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December 2010

Been bogged down with life and neglecting ye old blog.
So here is a smattering of photos from the last month.
Newspaper photography means that you get a chance to cover a lot of different things this month was no exception this month included a church cat, a double exposure of the Marysville Christmas parade, Shady Creek Outdoors School for youth, Shop with a Cop at Walmart, car versus semi-truck on Highway 99, Net-5 meth bust, and high school wrestling.

3 from last Saturday

Shooting a parade always make you work hard looking for something different. The first frame is from before the start of the Live Oak parade. There is something I really like about how everyone kinda fell into place on the curb and matched the building. The other two images are from the Marysville Raceway Park which reopened last weekend after a fatal accident shut the track for several weeks. Read Ryan Klocke's story here.

Lakes Basin Plumas National Forest

Backpacking, 4 days, 3 nights, no cell phone, no laptop, just nature, just well... really nice.

at the end of the road

Friday Night Football and WildFire

My job allows me to experience many different things over the course of week some days bring more excitement than others just like any job and some days bring unexpected long hours. Last Friday I was assigned to shoot some color and atmosphere for the beginning of football season when I got a call from my editor about a large wildfire burning near Bullards Bar Dam in the Yuba foothills. These frames are from the 22 hrs of work in 48 hrs.

finding gold

Last week I went out with one of our reporters Howard Yune to find people along the Yuba River for a story on the rising water level due to releases from dams upstream. Its rained more than normal here in the mid-valley do to El Nino and with the summer snow melt the reservoirs ( what we call lakes in Cali) are full. You never know what you're gonna find out there either and we got lucky when we came across a man and his dog panning for gold. Read the story here.

Gary Bingham of Gridley pans for gold Thursday with his dog Sam along the Yuba River at Parks Bar Road in the Yuba foothills. The water level rose Thursday on the Yuba River with the scheduled release of water from Englebright Dam and is expected to rise even further do to a larger release at New Bullards Bar Dam. The New Bullards Bar Dam release will increase the flow from 66 cubic feet per second to 2000 cubic feet per second and is expected to last up to three weeks.

All-Area Wrestlers

So by no fault but my own I have been the go to shooter here for are all-area sport portraits. Here's the last one I did of the two MVP wrestlers. I knew I wanted to shoot looking up at the wrestlers in there starting position but had no idea about the lighting since I had never tried something like this before. I'm pretty happy with the final result, thinking back on it though I probably would have placed on more sb800 on the right for more fill besides the just the one, the rim lights are two alien bees 800w. Here's a link to the story.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people

David Lewis shaves in the living room of his Linda apartment that he shares with his girlfriend, Carla Burnside. On March 3 Lewis, who was the service manager for Sanchez Truck Repair & Towing, stopped his mechanic's truck on the E Street bridge to assist a driver who had run out of gas. He was struck by a passing car which fractured his left leg and amputated his right leg just below the thigh. David and Carla are such wonderful people for letting me invade their lives at 6:30 am. The couple let me shadow them for several hours (which getting that kind of time with a subject is a rarity in the newspaper world) so our readers could see just how much their lives have changed since the dreadful night on the E Street Bridge from Marysville to Linda. David and Carla inspired me so much with the amazing love that they share with each other. We should all be so lucky. Read the story here and more pics here.

Donors also can help Lewis' medical costs by contributing to Account No. 295712 at Sierra Central Credit Union. Checks should be made out in Lewis' name and are accepted at all Sierra Central branches.

down by the river

the light's been getting really awesome these days with the late afternoon storms here this April. Here are a couple of snaps from an afternoon spent on the banks of the Feather River near Shanghai Bend.

All-Area Girls Basketball

More sports portraits wrapping up our all-area basketball season
All-Area girls basketball team, from left: Gridley High senior forward McKenna Cox, Sutter High junior guard Courtney Clingan, Lindhurst High junior center Brenna Gates, Sutter High junior point guard Courtney Gravel and Colusa High junior forward Caroline Meyers.
MVP Abby Cranford, junior, Williams High School
Tim Sheridan of Biggs High School girls basketball coach of the year

Hydroponic Tomatoes

Had the chance to check out a local tomato growers greenhouse this past Saturday here in Sutter County. It was pretty neat. The article from the AD by Ashley Gebb can be read here. Also check out Ashley's green life blog here.

Alan Claphan harvests vine-ripened hydroponically grown tomatoes in the greenhouse which he built with his business partner Peter Myburgh last year, just west of Yuba City, on the 5000 block of Franklin Road. The men hope to expand their business by adding another greenhouse and exploring the options of growing cherry tomatoes, peppers and lettuce.

All-Area Boys Basketball

Lately I have been working on trying to shoot better portraits in my daily photographic life. I feel like this is an area where I can always improve. So I took it upon myself to set-up a shoot of all the first team all-area boys basketball players for the Sports Department here at the Appeal-Democrat. So with the help of Nathan Weyland who assisted me and after spending 5 hours in the Yuba City High School locker room I came away with a couple of shots that I kinda really like. That's Nathan trying to kill some boredom between shoots and the lighting set up of 4 lights.One main in umbrella softbox, two rim lights and one background light. The final images is how it ran in the paper.

Live Oak Teens

When I lost my mom several years ago it just about devastated my brother, father and I. It was hard to pick up the pieces of our lives. So when I met the Short family it really struck a chord. The three teens lost both their mother and father over a period of five months. The older brother Drew dropped out of Chico State to come home and take legal guardianship of his twin sisters.Sometimes I find myself wondering how these teens are doing now since its been about two and a half months since this was taken. When I got the assignment it was put in as a portrait but while sitting in on the reporter's interview with the teens this lovely little moment happened between the siblings and the light from the large bay window in their living room was just to lovely to ignore. This photo also recently won first place for general news in the December clip contest. You can read the story from the Appeal-Democrat here.

From left, Kiley,17, Shaina,17, and Drew Short,19, sit with the family dog, Scout, in their Live Oak home. The Shorts were orphaned after losing their father to a heart attack in May and their mother to cancer in October.

Signs

Went hiking with fellow photogs Nathan Weyland and Adam Lau in the Sierra foothills in the South Yuba River State Park.