Canyon County Fair

Today’s Monday, and I am probably one of the few people who are thankful for it. The past few days have been long and hot, and I am pretty happy to have them behind me.

The Canyon County Fair rolled through town this weekend on the heals of the busiest weekend in Nampa. Like most fairs, the Canyon County Fair had a variety of people to see, things to eat, and crappy rides to ride. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t there to enjoy the sights and sounds, I was there to work, for four days straight. As the days passed by, my motivation began to slip in similar fashion. I returned each day to find that the events had remained the same along with the faces of the fair-goers.

I managed to survive and escape with a few photos worth posting, so take a look!




As for me I will be heading up to Moscow this weekend to see my newborn nephew who was welcomed into the world last Sunday night. Check back in a few days for more…

Snake River Dayz

Well ten days have passed since my last post and again, lots of action. The week following my previous post was the start of roughly two weeks of rodeo, and rodeo related community events, known to locals as the Snake River Dayz.

There were plenty of events which kept me busier than usual and instead of going into great detail about all I will just share a couple of shots from the rodeo that I liked.





I am particularly proud of the image of the gentleman on the horse in the American Flag shirt – not because it’s a great photo, but rather because it is the governor of this great state which I now call home. I can’t think of any other place that I have lived where the governor would so boldly express his love for all things red, white and blue. God Bless America!

If you’d like to see the multimedia presentations I created at a few of the events from this past week you can view them at this address…

http://www.idahopress.com/multimedia/

Just click on the drop down menu that says “Multimedia Library”.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Day Under the Hot Summer Sun

Well as I do every Thursday, I shouldered the camera bag and returned to work after an especially hot and somewhat boring couple of days off.

In similar fashion as Thursday’s past I was confronted by only a few assignments so I decided to head out in search of something wild ‘n crazy to shoot before my 7:15 AAA baseball game in Boise. After cruising the usual spots – the parks, the sand volleyball courts, the pools and the bike trails – I didn’t find anything that captured my interest.

After striking out in Nampa I decided to take the “scenic route” to the game, passing through Middleton and Star, Idaho. By the time I navigated through the countless orange barrels lining the seemingly endless miles of road construction it was about 10 in front of 7 and I had to admit defeat and abandon the feature hunt. Or so I thought…

As I drove into the small town of Middleton I saw an older gentleman sitting in a rascal scooter in front of the senior center who was waiving to every car that passed. I drove by and waved and then very quickly took a second look to notice that he had what looked to be an authentic Idaho license plate with the word JESUS spelled out in big black text. Immediately I pulled a U-Turn and passed by him again to get a third look. He waived again, not taking notice in the fact that I had just waived passing in the opposite direction. I hopped out of the car and talked with him for a few minutes and quickly realized that he was a devout Christian, who’d-a-thought? As we talked he continued to wave, not missing a single car that passed. Clearly he was comfortable enough with me being there so I asked his permission to take his picture and proceeded to fire off a hand-full of frames. I was so excited to have stumbled upon this guy that I actually forgot to focus on a few of the frames. I shook his hand, thanked him for his time and continued on my way to Boise.


I rolled up to Memorial Stadium, home of the Boise Hawks, shortly after the first pitch had been tossed – Gotta love media parking. It was another wonderful evening, perfect for a game. I’d have to say that of all the sports I shoot with any regularity, baseball is probably my favorite. Especially college and minor league baseball.

I worked to get a couple of solid action shots and after the infield was enveloped in shadows I spent another half an inning trying to make a few photos that played off the long shadows. Nothing all that spectacular but I thought it would be worth posting.


Now it’s Friday, Friday the 13th to be exact, and the days of slow to no news are a thing of the past as the Snake River Stampede rolls into town. I’m told that it’s THE rodeo of all rodeos, at least in the state of Idaho. There are all sorts of festivities that run throughout the weekend leading up to the first of five days of rodeo on Tuesday, July 17th.

So I guess take a look back after a few days and see if I’ve survived the Stampede. As always thanks for stopping by!

Update! Update!

After a month long absence, I’ve decided to get back to the blog and make an attempt at posting something new and interesting, partly because I know some may be sick of seeing the photos I published over a month ago, and partly because I finally have taken something that I think is worth putting up online.

Before I talk about the new work I want to just briefly bore you with a short preamble regarding the past months endeavors.

I am sometimes amazed at how quickly time can fly, here it is the middle of July and I can’t help but wonder what happened in to the month of June. As you may or may not recall, May was a bit on the busy side for me, and for reasons still unknown, June seemed to be the polar opposite. Days without assignments became more and more common and quickly I found myself longing for the days of back-to-back assignments, which I came to expect during the month of May.

Outside work I continued to attempt to fill my free time with something fun, most notably a failed attempt at adopting a dog - which I even came up with a name for, before realizing that my lease doesn’t even permit me to have a cat.

I’ve extended my circle of friends by a few after getting to know the employees of the local coffee shop, where I seem to spend almost all of my money as well as most of my free time.

Other than that things have been pretty stable. I eat, sleep every once and a while, read when I can, and go to work most times in between.

As for work, I’ve spent the past week or so really working at developing photo slideshows accompanied by audio. I’ve made two attempts, one which was a disaster at best, and the second, a mild success. The amount that I have learned in only a couple of attempts has been incredible, however, I am also coming to the realization that gathering, edited and presenting audio along with stills is tremendously complex… Complex but exciting.

The two images that I have posted below aren’t really anything to write home about but I thought they were interesting enough to share. The second was actually taken in an indoor rodeo arena and this gentleman on the horse happened to walk in front of an open garage door. I saw the opportunity for a cool silhouette and when he walked by again I fired off a few frames. I kind of wish the background wasn’t so distracting but oh well.


So that’s that. Thanks for stopping by to take a look. Hopefully I’ll be able to start turning out some more photos so I can post more often. Until then, take’r easy!

The Weeks That Were...

As the mercury continues to rise into the 100’s, the weeks continue to fly by, leaving me with only moments here and there to sit for a bit a catch my breath.

The final two weeks of May absolutely flew, beginning with a daunting schedule of High School graduations and ending with a few Memorial Day ceremonies stretched out over the Memorial Day weekend.

While many were out enjoying the three day weekend at a nearby campsite or a favorite swimming hole, I was logging around 100 miles-a-day, driving from cemetery to cemetery, respectfully documenting the ceremonies meant to recognize the reason for which we all get three days off at the end of May.



After surviving the weekend I was rewarded with a three day weekend of my own, and since my 23rd birthday happened to be on the 31st of May I decided to take the time off to explore south central Idaho with a couple of days of Mountain Biking.



Time off almost always gives me a chance to recharge my batteries, and after spending three days in the foothills of south central Idaho with little to no human contact, I was ready to get back to work.

The week or so since, like any week, has had its ups and downs. I’ve had a few tough assignments and a few real jems. I rounded out the first week of June with a community festival in Star, Idaho and a Ben Folds and John Mayer concert on Sunday, June 3rd. Ben Folds was spectacular and John Mayer, well lets just say he was marginally entertaining.




So that’s it. The past few weeks have been busy, and if I could have it my way, I’d hope that the next two will be much the same.

As always, thanks for taking the time to stop by and check in! If you feel the need to comment please go right ahead… Feedback is always greatly appreciated!

Something New

As the mercury has continued to rise here in southwest Idaho, I’ve begun to realize that I am in for a very long, very hot summer. Last week the temperature reached a staggering 90 degrees, causing me to sweat it out in my south-facing, second story apartment. With the dramatic change in weather I have also been suffering from tremendous seasonal allergies which have made my days and nights much more miserable.

On a more light-hearted note; one transition that comes with the changing of seasons are all of the prep and collegiate activities which conspire. It’s funny, in the past week as well as in the weeks to come, I will have witnessed some of the more memorable moments that young adults experience before the age of 23. For example, next week I will shoot somewhere around ten high school, charter school and home school graduations, and in the past week I have covered a variety of Prep State Championships in events like track, softball, baseball, and tennis (almost all in one day), and the pinnacle of all of these events of course being college graduations, which took place last week. I’ve been exposed to some really wonderful stories that have really made me feel fortunate to be in the business I am in.

On Saturday afternoon I covered the Class 4A Boy’s Baseball Championship game, which featured a team from Nampa who made the title game this year in its first year as a school. They faced off against a team which from the opening inning was clearly more athletic as they put up five runs in the first inning and showed no signs of slowing down. It quickly became apparent that the Nampa team was in for a long game, however, they continued to pick away at the lead and in the final inning staged a dramatic comeback, scoring five runs with two outs and going on to win by a final score of 10-9. I’m still waiting for Disney to purchase the rights on that story. Feel-good kind of stuff you know.


So one final story… I was returning home from the grocery this morning and as I approached my apartment I noticed a thick plum of dark smoke rising from what appeared to by the general area of my building. As I got closer I realized that it was not my apartment that was on fire, but rather the old abandoned house behind my apartment. Turns out the fire department was letting this old place burn to the ground and there was really no inherent danger, so I pulled out my camera and made a couple photos. Pretty nice when spot news pops up in your back yard.


So I guess that’s really all I’ve got for this post. I apologize for the length and for the future I’ll try and keep it short.

Thanks for stopping by!

Return from Indolence

So it’s been about forever and a day since I have posted anything and after taking the time off I have come up with a few endeavors that may be worth writing about. But first I want to share a photo that I am pretty jazzed about…


I took this on the return trip from my second weekend in Moscow, outside an Idaho gem called “Placerville”. (Real creative name I know. Probably named by the same people who came up with Idahome, Idaho City and Slickpoo.) One additional thing worth mentioning about that trip, besides the unusual cities through which I passed, was the free, yes, FREE performance I went to by the Legendary Roots Crew. Great show, no pictures… Sorry.

In the past week and a half I have worked since returning from Moscow I have covered a variety of events, which by in large have been interesting assignments. Vague I know, but there is really no other way to wrap up two weeks shooting everything from high school baseball and golf, to spot news like car crashes and homicides, to general "news" like art competitions, cat shows and graduations. (Yes, all within the last couple of weeks!)

Here are just a couple photos that I took since my last post that I happen to like.



So before I close down this post I just wanted to apologize to all of my faithful readers for taking such an extended hiatus from the blog. Surprisingly enough things have really begun to pick up for me and instead of punching the keys, lately I have been out riding on the trails or paddling down the river. After all it is almost 90 degrees here and in the words of the great Ron Burgundy… “When in Rome”. Or wait, that doesn’t really apply here…

So as always, thanks for stopping by, and please look forward to the next edition!