Brutal

On Friday, July 25th I started a project on the brutality of the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. I decided to do produce a video and as of right now I have big aspirations for it. I captured a ton of footage from the fight and still need to do a number of interviews. The project is slated to go live on Sunday, August 10th so it will be a while till I post the video up here but for now, consider this a taste of things to come...

Marlboro Man

For the past couple of nights I have been covering the Snake River Stampede Rodeo in Nampa. I took this shot outside the arena and thought it was worth sharing. I mean c'mon, who doesn't like a photo of a cowboy riding into the sunset?

More Than a Feeling

I made it. At times I had my doubts, but I survived.

I typically look forward to the 4th of July with a certain degree of apathy only because I am often asked to spend hours in the hot summer sun shooting seemingly endless parades and patriotic fanfare. Like many of you, I enjoy the cliche American amusements like hotdogs, fireworks and fried food, however, attempting to document people participating in these patriotic activities every year tends to change your perspective.


But I digress... I only share this to put into context my complete satisfaction with not having to think about another parade till next summer.

Now the train rolls on and it's time to start thinking about football season and of course, more rodeos.

This last week I had the opportunity to cover a concert of the band Boston. Many of you more than likely remember their songs, but chances are you don't remember any of the band members. The original band has dissolved and reformed so many times that only one original member remains; Guitarist Tom Scholz. It almost feels as though you are watching a professional cover band, even though you're paying $50 per ticket, go figure.


These other photos are just a few random pics from the past few days.



Enjoy!

Summer Days

It's no Winter, but there are things I love about Summer.

For starters, the obvious. The weather is warm and the sun is out for longer than I am typically awake. You can't beat Boise in the Summer simply because the sun shines for almost three months straight and there is little to no humidity, unlike the unforgiving jungle of the midwest from which I hail.

Now obviously Summer means different things to different people, but to me it means baseball, beer and bratwurst. Here in Boise (and throughout much of the Northwest) baseball takes a back seat to a variety of other outdoor activities but for those who crave the game, there is a solution...

The Boise Hawks are a Single-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs and although they are not the real thing, (not even close, really) they are good enough for me. Their season is only about two months long and they rarely have more than 2,000 fans in the stands yet I jump any chance I get to catch a game.

Maybe it's the intimate setting with the great view of the mountains, maybe it's the sights and sounds of the ball game, or maybe it's the tacky promotions and cheap beer. Whatever it is, I like it.

Leftovers

So for the past week or two I have been stuck in a rut. I had a string of a month or so were I felt like I was coming away from every assignment with something special and for whatever reason my luck has run out. I guess this is just a part of life and soon enough things will turn around but for now I'm stuck spinning my wheels.

Here are a couple shots from the past month or so that I never published. Check 'em out...

Moving into the 21st Century

My paper has now made a considerable effort to up our multimedia production over the course of the past couple of weeks (as you may have already noticed by the number of slideshows on here).

So I have finally swallowed my pride and picked up the video camera to produce my own videos. Here are my first two attempts.

This is a test

The other day I was driving through downtown when I saw a sign that advertised gas for less than two dollars. Unfortunately the station that was backing this advertisement had been closed for years, but at that moment I had an epiphany. I thought it'd be cool to try and find as many of these old run down stations and photograph them in order to document this strange period in American history. We'll see how it goes...


On an unrelated note, Thursday evening there was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Nampa! Not a real quake of course, but two of the local hospitals simulated such an event in order to practice their evacuation strategies. I made a slideshow from the whole sha-bang. Unfortunately the idea to produce this slideshow came to me a little late and so the quality is less than great but check it out here.