Yesterday I headed for Leavenworth and to the downhill ski area where they were planning on opening up the runs. I got there too early for the opening - about five hours too early - but thankfully workers were there getting the place ready.

I was shooting photographs of a groomer working on the tubing run when I spotted Jerrid walking along carrying all of these tubes. With Steph’s reaction, I could have left then and there.

But I hung around some, getting pictures of the Bakke ski jump on the hillside, then Steph blowing up tubes. Her head was barely seen through the hole in one of the tubes on the first try, but after watching her blow up a half dozen more tubes, she happened to turn perfectly with the tube and I captured this image.

I conferred with fellow photographer Mike Bonnicksen and he thought the cleaner background of the Michelin Man look was the better read.   

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This is one of those assignments that I really don’t look forward to. Photographs of people shopping is a hassle. And it isn’t because of the shoppers, it’s because of the shops. It has gotten to where businesses don’t want photographers in their stores during rush times. I think they are afraid of pictures showing massive people fighting for their goods.

Well I headed to Shopko, one of the last stores that I could talk into letting me in but the manager said “no,” she had gotten e-mails from the corporate offices saying no media inside the store.

I headed to Home Depot thinking that store or Lowe’s might be good as they usually carry large decorations and I had in mind a shopper leaving the store struggling with something big.

Well I was blessed again because as I left my car, heading into the store to try to convince a manager I wouldn’t do any harm to them, I saw these two men with their carts filled with Christmas decorations.

That’s a great feeling - when I think there is little hope and the situation turns into a good photograph.

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I’ve been by Deryl Nickles’ VW shop many times thinking it might make a good story. Yesterday Deryl was sitting outside drinking coffee so I thought it providence I should stop.

He was a great subject for photographs as I shot about 250 photographs of him as he worked on a van in his shop and I collected audio as he talked about his job and his passion for old Volkswagen cars. It all made for what I think is an interesting audio slideshow published on our web site.

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It’s not too often when a photographer is sent to cover an official’s visit to Wenatchee. I know there will be limited opportunities of interesting or valuable photographs. So it was a challenge following Sen. Maria Cantwell and local officials around Rocky Reach Dam on a tour last Monday. I thought this picture told the story I saw most of the time with local people getting the Senator’s attention during stops along the tour. And I thought the map of NCW in the background helped the picture too.

But the problem as you can see is that you can’t see Sen. Cantwell’s face in the photograph. Because of this, the picture moves to a secondary position on the page - but we lacked the room to run it.

I did like the photograph we used because she looks out of place in her safety equipment compared with her suit - an odd site that seemed to be the norm during the tour.

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It was a slow night Tuesday and I decided to drive around town searching for stand alone photographs, what we call pictures that don’t have a specific story that runs with them but rather a caption. I’m usually looking for people doing something, or animals doing something, or patterns, or just about anything out of the ordinary.

When I drove past Travis Opel’s house on Northeast 3rd Street, it looked like he was getting fish ready to dry on top of a smoker. Something interesting… but what the photographer in me saw was spectacular light. I turned around, introduced myself, and noticed the hide he was working on over his garbage tote. Better than fish, even better light because it was twilight and I’d get a hint of dark blue in the sky in the background.

I was pretty happy with the result in today’s paper.

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I spent most of my time at the new section of trail south of Horse Lake Road photographing volunteers clearing brush and then saw David Dunnell as he was removing a portion of barbed wire fencing. It was clear to me that this was the story-telling image I was after. It was David “tearing down the wall” that separated available land from land that was once off limits.

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I was actually trying to get a picture of Brownies Megan Shermer, 7, and Kasia Havlicek, 7, with the American flag just above their eyes and it was a big surprise to me when I could see their faces through the flag in this image taken in the American Legion Post 10 Veteran’s Day Parade Sunday in Wenatchee.

I was also pretty happy with the audio I was able to capture and use in the slideshow on the parade. I knew I wanted the traditional 21-gun-salute and taps audio but following the color guard after that part of the parade, the veteran barking out instructions gave the show an additional voice.

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Speaking of nice lighting conditions (see previous blog), all photographers who normally have to shoot sports action in the dim of small gymnasiums or at night under inadequate floodlights, get pretty excited about a daylight football game. So it was with me for a few quarters while the sun was out in Cashmere on Saturday for the Bulldog football game.

I thought this would be a nice picture when I saw it happen and I was happy to put it in the slide show. But the more I thought about it, the more I considered putting it in the paper.

With Cashmere not having the blowout victory they started out having and the game finished two days from our publication, I decided on this picture because of it’s uniqueness and timelessness.

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On Friday i traveled to Yakima to cover the Chelan and Manson volleyball teams at the state tournament. It slips my mind over the summer months but shooting pictures at state tournaments is very different from local matches.

The good change is that lighting in state tournament sites is usually much brighter and so I can shoot at higher shutter speeds. But the huge downside is the restrictions the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association puts on news photographers.

At the volleyball match, news photographers were only permitted to sit or stand either behind the service line or behind the players along the side lines, and then only as close as ten feet from the net. A normal position throughout the season for me - so I can get reaction from the bench and photographs of players from the front side - is to be at the net behind the referee. But at the state level, that position was given exclusively to a contract photographer who sells images to players.

Some other examples:

Wrestling - In some matches you can sit anywhere around the mat but at others, you can only sit on one of two sides - depending on the official at the match.

Basketball - The normally open and best shooting locations near the corners of the floor are given to sponsors of the team and non-working referees who watch the game.

Football - Sidelines are only open for shooting from about the 30-yard-line to the end zones while during regular season games the run of the sideline is open.

Baseball/softball - A box is drawn for the photographer to sit or stand while during regular season games, a photographer can shoot from a team’s dugout or anywhere past the first or third base line.

It is all very frustrating.

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Election night photography - it’s a challenging prospect trying to find an interesting picture that tells a story and shows how candidates are handling the news of their victory or defeat. And because political candidates are very aware of a camera recording their every expression, finding them being real people can be pretty tough.

The first step is to be where they are and this sent me to Chelan after covering the soccer match earlier in the day. I showed up at council candidate Mike Cooney’s restaurant where he, mayoral candidate Scott McKellar, and council candidate Stan Morse were having a party with their supporters. They called it a thank-you party but everyone there hoped it would turn out to be a celebration. I camped out around McKellar and the laptop computer where they were planning on getting the results because “the moment” that night would be when a candidate finds out how they did with the votes. Problem came that the web site with the results was slower than anticipated.

But Morse said he would call someone and when he returned with a slip of paper, I hung around him as McKellar and his campaign manager met away from the crowd of supporters, near the restrooms, to find out how he did. The moment had arrived and by the expression of McKellar’s face I knew it wasn’t good for him. The picture says it well I think. But the look on his face was there for just a fraction of time. As he returned to the crowd, a nervous smile shown with a hope for a comeback win.

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