Back To Shooting

2008-05-04T12:02:00.001-05:00

Legs

2008-04-08T23:52:00.003-05:00

I went to Runner's Den today to shoot some leg photos for the store's front windows, but the high point was definitely when Juan picked up an empty tallboy in the parking lot.

Unexpected Artwork

2008-04-08T23:15:00.003-05:00

I knew I was in a pretty shady place this weekend when a mural of dogfighting was across the street from a house I was supposed to take a picture of. I got up at 6:30 on Sunday morning and went back when I knew nobody would be out.

Almost Forgot

2008-04-05T23:04:00.004-05:00

Jill came to visit on February 15th, which was also the day I shot this photo. Since I got engaged about 12 hours after I made the image, I think I pretty much forgot about taking it.

I lit this with my little 16x20 softbox, but I've since been told that the best food photography is done with natural light. I don't even carry that softbox in my car anymore.

Big Day

2008-04-03T23:07:00.003-05:00

Jill called this morning, and we had a fun conversation.

Jill: Guess what today is?

Me: The day we get our house! (seen below with her in the driveway)

Jill: Yes! And.....

Me: A week from when I will be visiting you in Nebraska!

Jill: Yes! And.....

Me: I don't know.

Jill: Exactly one year from our wedding! You said April 3rd would be easy to remember.

Me: Oh. Yeah.

Waiting Around

2008-04-03T16:34:00.003-05:00

I shot a food article yesterday, and while the chef was making the dishes, I lined up all the plates and wine glasses and played around with the great light coming through the windows.

It's Almost Summer

2008-04-03T16:21:00.003-05:00

Here's a couple shots from a restaurant review I photographed last week. The first is of Green Tea frozen custard, and the second is a chicken and sundried tomato crepe. Turning down the free food was painful.

Cleaning up clutter

2008-04-02T19:08:00.002-05:00

This was another photo that I shot for Arizona Woman. It was a cover possibility, but ended up running inside. The subject owns a local ad agency, and I figured it would be a very good looking space. I went and scouted, and it ended up being kind of cluttered furniture-wise, but after I moved a table and chairs, we had a pretty good space for a photo.

I lit it with a strobe in the courtyard through the windows, and then a single umbrella on the subject.

Waiting Game

2008-04-01T23:58:00.006-05:00

In February, I shot a bunch of photos for Arizona Woman magazine, and I saw the finished magazine today, so I owe you all a post. The second photo ended up being the cover. Yippee!

Yes, No, Maybe So

2008-03-31T01:11:00.002-05:00

In my previous post, I showed an image I did while on a shoot. I'm trying to come up with an image for the front doors of Runner's Den, a running shop owned by my aunt and uncle. A normal 35mm frame isn't what I need, since the hole is 32 feet by 8 feet. Here's my favorite, but I don't know if it will do the trick, based on the formatting of the hole I'm shooting for.

Quick Turnaround

2008-03-27T00:03:00.003-05:00

Since I did a shoot for my aunt and uncle's running store today, I get to post it here today! Yea!

Oops

2008-03-26T00:58:00.003-05:00

I forgot about this photo, which ran on St. Patrick's Day. The article was about people who have felt lucky in the past year, and Red Sox fan Doug Siepel has been able to see the Sox win two World Series titles in three years, after a 90-something year drought.

I was talking to him while I was setting up my lights, and he said he laughed when the reporter called him, because he said he couldn't feel more unlucky...he owns a couple bars while the economy is in the tank (home prices in Phoenix fell 19% over the last year), and a smoking ban recently went into effect.

I said that with declining readership, declining stock prices and the shift to the web meant that business-wise, a lot of people in my line of work haven't felt too lucky lately, either.

Skin Creams

2008-03-23T00:51:00.003-05:00

I shot this about six weeks ago, and it went to print last weekend. I almost forgot I shot it. I had no idea that steel ball bearings were so hard to find until I got the idea for this image.

Nice Heels

2008-03-20T18:29:00.004-05:00

Here's a pair of shoes that ran as the back page of the Yes Style Guide. I've grown to love the flower and produce sections at AJ's Markets here in Phoenix.

Assist goes to the floral department

2008-03-19T23:48:00.005-05:00

Here's more products from the Yes Style Guide that came out over the weekend. Working with a stylist saved my butt on this one.

Backyard Retreat

2008-03-19T01:46:00.002-05:00

I shot this before sunrise in the backyard of a local architect, since we did an article on "backyard retreats." I liked the place a lot. Since my parents are on the verge of redoing their backyard, I took his card home to them.

First of many

2008-03-17T18:09:00.003-05:00

After a long wait, a good chunk of my photos ran over the weekend when our quarterly Yes Style magazine came out. I'll probably make a week's worth of posts out of it, so here's the first. Jill loved that the backgrounds were Ikea fabric.

Humble Pie

2008-03-06T16:51:00.004-06:00

When Jill was in town, she helped out on a couple shoots, including this one at a local pizza place. The story was about pairing beer with food, and their wood fired oven served as a great backdrop.

The food looked so good, we went back that night for dinner.

Leap Year

2008-02-28T09:59:00.003-06:00

Friday is Lauren Trim's fourth true birthday. She was born on February 29th, so she's a Leap Day baby. Jill was in town when I did this shoot, so she suggested having her leaping in the photo. It was a rainy day, so I shied away from the trampoline in their backyard, but the perfectly painted bedroom worked just fine.

The real ring

2008-02-23T17:02:00.003-06:00

I was going to photograph her real ring, instead of the fake one from Target. I improvised a light tent in the back yard with a bed sheet and a patio furniture end table. But Jill decided to peek her head in, and made a much better image.

As I write this, she's flying home to Nebraska, and I miss her already. If you want to see a tight shot of the ring, it's on her blog, Fabulous Fabulous.

The waiting game

2008-02-18T17:25:00.001-06:00

Here, Jill talks on the phone (telling Beth Schlanker the news), while wearing her fake engagement ring. Since the real one won't be ready until Friday, I bought her a plastic one from Target to fill in temporarily.

Bling shopping

2008-02-18T13:48:00.003-06:00

Over the weekend Jill was nice enough to buy a new watch for me. The occasion? It was an engagement present.

Yep, in a fit of incredible nervousness I asked her to marry me. And through an incredible fit of tears, she accepted! I'll post the ring on Friday, when we get to pick it up.

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-12T23:12:00.002-06:00

The original idea for this was to photograph red roses and pink roses on contrasting backgrounds, since red roses signify romance and pink signifies friendship. But the arrangement with the pink roses looked so much nicer that we rolled with it as the lede art instead.

Wow, six posts in about an hour. I promise to keep better track of things.

Friend of a Friend

2008-02-12T23:07:00.001-06:00

Here's new city councilman Michael Nowakowski, who it turns out, is political buddies with my aunt Ann, who is running for state senate again. Go Ann!

I lit this with one umbrella off to my left, and had the subject stand in the shade, so the light would remain soft on him. The umbrella is nice, but I'd like to get a good softbox that I can take on location for stuff like this. Every photographer has their likes and dislikes, and I love the light quality from softboxes.

Getting Lucky

2008-02-12T23:01:00.005-06:00

Sometimes you get lucky. I carted my entire light kit through the ASU campus to make a portrait of Jason Robert (seen here), and when I asked him if there was anyplace that was "architecturally interesting," he took me to this building. Lucky for me, it was still early in the morning and the sun was just coming up. All the lights stayed in their cases.

The first shot is the one that ran on the section front, the second ran inside. I think I'll have to use it as a backdrop again sometime.

Playing With Your Food

2008-02-12T22:56:00.002-06:00

This was for a pre-Super Bowl section, and the editor said she was thinking of having restaurant-type light for the photo. So I used a 10 degree grid on the plate, and had a very diffused light hitting the bottom of the frame, just so it wouldn't fall off as much as the top. And since I was using a tripod, I got to be the hand model too.

Stylists

2008-02-12T22:50:00.003-06:00

This shoot, of smoked salmon quesadillas, was my first time working with a stylist. And it helped. A lot. I always enjoy collaboration on studio work, when you can slow down, take your time, and make minor tweaks that you could never do while photographing a news event.

The New Chocolate

2008-02-12T22:41:00.004-06:00

Everything wants to be the "new" something. In this case, vanilla is supposed to be "the new chocolate" when it comes to Valentine's Day. So with the help of my editor, I photographed vanilla beans (who knew they were so expensive?), and also photographed some desserts at a local bakery that were built on a vanilla theme. Enjoy!

A long hike

2008-02-03T10:17:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, my mom and I took Eddie on a long hike...we figured about four or five miles. Along the way, there was a nice bench in the middle of nowhere, so I decided to take a bunch of photos that I could use to play with PhotoShop's photomerge feature. After the computer "thought" for a few minutes, it came up with this...I'd say it did a pretty good job.

Click on the photo to see a much bigger version.

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

2008-01-28T21:57:00.001-06:00

It rained all day yesterday, and most of last night, meaning I got no sleep. But during the day, there were some nice clouds rolling around Camelback Mountain, so I went to a couple places to take photos, and the best angle ended up being in the neighborhood. I guess I lucked out.

I really wish I had some content from work to show, but nothing I've done so far has been published yet. So please sit tight for a little while longer. I promise I've really been working for the past two weeks.

By the pool

2008-01-21T18:50:00.001-06:00

Today was a company holiday, so I sat out by the pool after a long hike on Camelback. Eddie naturally took this as a sign that I wanted to play ball with him.

I need to write things down

2008-01-20T22:01:00.000-06:00

I neglected to enter POY this year, because I thought I only had a couple images worth entering, both in the pictorial category. I forgot that when I left Lincoln, I thought I might have a good sports portfolio. So for your viewing pleasure, here's what I could have entered, if I had stayed on top of things.

Week 1 wrap

2008-01-20T01:44:00.000-06:00

Well, I am uploading photos that conclude my first week at the Republic. It was a pretty easy week, with most of my work being done in the studio. Since none of it has run, you will have to be patient. But tonight I shot a society party at the Biltmore, pretty close to my mom and dad's (also my place while Jill sells the house in Nebraska).

I remember an article on SportsShooter where Robert Seale said some of the best advice he ever received was to "cut the hot-shoe off his camera." He didn't literally do it, but photographers know the gist of it: don't use on-camera strobe.

Before tonight, I probably hadn't relied on an on-camera strobe since college. Maybe I shouldn't have been so adamantly opposed to it for so long. But maybe my portraits would be a lot weaker if I hadn't sought other solutions.

Thoughts before bed

2008-01-10T23:28:00.000-06:00

I started this blog as I was preparing to start my last job at the Journal Star...it was supposed to chronicle my transition from being a full-time picture editor to splitting my time with shooting.

On Tuesday, I'll walk into the offices of the Arizona Republic and start my new job being a full-time photographer with no editing duties. And I'll be shooting for magazines, with my workload being completely different from what I'm used to. I'm looking forward to it.

So in the spirit of change, I've been toying with ways to update the look of this blog. I've played around with some iWeb templates, and am still looking for something that I like. I know I just need to dedicate a day to figuring it out. Maybe Monday will be the day.

I don't mean to be a tease, but be on the lookout for something new soon.

Oops

2008-01-10T23:24:00.001-06:00

I meant to do a post from my last day at the Journal Star, and it got lost in the shuffle of a party and packing. So I'm sorry. But here's three photos from my last day...sorry, no photos from my exit interview.

An idea

2008-01-10T21:41:00.001-06:00

Jill had a fabulous idea that every day we are apart from each other, we send each other a photo. So while my only camera right now is my point and shoot, I shot tonight's dinner. I made steak quesadillas....here's mine before I threw it on the grill:

Post #200

2008-01-09T23:15:00.000-06:00

My heart is a little heavier and my keychain is a little lighter, since I am no longer working at the Journal Star. My last assignment was to illustrate a story about homemade cleaning products. Lemons were a common theme, so I bought about 15 pounds of them and put this together:

My first inclination was to put a lemon or slices of one on a toilet, but after laughing at that idea, Ted suggested this.

It's a 25 second exposure with a remote strobe in the bucket. I used a flashlight to lightpaint the handle, the mop and a little bit of the floor.

Out With The Old

2007-12-31T16:21:00.000-06:00

Instead of a gallery of stuff from 2007, here's a collage. Have fun tonight!

A Familiar Name

2007-12-26T13:44:00.000-06:00

I usually don't look at the obits, but today I was browsing the paper, and I recognized a name. It took me a moment to figure out why it caught my eye, and it was because I photographed the man only a couple months ago.

Abe Epp was 100, and I did his portrait, along with another, at his apartment complex. He was a great subject, and since there was nice sunset light in front of the elevators, I did his portrait there. I wish I had hung a backdrop to get rid of the railing and heating unit in the background, but I was trying to work fast, and figured it wasn't a big deal. So as a New Year's resolution, I will try to be more patient, even when I'm doing a quick portrait, and pay more attention to the small details.

On the way home

2007-12-23T15:48:00.000-06:00

There was a nice sunset as I was driving back to the office after an assignment yesterday. It's too bad there wasn't a clear long shot of the capitol building, so I had to incorporate some row houses and trees.

News

2007-12-18T13:17:00.000-06:00

I don't have a picture that I think sums this up, so words will have to do.

I have accpeted a job at the Arizona Republic as a magazine photographer, and will start there on January 15th.

My time in Nebraska was too short, and I really love everybody here on staff. This was the hardest decision I've ever made, but I know everybody here will be okay in the end.

Shaking off the rust

2007-12-18T11:55:00.001-06:00

Saturday was my first Nebraska basketball game of the year. I didn't have much of a good game, but Nebraska won, and I got a funny image when the fans stormed the floor (something I was completely unprepared for).

Star City Parade

2007-12-12T13:46:00.000-06:00

I forgot to do an update with this. Two weekends ago, the annual Star City Holiday Parade was postponed because of bad weather....all the bands involved backed out because of freezing rain and sleet in the forecast. So they held the parade for a week, and because of the ACT schedule, none of the bands showed up anyway.

It was about 15 degrees, and about 3,000 people showed up for a parade that usually attracts at least 10,000.

My first set of frames ended up yielding the best photo.

More ice

2007-12-12T13:27:00.001-06:00

Here's more ice photos. The gutter froze, and then fell off its mount, so we woke up to a nice collection of icicles. With all the freezing rain we had, it took 30 minutes to clear the windows on my car.

Maybe this one will make an appearance on KXAN like my last set of ice photos did. Thanks, Ellen!

Anteojos

2007-12-11T16:08:00.000-06:00

Today, I picked up my first pair of glasses. I thought I might make it to 30 before I'd need some, but I came up short. It's a minor correction, but since my eyes pay the bills, I figured it was wise to keep them happy.

Charity Donations

2007-12-07T20:33:00.001-06:00

I had no idea that all the teddy bears people had at the game were to be thrown on the ice. I just thought it was a simple fundraiser. You know...show up at the game, donate a stuffed animal and get a cheap ticket. So imagine my shock when at least 1000 stuffed animals were thrown on the ice following Lincoln’s first goal of the game. Here’s what I handed in:

But this is the one that cracked me up:

Somewhere in Middle America

2007-12-07T14:33:00.001-06:00

Words really can't do justice to what happened in Omaha on Wednesday. I didn't go the day of the shootings, but was in town yesterday for followups and a memorial service.

Basketball players

2007-12-05T20:45:00.001-06:00

Remember how I was going to shoot all my portraits just of faces for a little while? That challenge got a little tougher when I had to shoot a group portrait of three kids on a local high school basketball team, who are all from Sudan.

I decided that if I shot them side by side, I'd have one really long, short photo. So I staggered them left to right, back to front for the portrait.

I originally was going to throw some rim light on them, but because where I was set up was so tight, any light coming back at me was throwing a lot of lens flare, and was bouncing all over the backdrop. So I decided to let them bleed into the background.

I remembered a podcast where Robert Seale said that a 1/4 CTO gel on a strobe looks really good on darker skin, so I decided to give that a shot with this (our local gel supplier didn't have one, so I bought the orange that was as close as I could get), and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm going to have to remember that one. I also toned it in black and white in case it ran inside, but we got a color page. Here's the black and white:

A little reminder

2007-12-04T20:00:00.000-06:00

Sorry, no new images to post. But I decided to put this up as a reminder of the warm weather we were enjoying not so long ago.

In unrelated news, I will be getting my first pair of glasses sometime this week or next.

Ice Storm

2007-12-01T12:32:00.001-06:00

There's nothing like an ice storm to be your first winter experience for the year. I shot these while letting the car warm up this morning.

The More Things Change

2007-11-28T13:59:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lapse of updates....Thanksgiving vacation put me out of blogging commission for about a week.

Every year during football season, we run a profile of a player on the team along with a portrait. At the beginning of the year, we decide what we can do in the pressbox that is easily repeatable by anybody on staff, and that we can knock out in about two minutes. We're forced to do the portraits during the weekly media gathering on Tuesdays, so there are a ton of reporters around, and we get a very limited amount of time with each athlete.

Last year we just shot the players during the interview, with the field below them as the background. This year, Jill Peitzmeier and I came up with something that was a little more stylized, but something that anybody with two strobes could replicate.

Here's the ones I did this season:

Taking criticism

2007-11-15T15:45:00.000-06:00

I recently showed my portrait portfolio to a friend of mine, and he said he liked what I was doing, but that I needed some portraits that were tighter on the subject. So I decided to start doing tighter portraits for the time being, and after the first one crashed and burned, I shot this portrait on Wednesday.

It's of Paul Donahoe of the Nebraska wrestling team for the annual wrestling season preview. Donahoe is the reigning NCAA champion in the 125 pound weight class, so he was a natural to be the subject of the main story.

When I told him what my idea was, he held his hands where he would during a meet, which was a lot lower than I wanted them. After showing him the results on the back of the camera, I coaxed him to hold his hands (a lot) higher than normal. So while his teammates teased him for holding his hands too high, I got this portrait.

And by the way, I shot this with him leaning over a 3x4 softbox, and had a light with a gaffers tape snoot hitting a red wall behind him.

Good Reading

2007-11-14T19:06:00.000-06:00

I don't normally do this, but I heard about a blog from an anonymous photo editor in New York, and I've spent incredibly too much time reading it over the past few days.

It's www.aphotoeditor.com, and I've added it to my links on the right for when this post disappears.

Written off, maybe too soon

2007-11-12T16:52:00.000-06:00

Well, maybe we wrote off the Nebraska football team too soon. They dismantled Kansas State (here, Cortney Grixby returns a kickoff for a touchdown), and now only need to beat Colorado to become bowl-eligible.

If they finish 6-6, there are three bowls who could take them...one is in a cool place (Phoenix), one is in an ok place (Houston), and one is in a dump (Shreveport). So even though four days ago I was fairly certain I'd be spending New Year's in Nebraska, it now looks pretty up in the air.

Texas Trip, pt 1

2007-11-06T17:03:00.000-06:00

The previously unbeaten NU volleyball team took their #1 ranking to Texas (on Oct. 24...sorry for taking so long with this), and were promptly swept by the Longhorns, who returned the favor Nebraska did to them in Lincoln earlier in the season.

NU hadn't lost a game in something like 17 matches before this match. They hadn't lost a match since last year. They hadn't been swept in conference in ten years. That all meant nothing.

Head coach John Cook walks off the floor.

Senior captain Tracy Stalls watches the third game from the bench.

Texas Trip, pt 2

2007-11-06T16:59:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the delay with this game, too. The football team lost to Texas, after giving up more than 200 yards rushing to Jamaal Charles in the fourth quarter.

Starting QB Sam Keller broke his collarbone.

And Tom Osborne and Randy York don't look too happy with how the game turned out.

Halloween

2007-11-06T16:10:00.000-06:00

Here's a late update from a shoot for making old prom or bridesmaid dresses into Halloween costumes. The Jackrabbit packs which said they were charged really weren't, so I ended up just using a big softbox with two SB-800's firing into it. It's basically the same setup I used for high school football, with a softbox thrown into the mix.

76-39

2007-11-04T19:20:00.000-06:00

Kansas hung 76 points on Nebraska yesterday, something nobody had done in the 117 years of the Husker program. It was the worst football game I've ever been witness to (and I spent the entire fourth quarter shooting photos of the bench).

I was glad the fumble in this photo was caused by the ground (meaning it didn't count), so I didn't have to be mad that the ref blocked my view.

The Nebraska defense gives up another long pass.

Joe Ganz sits on the bench in the fourth quarter. After starting QB Sam Keller broke his collarbone last week, the KU game was his first start in college. He had a good first half, but threw four interceptions in the second half.

Defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove walks off the field after the game.

The Big Man

2007-11-04T10:16:00.001-06:00

My portrait of Aleks Maric, the leader of the Nebraska basketball team, finally ran today with the season preview.

Another Pano

2007-10-20T10:16:00.001-05:00

The last Nebraska home volleyball game was the 99th consecutive sellout, which meant the sports editor (and volleyball beat writer) wanted to do something special to show the Coliseum during a game...the 100th consecutive sellout is tonight. So I went and did a panoramic during the match.

Matt Miller from the OWH did one independently of mine. You can see his by clicking here....I feel bad that his was cropped so all perspective was lost...I think these look great with all the white space around them, allowing you to see all the jagged borders.

Friday Night Lights (SB-800 style)

2007-10-19T21:14:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I went out with Jill to a high school football game, because I wanted to play with my remote SB-800 setup. Here I am staring straight into it, with my fingers as a red gel/diffusion panel.

I take two SB-800's, and tape them together. I set them at 1/4 power, and zoom them all the way to 105 mm. Since a PocketWizard has two ports, you can trigger two lights with one Wizard (as long as you have two cords), so using two lights at the same time isn't much of an issue. Jill got into the act of portraiture during the downtime.

You trigger the remote strobes with a Wizard on the camera. The person with the camera can then stay downfield and shoot relatively loose, while the person carrying the strobes stays close to the action. You get about 50 feet of good coverage, and the shadows look great. Remember, mood is created by shadows, not light.

The camera was set at 1/250th, f/2.8, 400 ISO, with a 70-200 mm lens. I shot this about 30 yards downfield from the play, but Jill was holding the light only about five yards in front of the play. Another good effect is that the background naturally goes dark, so you don't need to unethically burn it down in PhotoShop. I think it took about 30 seconds to tone the image.

***UPDATE***
Since Trent was nice enough to give a link to this post on his blog, I thought I'd post a couple images of the rig. Enjoy!

Birthday Party

2007-10-18T11:57:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was our intern Heidi's birthday, and she wanted to get together and carve pumpkins. So I made a big batch of tortilla soup, and we all sat around a table and tried to make art. I went for a current event angle, and did a Nebraska "N" on fire. Amazingly, none of the pumpkins were smashed last night.

And if you're wondering, this is lit with an SB-800 and a PocketWizard inside the pumpkin.

Our Long National Nightmare is Over

2007-10-16T19:03:00.000-05:00

Gerald Ford was a football fan, so I think I can steal a quote from him, considering this is how Nebraska fans have treated the last four days.

Bill Callahan had his weekly press conference today, and he didn't even bother making an opening statement. He took questions about his boss being fired and his team's subpar play.

Later in the day, former football coach Tom Osborne was named interim athletic director. I did his press conference too. The University made it open to the public, so there was a much bigger turnout than at Callahan's.

That makes three press conferences in two days. I doubt I'm doing one tomorrow.

One is the Lonliest Number

2007-10-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson was fired yesterday. UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman held a press conference in the afternoon to answer questions, and I went to check it out just in case they announced an interim AD. They didn't. So here's some photos of Perlman at a microphone, all by himself.

Oh, Pederson was signed to a five year contract three months ago, so he got a $2.2 million buyout.

Point Guards

2007-10-15T11:01:00.000-05:00

Here's the first photo to run from Basketball Media Day. As things were wrapping up, our beat writer asked if I could come up with something of the two guys competing for the starting point guard job.

There's some things I would have done differently if I had some more time, but I guess it's ok.

Weather photographer

2007-10-10T16:42:00.000-05:00

Now that it finally ran, here's the portrait my dad helped me with. When the light got low enough, I put a strobe in my softbox.

The subject, Ken Dewey, is a climatologist who photographs weather around the state. So he was sypmathetic when I said I'd like to do his portrait at sunset.

A little OCD

2007-10-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

Our sports department needed an illustration for the race between teams to win the Big 12 North. Last week, it was wide open for everybody except Iowa State, and the assistant sports editor was thinking of putting wheels on mini helmets to make them look like cars.

I took this as a chance to go overboard, and I used six Lego race cars, and put the helmets on top of them. Then, I built a road on some black foam core (textured spray paint, followed by masking it off and spraying yellow lines). And, since I now own a fog machine, I felt compelled to use it as well.

In total, I probably spent about 10 hours getting this just right, and that included about five hours of building the road. It still bothers me that the stripes aren't done right, even though no readers probably picked up on it. If I had an extra day, I would have redone it.

My homecoming

2007-10-08T19:42:00.000-05:00

I went to Columbia, Missouri, the town I lived in for seven years, on Saturday to cover the Nebraska vs Mizzou game. It was nice seeing old friends. It was lame seeing a horrible football game that lasted until midnight.

Missouri won by five touchdowns.

Hockey Opening Night

2007-10-05T21:54:00.001-05:00

It was opening night for the local hockey team, and I got the assignment. The only good photos I took were with my 17-35 during the 30 minute pregame ceremonies.

When chimping, the league photographer really liked this photo...

but I handed this one in instead. I was worried our presses wouldn't like all the black, and I liked the light in the upper left of this version more than in the first one.

Unlikely Assistant

2007-10-02T13:48:00.000-05:00

My dad was in town last Thursday, so he helped me do a portrait before we grabbed dinner.

If you're wondering, he's holding a PocketWizard hooked up to two Nikon SB-800's for some fill light.

The Hot Seat

2007-09-29T11:14:00.001-05:00

With Nebraska's defense in the tank, our assistant sports editor wanted to do something with an "on the hot seat" theme. He asked if we could light a chair on fire.

"You have no idea what you can do with rubber cement" was my response.

Photo Day

2007-09-27T10:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Nebraska men's basketball photo day. Jill helped out with my complicated setups, so I took another photo of her for the blog.

I'll have more to post from this exercise after it runs.

The Holiest of Holies

2007-09-25T17:11:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago, we needed some new shots of Memorial Stadium, the most revered place in the state of Nebraska.

It's Been Awhile

2007-09-25T17:08:00.001-05:00

I shot high school football the last two weeks for the first time in about four years. Once with my regular still kit, once with our Sony HD camera, and pulled stills. I like the still kit better for sports action.

USC vs Nebraska

2007-09-17T18:10:00.001-05:00

I tried to upload a video, but it didn't work. So if you'd like to see a time-lapse video of the USC vs Nebraska game, go to image 10 on my sportsshooter page.

Just click here.

Nebraska sunset

2007-09-13T19:41:00.000-05:00

I was out scouting a location on Monday night with Jill, and this was the sunset we were treated to. Not bad following a couple days of rain.

Chuck D

2007-09-13T11:47:00.001-05:00

Chuck D, founder of the rap group Public Enemy, spoke in town last night. The lighting in the auditorium was horrible, so I put a strobe on a speaker on stage, and put Chuck between me and the strobe.

The only problem was I took this photo after deadline. The speech started about an hour late, so I shot the first ten minutes and ran to my car to transmit an image. Since I had a couple hours to kill afterwards (I wasn't going to go up on stage in the middle of his speech to retrieve my PocketWizard and flash), I kept shooting occasionally, and came up with this.

My past two weeks

2007-09-09T16:45:00.000-05:00

I spent the last two weeks working on a portrait series of women of power in the state of Nebraska. The idea was to run them all in black and white, and to do something that set them apart from all the other environmental portraits we do.

They ran as you see them in the paper. How did they run online? Mugshots.

Julie Schmidt-Albin. Director, Nebraska Right to Life.

Laurie Smith Camp. Federal Judge.

Linda Pratt. Executive VP and Provost, University of Nebraska.

Lauren Hill. Policy Director for Gov. Dave Heineman.

Brenda Council. Attorney.

Kim Robak. Lobbyist, former Lieutenant Governor.

Miss Jill

2007-08-27T11:04:00.000-05:00

Jill was this morning's assistant, so she sat for a portrait, just like William's.

It's that time again

2007-08-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

Volleyball season starts tonight, and the defending national champion Nebraska Huskers are pretty loaded. They have five All-Americans returning, including the last two national players of the year. From left, Tracy Stalls, Jordan Larson, Sarah Pavan, Christina Houghtelling and Rachel Holloway.

Thanks to Jill for keeping me calm on this shoot, as the first two ideas wouldn't work and I was on the verge of pulling hair out.

Light test

2007-08-21T18:21:00.001-05:00

I'm starting a new portrait series tomorrow. William Lauer was nice enough to pose for a test before I went out and photographed the actual subjects.

You can see William's photo journal here.

I scream, you scream

2007-08-21T18:17:00.000-05:00

That is Pistachio Turkish Delight and Cherry Chip ice cream at Ivana Cone here in Lincoln. And they make their own waffle cones too.

My personal favorite flavor of theirs is Smores.

The SLR is at home

2007-08-10T01:48:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the slow updates. I'm in the middle of a two week vacation in Phoenix. I'll be back in Lincoln on Monday.

I did conquer Camelback Mountain a few days ago.

Lots and lots of rain

2007-07-31T23:58:00.001-05:00

Tonight, my parents' house got the most rain they said they've had since they moved here. Here, their next door neighbor takes a photo of the flooded wash behind the house.

Good luck

2007-07-29T22:55:00.000-05:00

Good luck Krista at your new gig in Tucson...we'll miss you in Lincoln.

OOTO

2007-07-29T22:53:00.001-05:00

Sorry for not having many updates lately...it's the summer, and I'm on vacation. Here's my dog Eddie sleeping with his ball in his mouth after a long game today.

There's a first time for everything

2007-07-23T09:08:00.001-05:00

I shot my first portrait for Sports Illustrated on Saturday. A "Faces In The Crowd" mugshot counts as a "portrait," right?

A Casualty

2007-07-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

In this post a couple weeks ago, Trent Nelson commented that mounted to a bike was a great place for a Nikon. Damn you Trent Nelson!

This camera and lens were mounted on a reporter's (Jeff Korbelik, for all you locals) handlebars as he rode the 50+ miles of trails in Lincoln last Friday. The rig was great on Friday, but he went back out on Saturday to get some extra details. I guess he shouldn't have been greedy, because here's what happened to the stud after the extra vibrations:

And here's the camera:

Jeff said it literally bounced into the street, and a couple cars had to swerve to avoid running it over. The lens is in three pieces, and the mirror broke out of the D2H.

He also said he was sick to his stomach for two days thinking that he had broken my personal gear (it has stickers with my name and phone number on it). He was thinking of payment plans to reimburse me. He was hoping I had insurance. In the end, it's company gear. And now we have a huge unexpected expense to cover with our budget.

A long shot

2007-07-14T10:20:00.000-05:00

Here's an illustration I played around with about weighing the benefits of letting your kids watch TV when they are young. That's The Sopranos on the left and Clifford on the right.

It didn't run, but the Sopranos frame is from "College," one of my favorite episodes from the series. So I got to watch that for an hour.

Unbelievable

2007-07-07T12:39:00.000-05:00

I covered an assignment today, and this is how one of the TV cameramen showed up to cover it. Guess what the assignment was.

If the flags in the background didn't give it away, it's a funeral. For a soldier. Who was killed in Iraq by an IED. Who was 19.

I'd like to make a joke about the camo shorts, but I'm sorry, I can't.

Yes, it's a Saturday and is 95 degrees out, but I can't believe that somebody would dress this way and think it was no big deal. I can't believe that if he had no advance warning he was covering a funeral that he wouldn't go home and put on some different clothes. I can't believe that an assignment editor or somebody else at his TV station didn't tell him to put something else on.

Yes, he is carrying a TV camera which separates him from those of us carring Nikons and Canons. But sadly, the public doesn't make that distinction. They just see cameras and think "media." And they see people like this and I cannot blame them for thinking that we're all a bunch of slobs.

Getting my "culture"

2007-07-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

How can you make a city of about 250,000 smell like an indoor gun range?

Just put "July 4" on everybody's calendar in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I went out with Jill Peitzmeier to photograph the fireworks for the newspaper (the above photo has a joint credit), and we went to a hill that overlooks the city. About 500 people joined us, and most of them were shooting off fireworks. Everybody in my neighborhood was shooting them off. If you look closely, you can see about 20 fireworks in the background going off. And this was only six seconds of last night.

There was literally a haze over the entire city driving home.

On the bright side, there was so much smoke, you didn't need to use bug spray.

Happy 4th

2007-07-04T20:28:00.000-05:00

Remember all those food illustrations I talked about a few weeks ago? Here's another, just in time for Independence Day. The day. Not the movie.

Wheat Harvest

2007-07-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

I photographed two brothers harvesting wheat today. An old editor of mine would say, "so, you toned it in black and white...does that mean you shoot photos to run inside the paper instead of out front?"

The answer is "no," but with the great looking sky today, playing around in PhotoShop's channel mixer really made for a nice computer desktop photo.

A follow-up

2007-07-03T12:04:00.000-05:00

Some of you might remember a soldier's funeral that I covered in January. The link is here.

A couple weeks ago, the writer for that story, Don Walton, and I drove to Verdon, Nebraska to visit with the family of Jacob Fritz, who was killed in Iraq. We'd been hoping to spend some time with them ever since we drove home from the funeral. Selfishly, I wanted to personally thank them for letting cameras into the service, which is very rare. I wanted to tell them that it was the most touching thing I had ever had the privledge to cover in my time in photojournalism. I'm very thankful I got to let them know how I felt.

When we met them on their farm, I left my camera in my car for a little while. And the first pictures I took were of one of their cats playing around at my feet. Noala, the mom, showed me a memorial to Jacob that was along their fence. She said on Memorial Day, somebody left a single red rose, and they have no idea where it came from.

We sat around and had dinner, and I took a few photos here and there. And then I set up outside for a portrait as the sun was going down.

We ended up staying until about 11 that night, with the onset of yawns being the only reason we decided to start the 90 minute drive home. They thanked us for coming down, and we thanked them for sharing their story with us. They also said that if we're ever in the area to stop by and say hello. I think if I'm ever within 30 miles of Verdon, I'll make a detour.

To read Don's story, click here.

To see the full gallery, click here.

Friends

2007-07-03T11:50:00.001-05:00

I'm the kind of person who, when I make attempts to be kind to others, I like to have my overtures appreciated, if not at least acknowledged.

Which is why I am afraid that I will never be friends with this dog:

The new toy

2007-07-03T11:39:00.001-05:00

I got to use my new bike as a camera platform last Friday, as I photographed Jewel Noll ride her bike home on Lincoln's horrible bike lanes. My initial idea was to mount the camera to her handlebars so she would be dominant in the frame, but that meant you couldn't see traffic or her surroundings as well. So after spending the day troubleshooting, I went with this setup:

It consisted of two Bogen SuperClamps and MagicArms, with my 12-24mm lens set on 12. I put the camera on Aperture priority at f/22 to get a slower shutter speed, which would hopefully make the cars blurry. And here's the final result:

I really wish she had been closer to me, or that I hadn't set the lens to its widest setting. I also wish the photo had run about three columns wide, so people could have actually seen what was going on in the image.

Decisions, decisions

2007-06-27T15:55:00.000-05:00

I made a point to photography the Nebraska-Texas game last season for one reason: to see Kevin Durant play.

The NBA draft is tomorrow night. Will he go to Portland or Seattle?

Another portrait

2007-06-24T20:30:00.000-05:00

Dr. David Crouse, Associate Vice Chancellor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

I actually picked this location from a PDF map of the campus on their website. I thought the background looked like the South Portico of the White House.

Portrait time

2007-06-21T09:53:00.000-05:00

David Arnold, the biggest Royals fan I know, this one's for you.

Dan Reichert, who spent five years pitching for the Royals, is now pitching for the Lincoln Saltdogs, an independent league team here in town.

**UPDATE**
I've had a few people ask me how I did this shot...the first idea is that it's a mesh of two photos (a shot of Reichert on the mound and then a shot of the baseballs). It's not...it's just one photo. If I did this in PhotoShop, I would have found an angle that didn't include the power and light poles.

At the baseball stadium here in town, there is a circle drive where people can be dropped off and picked up. And the barricades are these concrete spheres that are painted like baseballs. So I asked the subject to stand on top of one, and I started shooting. He picked up his leg like he was in his windup, and he asked "does this look better?"

Yes, it did look better. A lot better.

The Photo Q

2007-06-20T09:27:00.000-05:00

Last week, I had a correction run in the paper. I was at an assignment, and assumed a fact on my assignment sheet was correct, and I put it in the cutline. The "fact" wasn't a fact. So as my punishment, I had to do our weekly Photo Question.

The Photo Question, or Photo Q, is a collection of six "man on the street" interviews that runs every Saturday. The city desk will come up with a question that relates to some kind of current event, and the photo department fills the space. Usually we have three people just find two people for answers, but if you have a correction make the paper, you have to do all six.

Lucky for me, when somebody has to do six, somebody on staff will usually offer to help. So thanks go to Jill Peitzmeier for the assist on this one.