Last weekend was a beautiful time for fall colors in the area. I headed down to the Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine, Kansas to document the day (well, most of it). I set up my camera in a great spot and attached an intervalometer to my Canon 30D. It’s a device that can be programmed to take pictures in intervals that you select. I chose to shoot one frame per minute from sunrise to sunset. The camera had to be taken down around 4 p.m., so I shot most of the day. Enjoy. The music is courtesy of Garage Band.
People often ask me if I always carry a camera. The answer is yes, well, I almost always have one nearby. I was glad I was packing heat (in the form of a Canon 5D Mark II) while flying home from Florida recently when I saw this beautiful sunset. It’s nice to be prepared. I usually travel light while I’m not working and often carry a Canon G9. It’s a fantastic point-and-shoot camera that gives me a lot of manual control.
I just realized that I’ve been spending a lot of time with animals over the past two weeks. I think I enjoyed photographing the calf this morning the most.
I’m not a huge fan of shooting baseball (there’s too much time sitting around waiting on some action for me), but I do enjoy some things about being at the park. I like to work on my tan and there’s usually a Little League team that joins the Minor League guys on the field while the National Anthem is played. It’s pretty fun to watch the tiny guys on the giant field.
I try to stay out of the way when I’m shooting things, but I’m not always successful. Here’s a short clip of me getting whacked by a piece of plastic fender by Megan McCurdy as she was auctioning off items at Fenton Ford in El Dorado on June 30, 2009.
Below is the video I was shooting at the time of the incident. I have a pretty hard head and was not harmed in the making of this movie.
Well, he was more like a playful cat than an attack cat. Check out the last few seconds of this video and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I love the audio of the woman standing next to me who said (referring to the cat, of course), “I have a little attitude, a little cat-itude.”
When the summertime arrives I stay alert and look out for assignments that will allow me to use my underwater camera. Yesterday was the day and my only regret is that the water wasn’t just a tad warmer. Enjoy the ride down the slide.
A couple of readers contacted me this week wondering if I had digitally altered this photo of a young girl wrangling a chicken. The answer is no and it’s always no.
Her hands look much larger than they should and the reason is quite simple. I used a wide-angle lens which will often distort things in the foreground. Her arms (and the chicken) were both coming towards me while her body was in the background causing the distortion. I pulled the frame from a video I shot below.
The Eagle’s ethics policy states this: “Readers should feel confident that The Eagle’s news photos are accurate depictions of the scenes or events they portray. No manipulation of the scene before taking the photograph or digital alteration of centent after it is taken, no matter how trivial, will be permitted in news photos.”
We sometimes do what we call photo illustrations where digital manipulation is permitted only with the permission of an editor. These photographs are always labeled as “Photo Illustration.” You might see this type of photo in a feature story.
I photographed the actors in Music Theatre of Wichita’s production of “The Producers” for a story that will run this Sunday on the Arts & Leisure cover. I really love this picture of the character Ulla (at left) as she waits to be photographed with the other actors. You probably won’t see it in Sunday’s paper since it only includes one actor. You will, however, probably see the one below.
If I have time in between assignments I like to take different routes to get to and from places. This way I can see new things that sometimes lead to story ideas.
The fact that the entire city is under construction makes this goal much more attainable since I am now constantly searching for alternative routes. This turned out to be a good thing yesterday when I was driving down Douglas instead of the orange-and-white coney Kellogg. I stumbled onto an accident where a woman crashed into a glass storefront. Thankfully, she was unharmed and the police credit her for doing the right thing when her brakes failed.
I’m not a huge fan of shooting baseball (there’s too much time sitting around waiting on some action for me), but I do enjoy some things about being at the park. I like to work on my tan and there’s usually a Little League team that joins the Minor League guys on the field while the National Anthem is played. It’s pretty fun to watch the tiny guys on the giant field.
I photographed the actors in 