All you shutterbugs get your tripods out for the big fireworks show tonight!
I photographed the new construction on the remodel of the Old Town Warren Theatre this afternoon, I must say that I am always impressed when I step foot into one of Mr. Warren’s movie houses. Even his remodeling jobs have that old theatre look to them.
I grew up in Augusta and the old Augusta Theatre was and still is my favorite places to see a movie. Near the top of my favorite places also was the old Crest Theatre on east Douglas. This photograph was taken on the last night it was open. 
I miss the old places like the Crest, but I am glad Mr. Warren has helped keep those memories living. I am not a movie freak, but I do enjoy going and the Warren still gives me that feel of the old movie houses…The popcorn prices are for another blog!
Tough day at the office! I spent the morning shooting for a story on Bike Across Kansas. These folks ride from Colorado to Missouri riding about 70 miles each day. I have a couple of friends that are riding BAK right now. Dennis Hardin, a co-worker of mine, is one of them. He rides his bicycle to work on most nice days and he does not live real close to the newspaper. Dennis has been my source of information about the BAK event. Today he got a bit wet as the weather was soggy.
Dennis Hardin
My other friend at BAK, Nikki Moddelmog, was spotted on the road too. She was riding with Marlys Gwaltney and despite the rain they were smiling as I photographed them as they passed by. I even got a peace sign from Nikki as she passed me!
Nikki and Marlys
I like assignments like BAK, it gets me out of the city and that is good in my world. I only got to spend a day at BAK, but I can see why these participants like to take a week and peddle across the state. I have never photographed BAK and I am glad I did, thanks Dennis for the information.
One of the jobs for most of the photographers here at the Eagle is processing the images for the newspaper and Kansas.com. This is a two week shift that we call “working the desk.” The shift is a night shift that is spent in front of a 24-inch monitor, color correcting, sizing and applying codes to the photographs for publication.
The photographs are our staff’s photos and news wire photos, such as the Associated Press. They are viewed by editors in the various departments in the newsroom on the sites of the news agencies and our own internal system of current and archived images. Once the photograph is chosen, a proof is printed with instructions, the date of publication, where the photo is being published in the newspaper, and the slug of the image is added to the image. These proofs are delivered to the photo desk, where we take over. We locate the photo in our computer system and go though the editing steps listed above and send it to a server so the page designers can access the image for building their pages.
It is not all hard work, our photo desk is next to the sports department and they have a new huge television to watch all of the games. OK, I can not see the television until after the sun goes down, as I only get to view it in the reflection of the windows behind the sports folks, but I can still sort of see it! The page designers are around the corner from the picture desk. We work with them the most during the shift and put their needs on the front burner so they can get their stuff finished. They are a happy group, building pages on deadline must be fun or they have all lost their sense of reasoning. They move fast and they are pretty darn good at what they do.
I almost forgot, deadlines. The desk shift starts at 2:30 p.m., and most of the busy work is from about 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Most of the work is finished by then except for the late sporting event photographs that we have to process. That happens from about 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. The magic hour is about 10 p.m. when most of the photographs need to be in the system. There are some exceptions if an event is running late, that deadline can be pushed back an hour or so, but not often.
The desk shift is not the most popular with our photographers, it sort of puts a stop to all of our worlds for two weeks every other month or so, but it is an important part of our jobs. Yes, we would rather be out making photographs, but it is not a bad gig if the weather is bad outside! It is a nice way to keep in touch to what and how this newspaper gets published each day and a chance to get to work in the newsroom instead of on the streets.
I was only 28 years-old when I shot Wichita State celebrating their national championship at the College World Series in Omaha. I was not yet an employee of the Wichita Eagle, but I was asked by the WSU athletic department to photograph the Shockers in their championship game against Texas.
It was the night before the game when I got called to see if I could shoot the game the next day in Omaha. I agreed, but since the game was at noon I knew I needed a driver so I could sleep on the way up. My wife was not interested in the trip at all, but my mother and father were up for it, so we left at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday. I slept a little bit, but I was too excited about the Shox playing Texas that day to sleep much.
I am a Shocker baseball fan, but for different reasons than most fans. I learned sports photography shooting WSU in the early days of the program. The late 70’s and early 80’s is when photography became my passion and sports photography was the direction I wanted to go with my career. I was not very good, but I remember trying everything I could to get a good shot from the games. My equipment was not good enough either, but I was there almost every game trying to capture good photos from the games.
As I get ready to head to Norman today for the WSU/OU game tonight, I can only reflect on how much fun covering WSU has been. Once I was hired by the Eagle in 1990, I made the WSU baseball beat mine. The trips to Omaha were great, but getting to know the coaches and players has even been better. I have my favorites, but I know that I would leave someone out if I named them, so I won’t.
With all of the memories I have, I just laugh when I think about my mother walking out of Rosenblatt Stadium that day after WSU won the College World Series. “Well, that was exciting and fun.” she said. “Do they get to play in this tournament each year?” That was the only college baseball game she has ever seen. She goes to all of my son and daughter’s games, but that day she picked a great day to see her only college game.
It is hard to believe that 20 years has passed since that day in Omaha. I was a kid then, I am not so much of a kid anymore but I still love this baseball beat. I am approaching the ripe old age of 50, but I hope I am still shooting this game and team when I am 70! I hope the Shox beat OU tonight, just because they have been told they probably won’t. They were told the same stuff in 1989. Wow, just saying 1989, is awesome. If you are a Shocker fan, those four numbers remind us of one thing each time we hear it. It is sort of weird, but to the Shocker faithful, there was really only one thing to remember from that year. Even mom knows what “1989″ stands for, the year the Shox won it all.
Most of my co-workers that I work with at the Eagle, and about 9o percent of my photographer friends do not enjoy shooting baseball. They think it is boring. I don’t. I learned sports photography in the early 80’s, shooting Wichita State baseball in the early days of the program. I was lucky enough to get a job at the Eagle several years later and have continued to cover the Shockers throughout my career. I love shooting all sports, but baseball is my favorite. I love the game and I love photography, that makes it pretty easy to love shooting the sport.
As I shot the Shockers celebrating their Missouri Valley Conference title on Saturday, it reminded me of how much fun this ride has been. They had a rough year, mine hasn’t been great either, but they were smiling and so was I. It was 20 years ago that I shot the photograph of the team celebrating their only national championship and I had the same feeling that day as I did on Saturday. The same feeling I have had each time I have shot the Shockers winning some tournament There have been quite a few games in those 20 years, some good, some bad, but I have really enjoyed the ride. I have missed too many games the past four years, but my daughter was playing ball and watching her career was more important. She had graduated and I am ready for some baseball.
It is NCAA regional time, I can’t wait! Call me crazy, I love it.