuff in the room. We checked, rechecked and then checked one last time to make sure we had everything. Steph's pretty adamant about doing that.

The only thing that sucks about having all this done early is that now it's only 10 a.m., our ride to get to the airport doesn't show until noon. We decide the best thing to do now would be go sit at the hotel bar. I mean seriously, what would you do?

While we're down there we run into our British/Scottish friends again. We talk with them for a little while and Steph finally finds a drink that she actually likes from the hotel bar. The guy bartending that day made her his homemade bloody mary and a I drink a few pina coladas.

Our transportation gets there right at noon and we take off. We get to the airport only to find out our flight has been delayed 2-and-a-half hours.

We get some food, look at the duty-free shop and wander around until sitting by our gate and waiting very impatiently. Finally we get on the plane, take off and start heading back to Chicago.

We get into Chicago around 8:30 and get through customs at 9. Luckily we never get checked by customs either on the way there or on the way home. It saves us a ton of time. Krissi picks us up and takes us to Steph's car. Of course Steph falls asleep on the way home and I end up calling Stephen and my parents to check up on what's going on.

We make it back to Steph's parents and fall asleep pretty quickly. Next day means a lot of packing and another long drive home.

One of the coolest things at Chichen Itza was the arena that they played a crude form of basketball and soccer combined. The walls were acoustically perfect to determine whether the ball was in play or out of bounds simply hearing the echoes.


So finally we make our way to Chichen Itza. I'm pumped because it's something I've wanted to go there all week long. I wouldn't call myself a history buff, but I'm really interested in most of it. Stephanie's been fed so she's calmed down and I'm just admiring all the small villages we've been going through. They're pretty awesome.

We finally make our way into the city. One of the coolest things I notice on the way in is a worn out baseball field off to our right in a school yard. Something about made me feel nostalgic. I could almost imagine that it was a ball field that some latino player got his big start on. Chances are not because of the condition of the field, but I like to imagine it that way.

We finally arrive. It's a fairly typical tourist trap. Gates, tickets and vendors. We wind our way through the turnstiles and find our way to our English speaking tour guide. His English is maso menos (s0-so).

As we said before Stephanie and I didn't really plan too well for this trip so when we got there we realized we forgot sunscreen for the two of us. Not too bad for me, but not so good for Steph. I'm wearing a thin white shirt and she has on a strapless top exposing her shoulders and back.

We start the tour and of course everything is in the open sun. Barely any trees. Our guide doesn't make a ton of sense so Steph decides she's just going hang out under a tree to minimize the sun.

The most disappointing thing though is that I find out I won't get to climb to the top of the most famous ruin there. They closed it down two years ago after two people died from falling down the steps. Probably a good thing.

The guide knows his information really well he just doesn't do a good job of conveying it. He tried to explain way too much symbolism that didn't make any sense. After awhile I just kind of quit listening to him and looking at things on my own.

Between every new stop inside the park we're approached by more vendors. "One dollar. Almost free. One-dollar, Mayan souvenir."

It was brutal. Finally they just release us on our own. We get to climb on one of the ruins and look around. They called it the observatory, but no one's for sure if it really was an observatory. Few records were left by the Mayans here because the Spanish explorers never found it until 200 years after it had already been abandoned. It starts to get a little cloudy and begins to rain so we take cover under shelter and wait for it to subside. On the way back I find a silver bracelet I really like so I barter with the vendor for a bit and end up paying about $20 for it.

After we go out front Steph gets bling envy because now I have a ring and a bracelet so we find her a neat little ring for her thumb that has the Mayan symbol for the God of Rain on it.

The bus loads up about 10 minutes later and we head back home. We relax and enjoy the drive back. It's all I can do from keeping to look out the window constantly. I think it's the photographer/journalist in me. Always looking, never wanting to miss anything.

After we get back to the hotel, we eat dinner and make our way back to our hotel. Make it an early night because of how early we got up in the morning.

Ik Kil

I wish I could have spent a couple of days running around Mexican villages to photograph the old architecture.


Friday started early. We had to be up at 6 a.m. in order to be ready for the bus that was going to pick us up by 7 a.m.

We decided Friday would be our tourist day where we went and saw some of the countryside and some of the villages.

We bought an all-day trip to Chichen Itza, which is the Mayan ruins located southwest of Cancun in Yucatan.

Unfortunately breakfast didn't start until 7:30 so we didn't have anything to eat. As we hadn't asked too many questions about the trip we weren't sure about breakfast. Nor did we pack our books for a long bus trip. We thought the trip might only be a half hour, but it ended up being several hours.

So with no food and no entertainment we set off for a long bus trip with few people who speak English. If anyone knows Steph, they know the 'no food' part is a recipe for disaster.

Luckily she's trying to be as cheery as possible. Luckily the guide on the bus tells us about all the interesting facts about Mexico.
It was really interesting to hear him say everything in Spanish and
English. I actually picked up on many of the things he was saying in Spanish.

On the way he tells us we will be stopping by a little place called Ik Kil. It's a natural cenote before you get to Chichen Itza. The drop from the top is about 60 meters and the water depth is about 40 meters once you get to the bottom. There's a cool stairwell that leads to the bottom where you can take a dip if you like. I was all about it. I actually took a leap off the top stairwell that is about 20 feet up.

It was kind of scary, but really no higher than a high dive. It was really thrilling to jump into a pool and know there was nothing below you to keep your body up. The closes thing to the bottom was 120 feet.

Steph did get a blurry photo of me jumping in.

I climbed up out, dried off and got Steph a small snack to tide her over until lunch.
After a quick stop here we all loaded back up and headed to our lunch destination in a small village between.

Lunch was a pretty nice spread and everything except drinks were paid for already. It was cool that they actually had dancers/entertainers during the dessert of our lunch.
I snapped a few shots within the block we were in, but I would have loved to been able to spend a whole day in the villages. Stuff like that is really interesting to me. It was absolutely nuts to see people in huts made of sticks watching televisions and on computers. Another thing I noticed was a multitude of internet cafes. I guess if not many people in town had computers this would make sense to have a common place for them to be used.

Everything was loaded backup and we headed for Chichen Itza. More to come tomorrow.

Day 4: Hard Rock rocks

My first trip to Hard Rock Cafe was awesome and so was my meal.


I missed posting yesterday because the football game ran late and I didn't get a chance to edit Thursday's photos from Cancun. Tomorrow may be a 2 part blog because Friday was just so cool and we took so many photos. I had to struggle to decide which photo to lead with today, but then I remembered this blog is supposed to be concentrating on detail so I lead with this one. Look at this photo anyway.

On Wednesday we decided to go on a snorkeling trip through the marina, but Steph was feeling sick so we decided to wait until Thursday. The trip was supposed to be from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., so when we woke up at 9:55 a.m. that was kind of out of the question. We didn't even make it out of the hotel until 10:35 a.m. so we missed breakfast at the hotel.

We made a quick trip to the super deli next door and headed to the beach. Today was another relaxation day of not doing a whole lot.

In the afternoon we did take the paddle boat out in the middle of the lagoon for awhile. I hadn't used one of those for a long time. The funniest part of that whole trip was Steph freaking out when we nearly hit one of the posts that was about 200 yards out in the water. Normally, nearly crashing into something wouldn't be funny, but when you're going to hit a wooden post with a plastic leg-powered boat at about 3 mph while you're floating it's actually pretty funny.

After that we showered up and headed downtown for dinner again. Tonight's restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe. I've never been to one and have always wanted to go. Dinner was great as usual. The restaurant was amazing. It was almost like heaven for me. All the music memorabilia and the video playing were great.

I loved that the server kept calling me 'boy' and calling Steph 'girl.'

"Are you ready to order boy?"
"Do you want another drink girl?"

She didn't mean any disrespect. I had kind of noticed it all week with other people too.

Anyway, she did let us know there would be a band playing later on which was great. As we were getting ready to ask for our check it somehow came up that it was our honeymoon. And she goes, "Oh, why didn't you tell me before boy? I'll be right back."

Next thing we know all the servers are coming out there with her to our table. I see two full shots of some unknown black liquid and I think, "Oh, great."

They made each of us take a shot in what I'll call a less than appropriate way in front of everyone in the restaurant. I guess I'd call it PG-13. Funny and entertaining to most people. Shot didn't taste horrible, but didn't taste great either.

We walked around for awhile after that to burn off our food, but then went back to Hard Rock for the concert.

Band is amazing. I'm pretty sure they're called Sombra, but not 100 percent sure. Great guitar players and just put on a great show. Wide variety of covers.

We then head back to the hotel bar for a bit and hang out with our British friends again. Steph's turn to get drunk. I get a little buzzed, but not bad. Steph starts repeating some song line of "A Be be be." Which to me sounds like she's trying to sound like Yogi the Bear. "Hey Boo boo."

Despite missing the boat on snorkeling, literally, we had another great day.