Monthly Archives: March 2009

You be the photo editor

March 26, 20099:32 p.m.

Running a story this weekend about Bobby Rozzell. He’s the mastermind behind www.douglasandmain.wordpress.com. Douglas and Main is a blog that keeps track of other personal and professional blogs in Wichita.

Last week I met Bobby at the intersection of Douglas and Main (where else?) to shoot his portrait.

Photo #1 has a bit of glare issue, but I like the way the headlight make a nice rimlight.

Photo #2 corrects that problem, but is it too stale?

Photo #3 is an attempt at a little juxtaposition with the statue and newspaper.

Photo #4 is a different look entirely.

Would love to hear your opinion. What photo would you choose? Why? What would you have done differently?

Travis

By Travis Heying | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (6)

Courtroom drama

March 25, 20098:06 p.m.

I would suggest anyone interested in the exciting world of journalism spend a few days in district court.

Whether it be a high-profile case or just run-of-the-mill proceedings, a few nine-to-fives in Sedgwick County District Court will easily establish a baseline of tedium.

Abortion provider George Tiller’s trial is the case in point.
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The charges against Tiller are considered by many — even as reported in The Wichita Eagle — as being more or less “technical” charges: Tiller faces 19 misdemeanor charges about whether he had an improper financial relationship with a Lawrence, Kan., doctor providing second opinions on late-term abortions.

(As an aside, highly esteemed and now retired federal defense attorney Charlie Anderson — who is also my former father-in-law — once chided me, “It is NOT just a technicality,” when I suggested 20 years ago during a Christmas family gathering that most of his clients were crooks anyway.

He explained that what’s really on trial is whether or not appointed or elected officials (cops and judges, for instance) followed the law. They, he said, are actually the ones on trial. If the law is not followed we can easily end up living in a police state wherein those same cops and elected officials can do whatever they darn well please. That’s why he represented these folks… to protect a free society.

I have yet to hear a more concise explanation of why defense lawyers should have our respect.)

Anyway, courtroom drama is not particularly visual for the cameraman.

Weeping victims and finger-pointing accomplices aside, every minute with our eyeballs pressed against the viewfinder of a tripod-mounted camera encased in sound-insulating gauze, waiting for a significant gesture or expression, seems like 20 minutes at a Monopoly tournament.

We’re hoping to capture any expressions or gestures that reflect the overall demeanor of the person on the stand. Regardless of what many think, we really don’t take sides. For someone like Dr. Tiller, a composed, articulate and attentive defendant, those gestures can be miniscule.
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Choosing the image(s) that are published in the Wichita Eagle and on Kansas.com should reflect the reality of the defendant’s demeanor during his or her time on the stand.

Nonetheless, an hour in the courtroom feels like a day on the front line. Kinda like shooting a baseball game, only with a more significant outcome.

By Mike Hutmacher | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (1)

More police scanner funnies from Deb

March 21, 20098:22 p.m.

Okay, this doesn’t have anything to do with photography, but you’re not going to get this insider “newsroom” info anywhere but here:

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True stories from the police scanner, as reported by our own Deb “Deb” Phillips:

*  Police asked to check the welfare of a woman driving alone down
the street slapping herself.
* Dispatcher tells cop that when he arrives at the house, “knock
two times, stop, then three times, and she’ll let you in.”
* Dispatcher tells cop that a woman named Olga called them to
report that she has second-hand information that her son is possessed.
* Clerk in a convenience store wants police to check out a man in
a straight jacket (completely buckled up) with another man in a dark
shirt.
* Shooting on north Lorraine, victim on the ground. Police at
the scene say she thought she’d been shot but they say she’s just drunk.
* Someone is on the walkway over the Kellogg overpass is spelling
out profanities using plastic cups.
* Disturbance with ketchup at 21st and K-96.
* Report of a three-foot tall man wearing a Batman suit causing a disturbance.
* Disturbance with a sippy cup as a weapon.
* WPD called to check a woman who fell asleep on top of the
peppers in the produce department.
* Disturbance with a package of frozen fish.
* A man called the police to report that his girlfriend bleached
all his clothes.
* Person called 911 to report a woman on her front porch taking
a sponge bath.

Stay tuned. Más por venir (more to come!)

By Mike Hutmacher | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off

New faces in photo this week

March 20, 20094:36 p.m.

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Our photo department has had a few new faces running around this week. Kansas Sate photographers Matthew Binter, Matt Castro, Nathaniel LaRue and Chelsey Lueth took a few days of their spring break to work at the Eagle. I love having these kids around and I’m very proud of the way they came in a went to work. Why? I was once one of them.
In 1984, former Eagle director of photography Steve Harper took a chance on me when I was a K-State student. The experiences that I had at K-State was incredible and helped form the foundation on how I go about my business today. I can tell these students are getting the same experience.
Yesterday was sort of a wacky day in the Eagle. A horrible car accident that killed a Sedgwick teen, a bank robbery and a plane crash were all covered by the K-State students. Today’s Local and State section has a nice photograph by Nathaniel from the car crash scene, an event that’s not easy to photograph. He did well, not only his photos, but the way he treated people visiting the scene.
Chelsey shot some beautiful photos of a Habitat for Humanity build. Her photos dominated the section and provided a nice slide presentation on Kansas.com. Matt shot the plane crash and did a great job showing the plane and the emergency workers at the scene. Matthew shot a bank robbery and had the lead photo on page 1 of the new arena. Not only did they shoot for the newspaper, but three of the four ended up as my subjects for a teen driving illustration that ran on page 1.
Although it’s been over 25 years since I was in their shoes, I still know the feeling of trying to absorb as much as possible while working as an intern. All four of them went above and beyond in the few short days they were here.

Jeff Tuttle

By Travis Heying | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off

Almost a weather shot, but not quite….

March 18, 20094:53 p.m.

SombreroWhile headed to an assignment at Rock and Central this afternoon I blasted past this young hombre hawking for a neighborhood resturant. After a quick U-turn I parked across the street & lined him up in my viewfinder, waiting for….. I dunno, something interesting to happen.

He spotted me immediately and began grinning & waving in a very friendly, non-candid manner. A gust of wind threatened to remove his sombrero, so I snapped a frame.

The old habit of keeping an eye out for an interesting feature — even though we rarely publish stand-alone feature pictures anymore — is a habit that dies hard.

This one didn’t make the cut and wasn’t turned in because it is a so-so shot. As a weather feature, let’s just say wind is difficult to photograph, even if it threatens to remove someone’s big hat. The main thing about this one is that my amigo is a little too aware of the camera for my taste. What do you think?

By Mike Hutmacher | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off

Police Scanner Fun

March 17, 20097:32 p.m.

Just like in the old Lou Grant show, we have two or three scanners crackling in the background of several departments of the newsroom. Several being the crime & safety team, the photo department and the news associate desk. Lifestyle, sports or biz has little interest in breaking news unless it’s preceded with a press release.

Our scanners are mostly background noise, except for the trained ear to distinguish  the difference  between a routine traffic accident or house fire and an event that is newsworthy to more than the family or neighborhood.

Eagle news associates keep their ears glued to the scanner for calls that we may miss in photo when we’re out shooting “Out-of-the-office” pics or other bread-and-butter images that help pay the bills.

Over the years, veteran news associate Deb Phillips has been keeping a journal of some of the more interesting scanner traffic and has been kind enough to let us share them here on the photo blog. We’re not sure what else she plans to do with her notes.

A Deb sampling:

* “Police have been called to check the report of a naked man with
purple hands and feet.” (This just today.)
*  “Dispatcher tells a cop going to a domestic disturbance: “Your
weapon will be a dirty diaper.”
* “Officers needed to push the Oscar Meyer Wiener van off the
road.
*  “Disturbance with a stapler.”
*  “Disturbance with plates.”
*  “Police are going to check a man using a dog leash as a weapon.
*   “Dispatcher says the suspect is eastbound, carrying a plate of
spaghetti.”

Deb maintains this fantastic list, appropriately called  “Weirdness from the police-fire-ambulance scanner and police beat,” so I’ll post some classics over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned.

By Mike Hutmacher | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (3)

Prom dresses gone wild

March 15, 20097:28 p.m.

Sometimes it seems we’re undergoing an identity crisis on the photo staff of the Wichita Eagle.

Shoot Video for the web? Shoot photos for the paper? 

Photographer Jaime Oppenheimer decided to melt both mediums into one piece of multimedia delight for this story on prom fashions. Using her camera’s motor drive to its fullest potential, Jaime takes you through 600 prom dress photos in just over a minute. 

Thank goodness we don’t still shoot with film.

By Travis Heying | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off

‘Tis the season for Photo Contest awards

March 13, 20094:40 a.m.

On an international note, more than 97,000 images have been winnowed to a field of just 64 winners in the 52nd Annual World Press Photo 2009 Contest. American photographer Anthony Suau won World Press Photo of 2008 for a black and white image of an armed Cuyahoga County Sheriff officer going through a home in Cleveland, Ohio, following an mortgage-foreclosure eviction.
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Click here a slide show of the winners at LensCulture.com.

By Mike Hutmacher | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off

It makes for a long day

March 12, 20098:51 p.m.

Well, my Big 12 Tournament stay was brief. Kansas and Kansas State both lost and I’m off to Topeka early in the morning to shoot the 5A Kansas State Basketball Tournament. This blog a way for the readers to kind of see what and how we cover these tournaments. As you can see, traveling usually plays into it and Friday will be no different, thank God for XM radio!
Today was really no different than the rest of the tournaments that I have covered over the last 25 years, but each one usually brings a new challenge, this one was a little tougher than most. Kansas and Kansas State played in the first and second games of the day, 30 minutes between each game. It sort of calls for double duty and a little more stress than normal.

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My day started with coffee, sorry, without my coffee you get no photos! I usually arrive at least two hours before the game starts, so this morning I arrived at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City at about 9 a.m. After clearing security with my camera cases, I checked the shooting space for my assigned shooting spot. This is where you see all of those people on the floor with big white lenses that are crammed in the space like sardines in a tin. At that point I set up my remote cameras. These cameras, usually one or two, are positioned on the floor with a wide angle lens and fired with a radio remote. I always have one on the floor with a real wide lens, like a 16 mm. I put it in places that my bosses would probably not like to see, but it has to be there for the best photo. In my KU and KSU gallery on Kansas.com, you can see the pictures I get from those remotes.
I use a 70-200mm lens on another camera for the action around the closest basket and I use a 300mm lens for the action at the other end. My ISO is usually high, around 1600 or higher so that I can shoot a shutter speed of at least 1/500th of second. My cameras are fast sports-type digital SLRs. I shoot quite a bit during a game, maybe 200-300 shots on each camera. I’ve shot more basketball games than I really want to know, but I’ve always just  tried to follow the ball with my focus and anticipate and capture the emotion on the floor and bench. In basketball, my theory is simple: Someone wins and someone loses, and it all happens inside painted lines on a wood floor.

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Shooting the game is only half of the battle for a newspaper photographer. I look at the images from each camera at the half and at the end of the game. I select the keepers, crop them, tone them, write a caption about each photograph, create a photo gallery for Kansas.com and send it all back to the newspaper before deadline.
It makes for a long day, but I like basketball and I love photography. Friday will be no different in Topeka. Saturday has not even been discussed yet, but I would bet that I’ll be shooting a basketball game somewhere, if not I will be at Eck Stadium for Wichita State baseball. Now that is my true love, shooting baseball rocks, but that is another blog down the road.

Jeff Tuttle

By Travis Heying | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Editing can be very subjective

March 12, 20098:31 p.m.


Most Eagle photographers edit their own images. That means that we decide which pictures to hand into our editor and then he and the page designers decide which ones will be on the page. Some of the things we look for are: composition, lighting, and of course, the moment.

On Wednesday I photographed Bishop Carroll in the Girls 5A state basketball quarterfinal game held in Topeka. During one scramble on the floor I shot a burst of 26 frames in 4 seconds with my trusty Canon Mark II camera. I edited the images while sitting court-side and sent my selections back to Wichita.

Above is a video of all 26 images and below are my top four. I chose the first one. Which one would you choose out of the series of four below? On a side note, the page designer and our editor chose an entirely different picture to put in print.

By joppenheimer | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off