Tooele as you never see it.

2009-09-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

This blog has moved:

http://maeburr.wordpress.com/

please bookmark the new site :D

2009-04-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a good day to be knee deep in brine.

This was for a story on the environmental state of the Great Salt Lake. The dudes in the photos were way more prepared and way more patient than I was. Here's links to Scott Stringham's Flickr sight, the guy in the main photo. Now I'm just hoping I can get the smell out of my favorite pair of flip flops.

2009-04-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

High School softball and baseball sliders.

2009-04-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Prom

Yep it's that time of year again when you can't go to a decent restaurant in Salt Lake without seeing a pack of pouffy dresses and boys in tuxes. Anywho, we've gone gallery crazy here at the Transcript so zillions of prom photos are found here.

2009-04-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Silver Sage Emporium, Vernon UT

Add this place to your list of places to eat when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere. They are also on twitter.

2009-04-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm a winner... my mom says so. and now so does the UPA.

Won best photo page, I mention this because most of the photos that were taken for the page were taken right after I got hit by a cow at a kids rodeo... maybe I should get hit by cows more often. I also took third in sports photo, maybe if I had been hit by a wrestler I would have taken first.

cow revenge

2009-03-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

Food bank food drop

A freezing morning at deseret peak complex photographing giant lines of cars and volunteers scrambling to organize the mishmash of food that had shown up on the truck that morning. Cilantro, beets and some lemons among some dry goods, I joked with the bread sorter about the odd salsa that could be made.

story here

2009-03-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

runners running- with a race car tilt

2009-03-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Old Stuff...
State Swimming

2009-02-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

2009-02-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

#%@*!!!! auto focus

2009-01-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Shaker Lady

My new years resolutions are usually pretty half baked, they range from being more organized to attempting to drink more water the one that I am really trying to stick with this year is improving the photography in our feature section. Shooting everything for every issue of the paper has resulted lately in everything melting together, and the feature section just blurs in with the rest of the paper. In order to have it stand out a bit more I have been trying to focus on a stand alone portrait of the person and then add some detail shots, less newsy more enviro portrait stuff.

The Salt and Pepper Shaker lady worked out really well, she has collected shakers for years and years and now is the proud owner of over 3000 sets. The first shakers she bought are the ones she is holding, its a toaster with the salt and pepper shakers as the pieces of toast.

2008-12-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

Gville ballroomers

December is synonymous with rehearsal out here lately, I had a limited time to shoot these guys and found my self saying to myself think like Chris, think like Chris. thankfully it kind of sunk in.

2008-11-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

depressed, fat dog cosmo

2008-11-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

Things they don't teach you in J school: shooting while on horseback edition.

For a recent story about hunting dogs I ended up shooting a portion of the story on horseback, the dogs run long distances and are very fast so there was no way of going on foot. I've ridden before so I wasn't very worried about that part. But this was the first time I had more than a point and shoot camera on me while doing so.

1. shooting while on the move= blurry photos and a sore nose. with one hand on the reins and the other on the camera it was just enough stability at a slow trot to hit myself over and over again in the face with the camera.

2. larger shadow to keep out of the photo.

and not to mention you've always got a horse head in your view...

overall though the page turned out well. here's a few that did run.

springy dogs

my last suggestion for anyone else who ventures to try this with expensive dslr camras is that make sure they are the papers cameras and second tie your reigns together

2008-10-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

Month Une... a protest against color correction.

ok so all of these really did run in color. but I couldn't make myself re-color correct them for RGB. also disregard the spots, I know I need to clean my sensors.

Landfill cats get rescued.

The back story is one of our reporters gets a call from an office manager at the county landfill who says that the landfill is being overrun by cats that people are dumping off and that the landfill workers can't keep them at the landfill and they are running out of friends to adopt them. here's the story if you are interested. Sarah did a really nice job on this one and after the story ran it was picked up by a few other media outlets which resulted in a few different agencies stepping in to get the cats medical attention and get them adopted. I really wanted to adopt all of the cats when I was out shooting these stories so I'm really glad that someone has adopted them.

boy cheerleaders- powder puff football game.

empty food bank

THS's dismal football season lately.

Goat guard.

more on goats later.

My nemesis volleyball... its getting better slowly.

2008-10-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

pretty camera bags...

so I've always wanted a camera bag with a shoulder strap that isn't made for man shoulders, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind for a camera bag made for women. I am intrigued to find out if it can even fit a camera body and a 200 in it at the same time.

2008-09-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

I am finished with being the freelance work beast's bitch. And as in freelance beast I am not talking of just the Transcript in particular but the idea of making a living off of freelance in general. Most people who read this know I have done a lot of work for the Transcript, but that until this upcoming Monday hasn't been a full time position. I have been a contributing photographer, which is a fancy way of saying lone stringer, freelance, contract worker bee. Not any more. As of Monday I finally have the big girl job, I'm taking over Troy's duties, whether or not my title will be Photo Editor is yet to be seen, we'll have to wait until the business cards come out. So after a year and seven months of freelance hell I have finally made it to a full time job with insurance and someday paid vacation time.

Now to all aspiring photographers, high school students with cameras, former and current chronicle staffers with cameras and other people just amused by me who read this blog. I will tell you the secret to my rise from lowly chrony photog to mediocre editor and photographer at a bi-weekly paper.

First off, I'm only dispensing my story as a cautionary tale for those of you who are on the fence on whether or not this is the right field for you, this is only my version of a tale that can be told many different ways... if you sit down with any photog for long enough they too will have some version of their rise in the photo world; some are more gory and some a lot more glorious than mine. Second I can't emphasize enough how mediocre my photography is compared to some people that are my age and younger. But what got me a full time job rests partially on the decision my parents made to move to Tooele when I was in school and a single-mindedness to get a job as a photographer. so the best photographer doesn't always get the job.

Singlemindedness doesn't even really scratch the surface though, it was more like a year of paranoid, obsessive, antisocial behavior (for six months I was in school, so I count that as a more well adjusted less antisocial time, but in reality I was just spending a lot of time driving between the U and Tooele doing two things half assed). When I say paranoid and obsessive I mean both to the full extent, every photo taken I partially believed would be the last I would take at the paper, afraid that someone better or someone offering their services cheaper would come along and I'd be back working as a secretary in no time. I put countless other things onto the back burner while jumping at any photo assignment that came by including relationships, vacations, birthdays, and national holidays to name a few. I lived (and still do live until my first few checks come in) at my parents house rent free on my freelance intake I could not afford my student loans, car payment, credit card,cell phone and rent.

So what is my word of advice, student loans are the devil, the less debt you have for the first few years the better. Your top ramen years are far from over. Never saying no to an assignment was advice that was given to me while I was in college and it has paid off for me so far, so be prepared to be married to the paper you work for. Second know lighting, natural and strobe, there are people out there who know it all... and they will kick your ass if you don't. Know DAM,code replacements, and how to write a decent cutline. Never submit anything that 'might' be able to be fixed with the unsharp mask, and find out how to color correct- magenta is your enemy in Caucasian skin tones. Take other newspaper peoples dark newspaper-apocalypse views with a grain of salt but don't ignore them, keep a back up plan (ie 3-6 months of bill money in savings) when you are making pennies its hard but it might be your saving grace some day. And finally, learn what you can use as deductions on your taxes, if you don't know hire an accountant-it could be what saves you from getting screwed in January.

So here I start on the new adventure as a photo editor, I'm scared as hell, but the only thing I can do is take it one day at a time and keep my six months of back up plan money in savings. I am still paranoid and obsessive, but my new worries circulate around how to light a high school gymnasium delta center style with some vivitars and a few pocket wizards by the time basketball season rolls around and have it easy enough to take down every game and transported to four different schools.
(I'm open to suggestions on this one) but I am glad for now to know that there won't be a shortage of photo assignments coming my way.

2008-08-27T00:48:00.000-07:00

Horse Show 08

this was also an event in the fair, the paper ended up running the photo with two riders, I kind of like and dislike the other one equally. It kind of looks like the loch nes monster wearing a cowboy hat in a way.

2008-08-27T00:09:00.001-07:00

Fairs, Fires, NASCAR and one damn cow.

If there isn't enough going on usually during the Tooele County Fair this year there was also a NASCAR race, a tennis tournament sponsored by the Transcript, and a fire. I can't say that I haven't wished for things to go up in smoke on some of the more boring weekends but this just became a giant stress while I was covering everything else. Plus it was burning down the area I usually hike in which was a bigger let down. At least I got a good redish sunset out of it though.

The fair, was a fair, thankfully they limited the lame bands and had a rodeo which is where I met my new enemy, a cow that lives in Erda. Why do you ask am I picking on livestock? because it picked on me first, I was minding my own business shooting the kids portion and next thing I know I'm getting knocked over by the money cow... yes the money cow got me. I'm fine, cameras are fine, pride not so fine. its embarrassing to have most of the town of Erda and half of Lake Point ask you if you are ok. so take this as a warning fellow photogs, even the money cow can get you.

2008-08-27T00:03:00.001-07:00

home on the range

it seems like someone would have uncomplicated this whole extra large photo deal by now.

2008-07-28T22:47:00.000-07:00

What some people will do for an Iphone.

I'm no longer an 801 girl. I've held on to that number since my first semester in college and now one fowl swoop I'm a 435 lady. So yeah I have a new number, if you haven't received my new number email me and I'll send it to you.

website is coming along...

more rodeo via our new photo page on the Transcript website.
its under columns if you go directly to the transcript site. I don't know why.

photo page here

2008-07-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

So everything is kind of on a rinse and repeat cycle right now; you know the shoot, edit, repeat until crazy. But here's something from last weekends Rush Valley Rodeo. I produced a slide show for it that I'll link to if the Transcript ever gets their new website functioning properly.

2008-06-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

World Superbike, LeMans and AMA

ah what can I say about these two races...
1. lots of press.
2. lots of male press.
3. makes for very smelly press room.

the end.

2008-06-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

State Javelin.

Ok by now most of you all know what happened at the high school state javelin competition... if not an intern from the standard examiner placed himself in the position to become a human shishkabob and did. thankfully he's ok, and was back to work within hours. While talking to some people in the news room the next week about it someone mentioned a photo taken of a cameraman about to be maimed by a mob who was still shooting... and said wouldn't you sacrifice yourself to get the shot. honestly I would never sacrifice myself for high school sports. going into the middle of a javelin field not a good plan, I have enough piercings and I don't want any new ones. and good luck to those covering the state track meet next year, the days of roaming free are over I fear.

2008-06-05T14:24:00.000-07:00

graduation 1 of 4 for the year.

2008-06-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

rainy memorial day

2008-06-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was sent out to Iosepa for a story but I was also sent to work on a photo page with the words hula and colorful as my direction from an editor. so yeah...

the other story I was working on was the excavation of the town of Iosepa that will hopefully happen this summer. The back story is that the pacific islander people who joined the LDS church were 'called' to start a town in Skull Valley. Now the name is deceptive because in actuality there's springs out there so its not that desolate. But it was still a far cry from the places that the settlers came from. The town was set up to be huge with streets, running water, and large town square. The town even was named the most beautiful in the state at one time. The town didn't grow though it eventually went into ruin and was bulldozed by a cattle company that bought the land leaving the homes gone and nothing but scant remnants left on the surface. One such thing is a fire hydrant that the archaeologist is standing by.

2008-06-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

High School Sports...

2008-06-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I was sent to get photos of the Tooele volunteer fire department working on a ventilation exercise in Tooele. the premise is they set a shack on fire with rooms inside roughly the size of a regular living room, a bedroom and a kitchen and then they put the fires out. This is why firefighters knock windows out at real fires.
They were running two drills that day and while I was photographing the first the fire chief and sheriff asked if I'd like to go inside for the second drill. While photographing from inside would have melted my poor 30D to bits I did end up going in for the second drill. Wearing the sheriff's fire gear and being led by a nice firefighter I went into the fire. It made me really wish I had lasics done, I couldn't wear my glasses and the mask so I had to walk around half blind in the fire... hence my guide firefighter but I've got to say it was pretty cool to be on the inside of a burning building but I think I'll stick to the outside from now on.

2008-06-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

Random Stuff

yes I'm still alive. I've been working a lot lately and the last thing I've wanted to do was spend extra time in front of a stupid computer working on this blog. But this week things have come to a screeching halt for me so here are the last three months all jumbled up in photo form. enjoy. Also I've been messing with using a watermark, frankly I think they're obtrusive but I don't want my stuff to get jacked. If anyone has comments or better suggestions please share with the group.

high school rodeo- I loath the lighting in the deseret peak complex but for once I got something decent because they left a door open.

mathlete

2008-05-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

something amazing...

Ok maybe not amazing to many of you who do slide shows on an hourly basis but this is the first for me, and I think the first for the Transcript. There are some things I'd like to change and no there's no sound, baby steps though people baby steps.

Tooele Prom

Grantsville Prom

Little League Baseball Opening Day

2008-04-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

DAY 1.

I'm trying to cut back on coffee... today is Day 1. and its 3pm and I haven't had a cup of coffee. I also haven't gotten dressed or done anything but watch 4 Law and Orders in a row today, maybe cold turkey was a bad plan.

2008-04-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

Winner!

Back in the day when friends from high school and I were graduating I was dubbed the one who would get married first, HA. As of two weeks ago as I played along in all of the bridesmaid hoopla I also became the last one standing from the group of high school friends. Someone should throw me a party.

2008-03-31T14:40:00.000-07:00

what i've been up to lately...

I got lost in the West Desert and took pictures of a falconer... no not the guy from SNL.

I panned with some cars... the beginning of a long summer at the race track turned out badly, I ripped my pants jumping a fence that should have been open. But I still got a useable photo before it began to monsoon.

I was introduced to donky basketball. I am guessing the first renendition of this game was not played sober.

took some photos of some cold coaches.

took some photos of a not so cold track team.

also took some photos of a good guy on good friday fixing a giant cross that blew down in January. oh and it was cold.

and finally took some photos of some tennis players, they may of been cold but they didn't mention it.

2008-03-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

Where has the time gone, I swear I was planning on updating this at the end of January and then the next thing you know its March.

New posts will resume when I get my head screwed back on.

But in the meantime a list of things that are keeping me from studying for my religion class:

figuring out what kind of woman is compelled to write things like 'I love him but he'll never know' on bathroom stall walls. I don't spend much time in mens bathrooms but is pouring your heart out on a germ infested wall universal or is this just a university girl thing to do.
can someone please explain to me the premise of the telemundo show that has dancing cowboy clowns and strippers, I've spent too much time trying to figure this out.
sun valley
parties that require fake tanning, manicures and dresses.
an utter abhorrence for school. I should have saved my money and bought a season pass to alta this semester instead of half heartedly pretending I want to get up early and go listen to a lecture on religions of the world. the idea of me getting a second degree or starting a masters program is fading faster than my fake tan.

2008-01-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

Best of the West tournament.

I went a bit overboard for this assignment I'm pretty sure I've got a picture of every wrestler from Tooele and Grantsville plus coach staff and cheerleader that was at the tournament.

2007-12-30T01:21:00.000-08:00

This Month I: froze my ass off at a parade.
who knew there were parades in December? not I.

2007-12-26T22:54:00.000-08:00

still trying to catch up from some serious slacking off.
This Month I: Went to more high school basket ball games than I ever did in the 4 years I was in high school.

2007-12-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

This Month I: Was hypnotized to stop smoking
It was very effective, except for the fact I didn't smoke before.

This husband and wife hypnotist team come to a motel in Tooele and hold quit smoking and some stop overeating sessions. Clifford Webb, the hypnotist sounds like he's got a lot of press with the stuff he's done with BYU in the past his wife runs the business end of the deal.

The class was allowed to take a last smoke break before they were hypnotized to become non-smokers.

2007-12-25T17:37:00.000-08:00

Christmas Newsletter, Not a moment too late.

I fully intended on sending out cards this year, I bought them but there they sit on my desk. This though is a step up from last year where I wrote Christmas cards got them all ready to go and forgot to send them out. My apologies if you were expecting a card, if you really want I can still send you one.

This was definitely a year of change for me, I went from working at a miserable job as a glorified secretary to something actually in my field... for details on this matter watch The Devil Wears Prada or the Nannie Diaries or some movie like that and think along that line but in Utah... and not as pretty of people. While many still ask me how I can deal with working in Tooele it has grown on me quite a bit.

As for my more recent lofty higher education goals of being the smartest stringer photographer the Transcript has ever seen I'm still going to school but I can't say how much longer I will be. I can foresee in the next year I will need to make a decision about whether or not I want to go for a masters, I can't goof off forever.

Christmas itself was good, unfortunately I don't have photo proof. Today I also mourn the death of my point and shoot digital camera that I got for graduation last year. The damn screen broke and I am fearing that it cant be reparied. As for the day, there was more than enough smoked and then boiled fish and scones to go around and I now have enough sweaters to feign off frost bite in the Antarctic. I also got a waffle maker. a great haul.

I'm hoping that everyone else had a great holiday season and will have an even better upcoming year.

2007-12-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

Glamorous Assistant Work:

I was a light stand AND a stand in for Troy on Wednesday, it still beats answering phones though.

2007-12-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

Something to think about

Snow theory: Road kill raccoons.

I had a professor tell me about the theory of road kill raccoons. According to him the more raccoon roadkill you see the more snow there will be. The premise is that raccoons somehow know that the winter is going to be harsh and head for the valley. hence raccoon roadkill. This theory was brought to my attention a couple years ago, that year I saw 5 dead raccoons. It was also the year that I was snowed out of work for three days straight. This year I've seen three. Now the question is whether or not the snow gods will deliver. Either way I know I shouldn't be thinking about the correlation of roadkill and snow studying for finals might be a good alternative use of time.

2007-11-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

Black Friday

Since I was a sophomore in high school, the same group of friends and I have gone shopping on Black Friday. Now that many moons have passed and the majority of the group is married and have kids the places we shop have changed but the fact of the matter is we still shop. But last year hit the high of absurdity when we decided to hit the Fashion Place mall at midnight. Nothing like waiting in line at a store for two hours at 1AM to make you reassess a tradition. By the time that Wal-mart had opened that morning at 5am my friend Annie decided to stay in the car and it was just Jen and I attempting to get some bargain deals on some toys for her kid. When the doors opened to that West Jordan Wal-mart and the stampede began I told my self never again would I do this. Just getting into the door I lost a shoe when a man behind me gave me a flat tire with his cart. The man did not look back as I began to back track to get my lost shoe. The farther back we got into the store towards electronics the more abandoned carts we found, it was impossible to go anywhere without running into a person or their cart. We finally ditched the notion that we would be able to get to electronics so we ditched our cart and headed for to check out. Jenn's kid definitely reaped the benefits of the trip. I left the store with a snickers and a red bull. This year we decided to go on Saturday, definitely not as hectic. I also told myself that I wasn't going to buy anything but lunch just out of principle. I tell myself this every year but there is always something. Last year it was a down comforter I couldn't pass up. This year I really bombed and the thing I couldn't pass up turned out to be a sheet set, gloves, a new jump drive, a new memory card for my camera and a laptop. This was over a three day period but still I call myself a failure at consumer restraint.

Since my friends decided to go on Saturday, hoping to reap the benefits of the Utah BYU game my Friday was left open, until my editor emailed me about covering Black Friday in Tooele. Tooele lacks a lot of large chain stores, I was left with three options Walmart, Home Depot or Liddiards Furniture. I knew where there was a guaranteed crowd at Walmart from my last years experiance of chaos so I decided to bank on that one, and since it was the first to start its sales if I was kicked out of Wal-mart there would always be the other two as a fall back. After talking to the Ast. Store Manager of Walmart I was informed that they would still be open 24 hours a day leading up to the sale but the sale items would be guarded by associates in the isles until 5am. 4:30 am rolls around and I headed back towards the electronics, most of the isles were impassible with tired looking people waiting for 5am. I made my way to the photo counter where there was a bench and waited. This is when I began to panic, the crowd was really big and my battery began to flash empty and then died. I abandoned my bench and began to make my way to the crowd, hoping I could make it to my car find a battery and get back before 5. half way through the store I switched the two batteries in the drive and the meter showed half a battery left. I made it back to the bench with a lot of time to spare. At 5am the associates said go. pieces of saran wrap began to fly and digital cameras and digital frames could be seen held above peoples heads as they made their way to the next sale item. I was expecting a lot of shoving and chaos but I was surprised at the politeness of this crowd, maybe it was the presence of a camera but everyone was being nice hand helpful to one another. shocking I know. So next year when I am inevitably called to wake up at 4am to cover this crazy consumer day I won't be as scared because the people of the Tooele Wal-mart are very pleasant when they are half asleep.

2007-11-17T22:56:00.000-08:00

Lets talk about work days. After talking with a few Trib people the consensus is they receive 3 assignments a day max, as for small paper land I can tell you that differs a bit. As the second photographer Saturdays usually fall under my hands. How many assignments do you say? Last Saturday, the day before Veterans day, I had 5 assignments, and worked about 13 hours on Saturday and 7 on Sunday editing. ( I know but my computer is slow) So putting in enough time to make a decent picture sometimes doesn't always fall into that 8 hour work day and just covering what you can cover in 8 hours is sometimes impossible but oh well what can you do. But after a 13 hour Saturday last weekend this weekend I have only one assignment on Sunday, so it definitely comes and goes.
Here is my day of photos.

Last but first, I had to shoot cage fighting in a giant metal barn, it was interesting to say the least.

Elks Veterans Day breakfast and ceremony. the usual.

Cycling club with only the leader showing up, priceless.

Moose's club poker tournament- or also known as the day the sunglasses reflection almost worked.

and finally, one of my middle assignments, the Methodist Church Turkey Dinner Fundraiser, I planned well and was able to leave this assignment with food in hand and also had a whole hour before I had to go to cage fighting. Finally some good planning on my side.

2007-11-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Scheduling sucks. expecially school scheduling. I really blew it this semester by taking a 7:30am class, my brain doesn't wake up until 9 so my grade in that one should be awesome. Anyway, I'm attempting to plan out the next three months of my life and I'm leaning towards Craig Denton's Documentary Photography class. I liked the other 2 doc classes I've taken, just wondering if anyone out there has taken this class?

2007-11-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

Slacking again, I know. I'm suffering from a sugar over dose via candy corn, here is a lethal dose of sucrose for you too.
Note to all who think they can go about their career never taking pictures of screaming three and a half foot tall kids you are kidding yourselves. at least that is what I've decided lately. So Halloween fiesta here we go!

2007-10-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

Ok so this is a couple of weeks old, I sat on it for a little while thinking I'd have time over fall break to really analize the whole deal but I ended up working for most of my break. cest la vis. I guess my time in the sticks has made me forget what a different world the Chronicle is, it only takes a hotly contested story like the QSU LGBTQ poster censorship story written by Carlos href="Pride posters kept in the closet - News">

I took the photos for the story, so first lets talk logistics. This was one of those storys you get the last minute invite to and the only option on the table at the time is to shoot a photo of the meeting and get reactions. I show up and its on the ground floor of the union in a room that I can only describe to you as a cave. Rock walls and dim lighting, whoever decided this was a fabulous look in the 70s should be killed, I was shooting in the room at a 2.8 and still getting a lot of motion blur at 3200. I wanted to minimize my flash use so I wasn't more of a disruption to the meeting than I already was. But all in all the meeting photos were looking like crap. A student then addresses the room to say he was doing his film class project as kind of a response to the administrations decision to not allow the posters. This was dumb luck. A shining beacon of not having to run a slightly motion blurred photo of someone in a cave of a room talking about the posters that they didn't even have a good size copy of as an example. I left the guy shooting the film totally in controll and just went with what he was shooting, I mainly shot wide to keep everything in context. As Jim would say, if I just shot two girls kissing that would be finger pointing. In hinesight I wish I would have used an off camera flash to get some more light on the guy behind the camera, but I was really concerned about messing up the lighting on his assignment which was on film.

Ok. second part. The day after this ran I was in my 730 am class and the professor brings up the story as a discussion topic. I knew at that point it was going to be one of those stories that gets a million comments on line, half of which you wouldn't say to anyone without the anonymity of the web on your side. My professor asked me during class if I thought that the administrations decision to not run the posters was censorship. At this point I was thinking damn there goes my anonymity in this class. But to partially answer the question, when I hear censorship on the basis of obscenity I think about the decision made in Miller v California to paraphrase says that its up to what the community deems as obscene. If Utah was used as the 'community' in this sence I think the administration could get away with that, but to say a bunch of college students deem partially dressed individuals as obscene I don't know if a connection could be made.

2007-10-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

Holy Shit.

A couple hours ago I found myself pacing around the downtown Smiths, a little too spastic to do anything but send random text messages to people about what had happened. So here’s what happened.

I signed up to shoot the Arianna Huffington speech at Rowland Hall, I was a little bummed because A. it was a Saturday night and the last place I usually want to be is working and B. Carl Bernstein was signing books at the same time Huffington was speaking, and I kind of wanted to go to that too. Omnipresence has not yet arrived.

So I get to the lecture and low and behold my best friend’s aunt is there and she wants to introduce me to her friends the McCarthey’s. Shocked I go about the task at hand, get a picture of Arianna. After the speech my friends aunt finds me and invites me to the reception afterwards. Long story short, I ended up at the reception conversing with Carl Bernstein and Arianna Huffington about Woodward, journalism and Hillary Clinton. I was a little star struck so they did most of the talking I kind of sat back and became an underdressed bobble head but what can you do. So yeah, never again will I complain about speaker shots, you never know where you’ll end up.

2007-10-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Omnipotence and Omnipresence

The art of knowing all and being everywhere have not yet come to me, I’m thinking of asking for both for Christmas.

Lately my state of being has been frazzled; I had a couple of days off for fall break but then went straight into 13 hour days at the Transcript for the rest of my break from school.

2007-10-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

Soccer Sucker.

To say the least, I was not mentally prepared for the rainiest soccer game I've ever been at. Before the game I had gone with friends to get a pedicure, after an hour of sitting in a massage chair standing in freezing rain is the last thing on my mind. Fortunately I'd come with some bags, no matter how water sealed cannon says their lenses are I don't want to be the one to be responsible for the demise of my 70-200. Plus I needed a 400, back to the evil Nikon of the Chrony. Unfortunately all of the batteries to the first generation digital piece of crap were drained so I had to go to the second option- the Nikon D70, now I admit my Cannon lacks a super fast shutter but this piece of crap was SERIOUSLY slow. Between the slowest shutter in the world, the crappiest weather in the world paired along with the photographer in the worst mood ever I was pretty sure this was going to suck. And well, it did. but I prevailed, I ended up still playing the numbers game and between my glasses fogging up and the severe rain I relied on the auto focus a lot. But overall I'm ok with the results. Doing this over again I definitely would have wore my contacts. Some other photog whose name I didn't get, nicely told me I should stick to one camera which was a big help in general, not having to juggle the two while worrying about the other camera getting too wet. So only moral to this story, Nikon is evil.

2007-09-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Wayne Gretzky could have been a sports photographer. Two of his famous mantras that were beat into my head by coaches for years have become the only thing going through my head while shooting volleyball and soccer lately.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Volleyball has been stalking me, both papers have been repedially assigning me to the games. And so far great photos haven't been produced, you've got a noisy background, a distracting net, and zero contact between the two teams except for maybe a little bit of action right at the net. which brings back the distracting net. So right now Volleyball is a numbers game, the more I shoot, or even have the camera to my face the better the chance I'm going to get it. whatever it is.
A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
if only I was psychic and could sense where the place was going to be, I've started to understand the plays in volleyball. but I've yet to catch a goal in soccer. one of these days.

2007-09-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Andretti= One Bad Ass Old Guy.

The side show at the Sunchaser this year was, like last year, Patrick Dempsey. But to add to the circus Texaco brought in Mario Andretti, so now the hard core racing reporters had something to drool over too. Both Andretti and Dempsey were very nice, both also seemed to get interrupted by someone every 3 seconds.
On Friday both held press conferences; why? Just because they were there. I kid you not the Media almost outnumbered the fans that day. Originally one of the writers at the Transcript was planning on writing about Dempsey fans that skipped work or something to go stalk him, unfortunately the only people we saw stalking him were either other media outlets or staff from the track. I guess that we too could be added in to the fold of 'other media outlets' because we didn't find fans, but we found Dempsey.

Over the weekend that’s kind of how things kept happening, wherever I went- Dempsey or Andretti was there. Go to the press box, Andretti's having coffee talking to a pack of reporters. Sit in a meeting, Dempsey is sitting on the table directly in front of me.

Paparazzi I am not- believe me, or I'll show you my pay stub.ButI got photos of both, I mean it is still news when Andretti transcends upon Tooele. But it’s not even the smallest bit of important when it comes down to the weekend of racing. Dempsey ended up taking 10th place in two races, the Mazda MX-5 and Sunchaser. To put it in perspective- over the MX-5 series Dempsey has made a total of $925 in purse money. Now I'm not complaining about coverage, he's hot and he's a big actor and those two things don't usually go with Tooele so it does have a news worthy angle. And I'm not complaining about him being there, seriously I'd rather stare at him in a meeting than some random guy from a pit crew. After it was all said and done, I was a lot happier with the photos from Andretti. Dempsey, still hot. but my photos are not. I was looking on photoshelter and Chris Detrick of the Trib did what I would have liked to do, more of a day in the life sort of thing. not a cheesy press conference photo or a pre-race photo where I'm fighting with a distracting background.

2007-09-21T22:44:00.000-07:00

Race Track Post part 2.

Ah race weekends, I love the like I love volleyball… or better yet like I love shooting little kid softball. :P No, I kid. For the last weekend of racing I actually kind of got into it, and let myself get swept up in all of the giant trucks, crazy pit crews, onslaught of media (not from utah), and race car drivers. Now when I say I got into it, I mean I left with the same thought that I did while shooting bobsled in the 02 Olympics, I couldn’t tell you who won or lost or who even competed but I did have a good time and I wanted to try it. Like bobsledding, I think races aren’t that fantastic of a spectator sport- I’d much rather be in it. And I didn’t come to this conclusion until I saw the results of the Mazda MX-5 race; their average speed was slower than my last speeding ticket. So if photography doesn’t pan out, watch out Le Mans course drivers, I’ll be coming for you… ether that or doing bobsled runs.

So the Sunchaser… good weekend of variety. A little formula 1, some Daytona Prototypes and some GT cars. Woo hoo.

2007-09-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

Shot RSL last night, but I had to use one of the hand me down cameras at the Chrony, it was a Nikon. I kept saying this too.

2007-09-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Race Track Post.

Many may not know this but my second home is Miller Motorsports Park. By choice, maybe not, but I can think of worse places to be sequestered for assignments. Whether Tooele knows it or wants to admit it, it's a racing town. This is all because of the massive structure in the middle of no where. Combined Deseret Peak and Miller house LeMans, motocross, supemoto, formula 1, vintage races, and kart. Massive it is. More massive it will become. Next year super moto will hold their world championship there. The pr guy says there will be no larger race held at the facility. Ok so its a big deal that doesn't get much press. Even for the Transcript, home of the course, a picture of a car or motorcycle is still just that to most readers. Now after spending a summer there last weekend housed the best race I've seen all summer, sidecar racing. The passengers on these bikes are real athletes. Or crazy, or both.

So if you ever find yourself out at Miller:
1. regardless of the temperature it will be at least 10 degrees hotter on the track. July is hell.
2.regardless of the temperature Miller requires you to wear long pants and shoes. Now I've seen some magazine photographers deviate from this, but most of the time the security people will hunt you down.
3. don't get stuck in the middle of the track for long races, ie the upcoming sunchaser, 8 hours in the middle IS hell. - now I haven't done this myself, I stay to the outside most of the time but my editor was adamant about emphasizing this point. makes me wonder if he's been stuck out there.
4. Clubhouse turn- close enough to get some turn shots and shoot the finish line etc.

2007-08-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

oh how lazy am I...
here's some stuff from the last couple weeks that I haven't had the time to put up.

slip n slide! earlier in the summer I was complaining to myself about the lack of slip n slides in this town, it seemed like as a kid we always had at least one slip n slide going on our street a day. this was the first one I saw this summer, and it was put on by the boys and girls club of Tooele and the North Tooele Fire Department. bonus, it was right across the street from my house.

Nancy Rountree is putting her daughter's frog back into the lake after the Stansbury Days Frog Jumping contest. She says her daughter can only say one word, Beep, so guess what the frogs name was. Frog jumping in concept seemed like a really awesome idea for a photo shoot. The big problem was that the frogs blended seamlessly into the grass. Next year may I suggest putting down one of those blue tarps or something?

X Country... its a long wait between matches for shots. next time I'm bringing something to read.

Stansbury Days Triathlon, one triangle around the lake and then you are off on a long ass bike ride and run. I'd have to say the swimming looked like the easy part.

small child football. this is for an upcoming feature story, looking back this post probably makes it look like we do a lot of kid stories. but the other photos just aren't that interesting, I mean who really wants to see my off color balance court photos.

2007-08-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

So I realized Sunday while I was editing that I have been at the Transcript a whole 6 months. I celebrated by actually buying a pair of flip flops designed to walk in. Today, I have blisters, damn the man. Now back on track. Here is the list of stuff I have learned so far that I can remember right now, I’m sure there is so much more that I’ll remember later but yeah here it goes.

1. Maps are good, but there is a certain kind of happiness that happens when you know how to outrun a convoy of ATVs via back roads in Grantsville. I’ll still keep my map library on hand at all times though just as a backup.

2.Always, always, always keep at least a nalgine full of water in your car. Even if its 1,000 degrees from sitting in your car it is way better than going thirsty out at the race track.

3.free food at the track is good.

4. F8 at 400 is a beautiful place to be.

5. night photography is not something to fear, except when being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

6. Things happen when they happen, not when they are scheduled to happen. IE: ATV convoy… you hear from one person they will leave at 8 and another person at 9. Murphy’s law will work against you and they will leave at 8:30.

7. One persons craft fair is another persons flea market, farmers market, or yard sale. Anywho, things are good. Now that I’m doing double duty between the Transcript and the Chronicle I can definitely say I’m not bored. Last 2 photos are from the Chronic, why oh why was the governor at Crimson nights? No one knows. But he was there.

2007-08-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

Salty Saturday.

Speed week was awesome. Next year I'm planning ahead a little more, maybe camping out and hanging around to get some sunset pics, or just for convenience of not having to spend so much time driving in one day, or making it a long weekend and heading to Wendover.

I never knew how many people were out in the desert for this but the thing is huge!! I mean HUGE! If the Discovery channel would have let me on their helicopter I would have proof but cest la vis.

Oh and I'm going to find a way to strap 5 gallons of water on me somehow. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw the ice cream truck. My only complaint is that its Wednesday and I can still taste salt.

2007-08-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

Birthday Weekend, part deaux.
last weekend was my birthday. It was also the County Fair and a demolition derby. who else can say that they've had mud thrown at them on their birthday?

the sacrificial derby pig. poor little piggy.

2007-08-12T18:40:00.000-07:00

Birthday weekend. part une.

2007-07-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

photo jumble.

I usually edit from home, this week not so much. So here is the jumble of stuff I took last week that has been held hostage at the office. Lots of cows, fires, and random photos w/ a lot of color.

Kimbel fire on Friday night, the Taylor family watch the fire creep towards their home. They were told around 530 that they may have to evacuate if the fire hit the flat land, but they were planning to stick it out and fight. Hoses and buckets were strewn across the yard and they sat back and had a small party.

Smoke makes pretty sunsets. Taylor street was put on alert Friday evening when the winds changed direction and moved towards Grantsville and the Wal-Mart Distribution Center.

Money Cow! Rush Valley Rodeo.
Rush Valley Rodeo.
Rush Valley Rodeo.
Rush Valley Rodeo.
Livestock being moved out of West Canyon Friday create a traffic jam on highway 138, which was closed because of the Kimbel Fire.
Rush Valley Kid Rodeo
Rush Valley Kid Rodeo
Highway 138 closed for some reason.
this kid kept staring at me.
and then clowns showed up at the road block where the kid was staring at me.... no this was a parade last Saturday.
It was hot so I was sent to take pictures of kids at a pool. torture.

Rush Valley Kids Rodeo.

2007-07-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

Some perversion of hockey.
I came out of retirement. my team is 1 and 1. This post is almost as good as cats.

2007-07-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

Pet of the week = escape artists.

I forgot how fast kittens can run. Compared to my cat, who gets stuck on the couch, these two made my job just a little harder.

I swear I’ll come up with something better than cats next week.

2007-07-06T23:15:00.000-07:00

17 hour day, and two photos to show for it.

And this isn't one of them. Hope everyone had a good 4th, I know I had a long one.

2007-07-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Stir Crazy, or Maybe Just Crazy

After getting back from Lake Powell a couple of Thursdays ago, shooting 13 hours a day Friday and Saturday. Trying to edit, shoot and do everything else on Sunday and still realizing I’d be up until 4 am I finally decided to quit being a plant sherpa on weekdays. It just wasn’t feasible to stay up until 4am editing just to go to work the next morning at 7:30.

For the longest time I’ve always had school, photography and usually another job. I just don’t know what to do with myself when I have free time. So now I’m down to just the Transcript and my weekly hockey league and I am going crazy. But I’m trying to keep myself productive, hopefully I’ll start updating this more than just once a month, and I bought all of the Harry Potter books on an impulse. I wouldn’t call Harry Potter a productive way to spend my time but it sure beats watching Blind Date reruns all day.

But my new found free time has also got me thinking of more travel, I’ve hit Arizona, Nevada and my family’s cabin in South Eastern Utah in the last two weeks.

I’m now thinking about going to the Women in Photojournalism Conference in August. It’s in Texas. If anyone knows anyone who is going and wants to road trip it send them my way. Even if they’re flying and want to split a room I’m game. I promise I don’t snore.

2007-07-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

So this is how not to cover a fire.

One of the main things that Jim Fisher ever drilled into my head was that if you see smoke or sirens run not walk towards them. Friday I was covering an 8-year-old softball tournament as a side gig between trying to zone out the little girl softball battle cries they were changing over and over and over again I noticed smoke on the horizon. Everything from Deseret Peak to Tooele is dry, tall, grassland so it could have been any number of places but I happily left the softball game to see what I could see.

I’m speeding around the west side of Tooele trying to follow smoke while talking to editors about what I was doing, luckily one had just passed the fire and knew where it was at.

This is when I realized I was very unprepared for anything but 8-year-old softball.

I decided to just go for it even though I was in flip flops and shorts, I accepted that

1. I probably would be sequestered to the road, 500 feet from flames and

2. my pictures probably wouldn’t run anyways.

When I arrived the police let me through, I had a 400 lens on me so I didn’t have to do a lot of convincing that yes I was a photographer for the paper and no I know I’m not Troy. The fire was bigger than I thought it would be but it was also pretty much under control. I saw some fire trucks down near the fence line to the army depot but no one on the road, I began to walk along the un-burnt area where the trucks had entered just to see if I could get another 100 feet closer to give the 400 I had a fighting chance to get something decent. I wasn’t 10 paces from the road when a firefighter appeared out of a truck on the road and started yelling at me though. Drat.

After explaining that I hadn’t seen him up there he explained how me running around there unsupervised was not such a good idea and sent me to the guy in charge. Guy in charge began to tell me about fire classes that I could take and then agreed to take me down closer in a truck.

The fire was pretty much under control except for on the Army Depot side. The Army Depot firefighters deal with that so he took me down near the barbed wire fence line.

I was very lucky that they didn’t throw me out, and I’m probably going to take that fire class so I know what I’m getting myself into next time. I’m also getting a bag together with some essentials so I don’t end up somewhere in shorts and flip flops again where I should be better prepared.

So moral of the story, follow Jims words but also follow Troy’s words too- always carry a pair of pants and real shoes around, you never know where you’ll end up.

Finally any other suggestions of stuff I should throw in my bag?
I’ve already got: shoes, pants, extra pens, and a reporters notebook. (For some reason my pens keep dying and I always forget my notebooks.)

2007-06-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

What not to wear, photographer version.

While waiting for some photos to ingest on Monday I was watching Rachel Ray and waiting impatiently for my coffee to finish perking. They had a pretty standard segment on makeovers, half listening I notice its an TV anchor makeover. This woman had been getting hate mail about her hair. Seeing the poor woman who was about to be made over, her hair looked like mine, but on a really good day when it was long and I’d straighten it and it wouldn’t go frizzy. This didn’t phase me but what the anchor’s producer said stuck with me and has been bugging me for days now, she said that it was great that their viewers voted her the anchor with the worst hair because it meant they related and felt comfortable with her enough to tell her about her sucky hair. Producers are full of crap.

There is so much criticism out there about what women wear or how their hair is done. Katie Couric takes the anchor chair on national news and people talk about what she wears. Frankly I’m fed up with it.

When I worked for the Chronicle I didn’t really think much about what I wore while shooting. I was working in between classes and no one ever gave me a second look. Two of my favorite photos in my portfolio were taken while I was wearing loafers. And it’s the two you would think I wouldn’t have been wearing loafers. I’ve shot while wearing 4 inch heels, and many many times in flips. But when I started working at the Transcript I just tried to blend in and started dressing like the boys. T-shirt, men’s shorts shoes. Nothing incriminating.

But yet since working for the Transcript I’ve been called out more than once on my attire, even though I’ve tried to dress like the boys. For example, I show up at a golf course opening in April and I’m wearing jeans. One of the golfers comes up to me and starts to give me crap for wearing jeans to a golf course. I can almost guarantee if the other photographer at the Transcript showed up to shoot that exact event in jeans that Mr. Golf Course fashion police wouldn’t have said a word to him. Does the golf course man feel more comfortable with me? Or is it just a matter of not getting taken seriously.

Ok done.

2007-06-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well I’m hesitant to post this because Trent already posted his rodeo shots and I don’t want to be redundant. But its a different rodeo and I already had half of this written so here goes nothing.

Cows freak me out, so I call this a big step to recovery, I covered the Deseret Peak Stampede a couple of weeks ago. I still can’t get over the calf roping though, the cows remind me of my dog cozmo, who runs, acts and is the same color as a baby cow, except without a tail. So every time I see those mean men roping those calfs I think of cozmo. Poor baby cows.
Onward.
The best rodeo of my life was up by the College of Eastern Utah, somewhere in that county at least. For the life of me I can’t remember where though, and those negatives have probably gone to the wind. Or they are in one of the 39 boxes that is labeled photos. It was my favorite because they had a chicken chasing event with a herd of kids. It was awesome.

This rodeo though was the first I’ve covered so it will hold a special place in my heart, along with the cute bull fighter. Lets just say I’ll be volunteering to cover all rodeos in the future.

A few things and I’ll shut up though, 1. next rodeo I will not wear a red shirt. In hindsight that probably wasn’t smart. 2. I’ll stop trying to channel Ang Lee with the fireworks, its been done and I think I wasted a lot of time on it. 3. mutton busting= parents without cameras ready, bring some cards next time.

2007-06-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

Chanting Starts at Dawn.

I get the phone call Friday night on my way to Spanish Fork that there’s a luau in Skull Valley for Memorial Day and chanting starts at dawn on Saturday. I knew this meant I would be there at dawn. Unfortunatly this is also the weekend I tried to work and have a life so with two hours of sleep I roll my ass out of bed at 5 and head towards the illusive Iosepa to take photos of chanting at dawn.

Back in the day when the Mormon pioneers came out to the SLC they spread out, starting settlements all over the place.. IE: Burrville in the southern Utah, where part of my fam came from. But yeah, so a group set off to Skull Valley, it consisted of some Hawaiians, Samoans, Maoris, and a group from Fiji. Now the group wasn’t successful out there due to the difference in climates and the remoteness of where they settled. Seriously folks it is the middle of nowhere. There were leprosy rumors and other crazy stories but finally the majority of the group packed up and headed back to Hawaii on the LDS churches dime when a temple was being built in Hawaii. Its said that the last person to leave the settlement in 1917 bulldozed all of the houses leaving just the cemetery.

So since the 80s people have come out to Iosepa, each year the group gets bigger and bigger. Since then they have built a pavilion, kitchen and bathrooms. And have a giant monument with king kameamea on it honoring the settlers. The luau is a four day event with most of the activities that help pass on traditions to younger generations on the Saturday before Memorial Day, chanting is not one of the activities.

So there I am 6 am hanging out with my writer, writers husband and the guys in charge of the pit for the pig. Most of the campers are still sleeping. Great.

So the rest of the day just looked up from there, about a half hour later I see a guy following some kids around with a hasselblad. Turns out we’re not the only ones who were expecting chanting. But they had shown up on Thursday… it’s a guy doing freelance work for the Smithsonian and Christian Science Monitor. His name is JT, and he was cool.

So yeah, any who. I’m rambling. An odd thing happened that day though, I think my competitive nature set in ether that or I was bit with a case of Eugene Smith-itis. I tripled the amount of photos that I usually shoot. Now there were a lot of visual things going on there but I haven’t turned it off yet, I did the same thing with kids softball. Try editing 1200 softball pictures of 6 year olds. So yeah in a year look for JT’s stuff with the Smithsonian. He was way cool, so is Iosepa, just don’t believe anyone about the chanting at dawn. Nothing happens until 10.

2007-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the other side of the world.

Also known as Tooele County.

Life is good, I realized that a bunch of my previous blogs were very negative and bitchy. Well not the professional ones but yeah the ones on my other sights, and since I’m muti-tasking, everyone is getting the same blog. So there. So here is a warm and fuzzy I'm not hating life blog.

Ever since I moved back here after graduating I’ve had friends offering to rescue me from Tooele or I’ve had to promise friends that the next time they saw me I’d be living in Salt Lake again… or the odd request to not get stomach cancer, I’m still not sure about that one.

But yeah life is good out here. And the internship is going better than planned. Since my last post I’ve gone to a luau in Skull Valley and shot with a photographer working for the Smithsonian and the Christian Science Monitor. I also met and plan on marrying a bull fighter… he just doesn’t know it yet. Ha ha. No but really, I’ve started to get some much needed sports shooting experience while also getting to know a county I’ve run away from since my oldest friends got their learners permits.

I’ve learned you can’t judge a county on its proximity to Starbucks, wild oats or alta. While it’s a trek to get to any of them, there will always be Jana’s java in Tooele, I haven’t found a replacement yet for Alta or for wild oats but who knows maybe some day. Then again that is one of the great things about being out here, there is so much potential. The county is on a verge of a major change, it houses a track that could one day go to NASCAR- heaven forbid. And every speck of land seems to have a for sale sign posted to it. And I’ll be out there to document some of it.

So visit. There’s even a bar now.

2007-06-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

holla everyone.

Ok yeah I'm a flake, I have a giant file of stuff to post on here but first I need to reach out and ask for some technical advice. My ancient version of photoshop is trying to throw me over that edge of insanity. Recently my resolution has gone haywire. I don't know if it is something I need to reset in photoshop or on my camera (30D) but it keeps defaulting to 72 when I open photos in photoshop. So right now I'm forced to do a batch automate to set it to a higher resolution which is taking forever. where the hell did I go wrong. this is driving me crazy.

2007-05-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Treetastic Weekend

Last weekend I really had to work for my coffee and saltine money. I was assigned to shoot 3 Arbor Day celebrations, a press conference and a opening of a fire station. The last I was told by 3 different people at the paper was the most important; they would be cutting a fire hose with the Jaws of Life to open the sucker. Now I feel a little cheated by the Arbor Day committees, I was imagining that they would ceremoniously plop a tree in the ground. But no the trees that would be planted were already planted BEFORE Arbor Day. Curses. So the following is what I came up with, the kid was a participant of an Arbor Day speech I heard twice in one day. By the third Arbor Day extravaganza the coordinators were trying to get me to do the speech. That wasn’t going to happen. Plus the people of Stockton Utah seemed to have a pretty good agenda going for them too. They do the Mayor trees, which Tooele does too, but they also let residents buy memorial trees and talk about the relatives they did the trees for. A sweet little old lady told all 15 of us about her great grandfather who did bootleg wine during prohibition and how he would plow the streets in a horse drawn plow the winter at 4am and yell at the top of his lungs for people to get to work. Great stories, not exactly the most photogenic feature photo opportunity.

My Friday continued and after Arbor day extravaganza 1 was over I got the call about a press conference, now Tooele has this building that is just set up for press conferences. It looked like it had been used maybe once before for test purposes but it did have a nice blue background that the TV anchors were joking about putting the weather on it. I think it’s a just in case building. Tooele is home to places that could have potentially giant disasters; The chemical weapons incinerators, the bunkers of chemical weapons that haven’t or can’t be disposed of and US Mag (MagCorp) a pretty crazy place in its own. So I guess the press conference building is justified somehow. Back to the press conference, a 3rd grade teacher from East Elementary had been booked into jail for inappropriately touching students. Yikes. So there I am going straight from Grantsville’s arbor day in my t-shirt and shorts to the brand new press conference building. I was highly underdressed for the occasion. The tv reporters were all in their suits, even Pat Reavy form the D News was dressed better than I was. Any way past me showing up in shorts, going to the press conference brought a lot of old memories out, first was the thought of the zillion speaker shots that I had shot at the U. When I was working as an administrative assistant I decided that I would trade that whole bag for a life of just shooting speaker shots forever. Here was Karma paying me back for the silent promise. The second thought I had was of the superintendent, he use to be the vice principal at my high school, or was it jr. high. All I remember was that the guy scared the hell out of me because he always making stern faces like this one.

Finally the pies de resistance of my weekend, the jaws of life cutting a fire hose, I shoved my way in probably knocking over a little kid or two (not really) but I got the shot of the Grantsville Mayor and fire chief cutting the fire hose with the jaws of life. It took a minute for it to cut, but the Jaws of Life finally came through in the end. I don’t usually take pictures of kids, too messy. But one of my favorite pictures was of these two girls playing in one of the fire trucks, it wasn't untill I uploaded them and looked closer that I noticed one of them was makeing a face at the camera. We didn’t use it, the paper used another one of another little girl and her sister but it was still cute. I don't usually do cute. Some of the original Grantsville fire fighters, from when they became organized were there. My managing editor’s grandfather was one of them… unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of all of them but here is one I liked of 3 of them.

I covered a bowling tournament and took a bunch of pictures from a hike I took, but I think those will have to wait.

2007-04-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

I don’t like getting shot at.
My first semester at the University of Utah, about this time two years ago, I was working on a paper for my Mass Communication History class. It was going to be one of those long ones. I remember when I started to research for it I wanted to do it on female war photographers. My search turned up absolutely nothing. Begrudgingly I redirected it to compare war photography coverage between WW2 and the Vietnam War in the eyes of two photographers, Robert Cappa and Larry Burrows. I lost a lot of sleep on this paper and during my all nighters I decided that if the situation ever presented itself for me to do war coverage I wouldn’t pass on it, so someday when someone was trying to do a simple paper on women and war photography there might be something there for them to use.
A year later I met Ruth Freemson who works for the NYT, after hearing her describe coming upon a bus that had just been hit by an air strike and seeing brains smeared around the inside of the bus I began to think twice about my earlier decision.

The second time I began to think about war photography was after covering Airsoft. I can only describe it as synthetic war; the guns look and feel real and the uniforms are real. But the bullets are biodegradable pellets. Coming upon this group of 100 guys and a handful of girls in the middle of the desert and not knowing what they were doing would probably prompt you to call homeland security. The group had the Tooele police called on them this winter while they were playing capture the flag; I guess someone else thought that Tooele was being invaded too.

With airsoft I wasn’t worried about getting hit, I’ve been hit by paintballs and after ten years of hockey I’ve been hit by my fair share of pucks. I did fear for my cameras though, I didn’t want to head back to the paper with a broken lens. I’m pretty sure camera lenses cost more than an intern.

2007-04-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

?
Ok... yesterdays Trib front page, lead photo. Yes go find it... Was it intentionally blurred or was my registration off in an odd way? None of the other photos has the same blur on the bottom half, they were crystal clear (well as newsprint goes.)

2007-04-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

The day after I quit my job I interviewed for a photog stringer/ intern/ part time lacky who will empty trash cans just so long as you don’t send me back to the boss from hell position at the Tooele Transcript Bulletin. I went in expecting I wouldn’t get it, well because after my giant internship campaign went bust plus a week before I’d been to the SPJ conference and everyone had a kind of doomsday thought when it came to internships. Fewer papers could afford them so the market was tighter and kids from bigger schools were beating down the door to get in to medium size papers yada yada yada.

So to my surprise I now have an internship… I even get paid they say! I was going to settle with soda crackers and coffee but hell I’ll take money. :) So far I’ve covered something for their upcoming garden magazine, a police road block, USMag (MagCorp) and Airsoft. The last two were wicked cool, and later in the week after they run I’ll run some.

So yeah, just when you think things are really sucking it up something good happens.

2007-03-31T20:21:00.000-07:00

A year ago I had medium brown hair that bordered on blond, I’ve had pixy hair, long hair, red, black, brown, and blond. My stylist knows I’m trouble- easily persuaded and not afraid of a little hair dye. I rarely know what I’m planning to do when I walk in. Its been a problem, my spontaneous change to blond hair last year ended a relationship. We both know that my hair was the least of our problems but oh well… today was no different, I’d emailed my friend Jenn in Pen who was thinking of cutting her hair short… the idea started to work its way into my mind… I liked my short hair when I had it. But I like my hair no matter what I do to it. The idea of a mohawk started to work its way into my mind, how nice it would be to not go through so much conditioner. The breakup over blond hair still sticks in my mind though, I wondered if the guys I’m dating would discontinue associating with me if I chopped all of my hair off.

So at 2:40 I walked in with a plan, either Sheryl Crow’s color and a little bit of length taken off, or a mohawk. My stylist started with cutting 3 inches off, and that’s when I made the decision to chop it off… not a Mohawk, but it’s shorter than what I came in with… I lost about six or so inches. And I’m happy with it, as always. We’ll see if this ends all of my dating, if it does I’ll post applications for the open positions. :)

In an odd way this brings up the whole self portraiture thing. It was the go to assignment at SLCC, every class I took be it design or photography there was always a self portraiture assignment. This feeds the self love beast that lies somewhere in everyone. The photographers who love to take photos of themselves… I had a professor who only showed his self portraiture work to his class. Myspace and blogs have only added to my egocentric photo library. In defense though, I am the most patient model I’ve ever worked with… so for the love of all that is wholly, I need volunteers to break me of my self portraiture rut.

2007-03-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wasn’t the same person I am today, and tomorrow I won’t be the same person I was today… or something like that.

Time slows down every once in a while, this week seems like its lasted a month. It was only Monday that I was frantically packing boxes at work- I started at 7:45 and it was already 11:30. I didn’t even have to look at the clock, the smell of tuna fish was wafting into my office. Like clock work my boss had busted out her lunch of choice, tuna and crackers every day all day my office smelled of tuna. No one had been hired to replace me yet and I was stressing that this job would never end, she would move to Denver but I would just have to continue on like she was out of town until some unfortunate person replaced was found to replace me.

Wednesday and its snowing, sort-of. She stayed home, and I continued to box everything and anything. Wishing I would have gotten more done yesterday. She’d called earlier to say she’d made an offer to someone to work for her in Denver. Finally, I had a solid date that the smell of tuna would go away.

Ten minutes later she forwards the HR persons letter divulging the new poor souls salary. Its double what I’m making. The final kick in the stomach to add to my seven months of sickening tuna fish smelling misery. I start to cry, everything inside that told me to stick it out until the end leaves me.

I know before I talk to anyone that this will be my last day at work. I went about my day, tying up all of my loose ends. Feeling bad for what I’m about to do, I write a response to the email she’s forwarded me, explaining that sending someone their replacements salary was not appropriate- especially when you would be paying them DOUBLE. I don’t send it yet I just sit and think.

I pack more boxes, and randomly begin to stack them on the far side of my desk. Before I know it I’ve got a wall of boxes.

At 4:30 I send the email, and walk out. For the last time. All at once I feel excited and scared that I’ve done something horrible. But I can’t stop smiling.

I think its Matt Damon in the Departed that says something like, its going to have to be you to end this, I’m Irish I’ll put up with things being fucked up for a long time… I guess I have the same mentality with work. I’ll put up with a lot. I wouldn’t attribute it to my Irish-ness, more of the belief in karma. I always figured I was either being punished for something I’d done in the past or if I put up with all of the crap something great would be just around the corner. I guess that sometimes you just have to make the good things happen. I’ve never been so uncertain about the future but I’ve also never felt so free.

2007-03-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

Spling!

So this weather really freaks me out but on the other hand I was kind of over the whole driving to work in the snow thing. You can only see so many cars drive into a retaining pond by the Great Salt Lake in the morning. Just in case anyone is keeping score I saw three cars in February do just that. (One would think I’d learn to carry a camera with me so I could get that shot but no. those are the days I forget.) But one of the great things about spring is that I can do two great things in the same week, hike and ski! Which is what I did this week. Unfortunately my grand plan didn’t work out exactly how I was hoping. I went hiking on Sunday, which did work out- it was nice, not too hot not too cold. Just enough to get my dog really really slobbery. This is Cosmo, the ugly step child in my family. He’s my little brothers dog, not the smartest dog but he makes up for it in personality and overall friendly attitude. He’s the arch nemesis of my cat. Probably because he’s so slobbery. He’s also not very athletic, so a short hike up into the foothills of the Oquirh mountains really got him slimy. For the most part this area didn’t get very snowy this winter but it was pretty muddy so I hadn’t been up there much. But spring was definitely on its way, the sego lilies were beginning to come up, I’m going to head back in a couple of weeks or so and they should be blooming like crazy… I can’t wait. So now the second part of my ingenious plan was to call in sick on Wednesday and get some nice spring skiing in. My plan was going gloriously, my boss was out of town so I wouldn’t be missed much and I even had a date to go with. Now I can’t complain at all about the day, it was great! I skied the blue runs at Alta for the first time and the weather was perfect, I only wish I would have taken more pictures. Now I have two valid reasons why I didn’t… one I was on a first date, I didn’t want to freak him out by pulling out a camera just yet. Two; I’m not very coordinated yet and I could just see myself dropping my camera from the chair or while I’m busy trying to get a shot slowly eking backwards and tumbling down the mountain. But one of these days I’ll find my balance on skis and then look out Alta! I did take a couple of pictures up near the top of the Sugarloaf lift. This was the cloudiest it was all day. Perfect skiing day. That was until I got off the mountain and looked in a mirror, I was burnt to a crisp. I don’t sunburn, three days in Moab whitewater canoeing and I didn’t burn at all, a week in Lake Powell and I barely burned. So my now crispified face has blown my cover. I stop at Wild Oats on the way home and people are staring, my face just continues to get redder and redder the farther away from Alta I get. That night I can’t sleep it hurts so bad. Now this pic is after a few hours off the mountain I just continued to get redder and redder after. I have never been this burnt in my life. I’ll spare you of the now shots, just imagine swelling, blisters and well… leather face.. good god if anyone has any secret remedies please tell me. Right now I’m just applying aloe with lidacane added to it and Neosporin every other hour. Ouch. So I’m hiding out this weekend, well maybe until Sunday… there is hiking to do!

2007-03-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

More proof the world is done for:
http://www.sleevesclothing.com/mens/tee_dermagraphic_white.htm

2007-03-06T20:30:00.000-08:00

So on the first day of one of my beginning photography classes my professor Mark Dungan wrote on the board the following things
Cows
Dogs
Babies
Kitties
Temples.

This was the forbidden list, Dungan had seen so many cows and kitties in his short gradschool teaching career that never again would he allow his students to turn in photos of them. Now I never really had a problem w/ the cows or the babies, kids freak me out and I’m convinced that cows will turn on us one day. But cats. There we have a problem. Some of the first pictures I ever took as a kid were of my cat. One of the first pictures of me was taken with my cat. Ok so I like cats. Now as the time in junior college photography school passed the forbidden list got larger, I learned to pander to my audience (read professor) each one had his or her own list of stuff that would get you shot if you turned it in. Everything from kids to flowers were at sometime off limits. All of my years of photo classes I never turned in a photo of a cat. The forbidden list had stuck with me, so maybe that is why when I bought my new camera that my cat Chuck became my choice model. Rebellion at last! Or lazyness on my part, its not really hard to talk Chuck into letting you take his picture. He is a verry camera concious cat, who does pose if the camera comes out. So yeah here’s my Chuck.

2007-03-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my quarter life crisis.

Actually I’m only fooling myself on that one, with the amount of coffee I drink my quarter life crisis probably happened a couple of years ago. But for the sake of optimism we’ll say quarter life crisis is just happening.

25 is looming closer. I’ve got less than six months.

I use to have big ideas of what I wanted to be by 25, or at least be on my way to the really big plans I have for 30. The plans have altered, pretty much every other year I come up with a new adapted version but the goal has always been the same. New York Times by 30.

Ideally I would be well on my way to that, but I more than ever know I’m not close to being there. I think it was April or May when that goal started to sputter and stall. I lost focus. Now here it is March 1st and I’m reinventing my plan once again.

So plan F... I think that’s what letter I’m on, ok the letter is irrelevant… anyways… Plan F:
I’m going back to school, again. Good god again. Not until fall, so that will probably be when the good posts start because I’ll have actual photo assignments to post then. Until then it’s going to be crap like Brittany Spears cracking. No I’ll be making a point to put something up here, not Brittany. But something.

But what does that have to do with a blog… well nothing. This is my second blog, so technically I’m cheating on my first blog with this blog but my other blog is on myspace and its blocked at work. Damn the man. So yeah. Boredom = blog. But for the last few months of work one of the things that have saved me from stabbing myself to death with a letter opener out of boredom was other peoples blogs. So in the spirit of it all I’ve decided to contribute to someone else’s boring day.