On my drive up the mountain to where a prescribed burn was planned, I was trying to come up with a way to show both sides of Irma in one photograph - the “girly-girl” side and the rugged forest service employee.

At first I concentrated on her hair coming out the back of her helmet, not noticing the earrings. But listening to reporter Rachel Schleif talk to another woman on the crew I heard them talk about earring sizes and how they had to be small.

Glancing toward Irma I saw the small earring shining from her ear and knew what needed to be in the main photo. It was a matter of waiting for the right moment with the fire in the background to show the difference between girly-girl and firefighter I was looking for.

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We were running a story about a predicted wet winter and I had sent photographer Kathryn Stevens to the upper valley to photograph snow in the mountains the afternoon before the story would run.

As it turned out, we had reports of snow fall in the morning of publication and because Kathryn was working late and couldn’t shoot it herself, I headed out to find a photograph with snow in it. Someone at the office mentioned snow at their house in the Forest Ridge development so I diverted from my original plan to go to Blewett Pass, opting for a quicker trip and one that might produce a more personal image at the houses toward Mission Ridge.

I was fortunate to spot Rita Rupert looking for her dog and photographed her while she called for him. I knew the blank wall of the house would create a good background for the snow and again was fortunate Rita looked up at the falling snow.I have a love-hate relationship with deadlines. I love it when I can make a deadline with a good, story-telling image - but I hate the pressure of trying to find that picture within a short amount of time.

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Driving to Leavenworth to cover the Octoberfest Marathon, I tried to think of what photograph I could make that would distinguish this race from all the others we have covered throughout the year.

When I got to the start at the fish hatchery, I knew that the fall leaves would need to play an important part in the picture. I also noticed some of the participants dressed in Bavarian themed clothing and hoped that i could include that in the picture as it seemed to be less of a serious competition and more of a fun event.

I drove ahead of the starting line, into the Icicle canyon looking for a good location and came up with this spot about a mile from the start. I tried a few test frames with a slow shutter speed to blur the color in the leaves and show speed in the image of the racers going by.It was just a matter of waiting after I had decided on the camera settings, and fortunately, one of the appropriately dressed runners came by close to my camera as I panned the scene.

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I pretty much knew this was the photograph I wanted to get when I read a press release about the oil spill drill on the Columbia River. Dumping apples into the river to represent oil would be unusual and newsworthy.

With the help of several Chelan County PUD employees, reporter Christine Pratt and I were able to ride in a PUD boat to the scene of the dumping, then follow Casey and Dave Rogers as they went along the Douglas County shoreline in their small boat loaded with apples.

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