Ups and Downs

I still hate parades, but they do have the potential to produce some interesting photos. I was pretty happy with this one today, with a little cowboy trying to help decorate his 4-H float.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, especially this week, where I've been bouncing around a five-county area running down photos. I even got to write a little story Tuesday at a wind farm. It was actually super stressful pulling double duty. I didn't know anything about this wind farm, the people involved or all the legal hoopla behind it. Fortunately it had all been covered pretty well by the paper in the past, so all they really needed was a basic story about the grand opening of the place. Stressful, yes, but the good kind of stressful. A job-well-done, you-earned-your-paycheck-today kind of stressful. Good times.

New Year, New Attitude

(01/10/09-I had this in my blogger drafts and totally forgot to publish it. Oops!)
I'll admit I wasn't my jolliest this morning when I rolled into work at 8 a.m. after a night of New Year's Eve revelry. Shooting people swimming 60 laps at a pool wasn't on my list of new year's resolutions. Acting like my photos are better than they really are, however, is on my list. So I give you the greatest photo you've ever seen (this year (from me)):

I also got the chance to shoot the first baby of the year. Though I'd happily avoided it every year so far, I got oddly excited this year when I found out I was doing it. I wanted to go all out. You know, make it a spectacle. A Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, People Magazine kind of spectacle. It would amuse me.

Of course it turned out nothing like that. The mother was slightly reluctant to be photographed to begin with, and after I dragged a bag of lighting equipment through the hospital, the soft natural window light ended up feeling far more appropriate. I though this photo, with the mother and her too older daughters around the baby, turned out sweet.