Cheerleader

The college of Southern Idaho has 10 male and 10 female cheerleaders currently. The guys do all this really cool tumbling while the girls just kinda stand there. It's a really weird situation they have over there whereas I'm so used to almost no guys and girls tumbling this way and that as I almost get kicked.

Haunted?

Got to cover a possible haunting at an old school (now a museum) near Twin Falls. Shooting was tough but it was a fun assignment. I mean who else gets to go to haunted building legally and get paid?

H1N1

I'm sure many of us are shooting this story this year. Here's what I got. Hindsight tells me I should have worked the moments a little more after I saw what Djamilia Grossman captured with her work. Be sure to check out her blog. (on my blog roll)

Albion Grounds

Wow, this little adventure scared the hell out of me. I didn't even know this woman was real until I started shooting her. Now I've shot haunted mazes/buildings before but I've always gotten there early and eased my way into the old pagan culture of demons and ghosts. Usually it's cracking jokes with the werewolf before the show starts while sitting at one location and working the living daylights out of it. This time around I went with the reporter (and her husband) and while she wanted to go through as a participate I tried to capture as much of the atmosphere as I could while I was screaming, crawling and even getting tagged in the groin by a ghoul. As they say, a new twist on an old story.

Faceless Football

This isn't the ideal image for print but I liked the gritty rawness of the scene, the attempt at the strip and the power of the running game. Sums up high school football with two faceless players grinding it out.

Lights Out, Camera On, Be Still!

I felt the urge to take a couple of shots tonight and this is what I came up with. Thanks Djamila for giving me the idea. The first one are Buhl, Idaho's town lights that I shot while jiggling the camera. 3 sec. f5, 1600 ISO, 50 mm. The second is an old chili plant I found. Odd, I know.

ICON

This is a 13th century icon in the Russian Orthodox Church. Told to be one of the most sacred ones too. It was really cool to feel the energy of close to 100 people pouring into a small room to kiss the Mother of God icon and I'm glad I could be a part of it as it reaches through history on it's way to SLC for a spell.

JubO!

I've been shooting more and more of CSI Volleyball lately which is good for me. I think if you can shoot volleyball you can shoot anything. I know that's pretty general but the hand-eye it takes for this sport surpasses any that I've shot so far.

Soccer Battle

Cold as hell but fun to boot. Soccer is always fun to shoot.

Multi-Purpose Bridge

The Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls does a hell of a lot more than just allow traffic to cross the canyon. Home to hundreds of BASE jumpers each year it now offers a location for hope and suicide prevention events. Once again I was cursing my gear in low-light but as I've always said it's not your gear, it's what's behind it.

Sidelines of Past

This was one of those weeks where all the good teams played the bad teams. Looking at the score box almost every game was a blowout. Including the one I covered. This game made me look back on my experience with high school football dating back 12 years when I first started covering these games as a high school student myself. The memory that stuck out the most was when I met Post Register (former) staffer Randy Hayes. He had his F5 out with a 300 and an SB-28 speedlite. He popped a new roll of 1600 in and fresh batteries and fired off five frames in a second. That's when I knew I wanted to shoot sports. Twelve years later there I was on a HS sideline with a D1H, a 300 and an SB-800 speedlite. Very little had changed yet so much has in the last 12 years.

Footnote: The reason I bring up this story now is that I haven't shot a football game with flash in years due to using terrific newer Canon gear.

Colon

Health Fair: Includes dull booths all over the mall and one inflatable colon. Hmmm, what to shoot? Well, the amazing and disgusting colon has been shot for several years now so my other images of people getting their blood pressure taken is actually what ran. So I show you one of my colon shoots for the sake of posterity. Oh and I couldn't get the color to look right no matter what I did. Damn D1H!

Volley ball Take 267

CSI was ranked #1 in the NJCAA and were taking on rival NIC who was ranked #3 I believe. Hell of a fight I tell ya. This image was originally a vertical but I decided to crop it again for the post. I think it's stronger this way.

On another note, I really miss the Canon gear when shooting this sport. Reasons being #1 I am now shooting at 450 mm instead of 390 mm due to the tele conversion factor and with the Canon 300's I could pre focus just behind the net using the turn of the lens. It's still all good though.

Bed Racing

This was a last minute charity event for MS and you could tell. At the same time though those who showed up had a great time. I see this event doing nothing but growing over the years.

More Football

Just another football shot, if I didn't love shooting this stuff so much you wouldn't have to see so much of it.