News?

last friday, i heard a crash at the corner...an occurrence not uncommon enough at an intersection that (especially being a block from the neighborhood middle school) could use a four-way stop. but this one was especially loud and i called 911 while running over. it feels helpless to be among the first to arrive at the scene of an accident with nothing but basic skills to offer. it made me want to take emt training (in my spare time).

when i returned home, the news crew pulled up and stood there filming. this is news? it brings to mind thoreau again, who said "If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip..." (no, i did not bring my camera to the wreck...but i did have to get this shot...so am i any less of a gossip?) i guess i am on a photojournalism ethics kick this week. did the woman i had just tried to comfort until the paramedics arrived give permission to be displayed on the big screen at 6 as she is pulled from the vehicle on a stretcher? was there an overriding and justifiable need for the public to see that image? where does news stop and intrusion start, especially with victims of tragedy or other vulnerable subjects?

Surreptitious Starbucks

before the kids were up, we made our traditional weekend morning trek to starbucks (aka "the devil"). at the early hour, you often see the same faces there. this guy frequently occupies the corner chair by the milk & sweetener bar, absorbed in his paper and venti. sometimes when we have our camera in a public spot, we'll put it on the table and pretend to be playing around with the settings or looking at the lcd screen while really clicking the shutter. we've gotten some pretty interesting images that way.

while i was writing this, one of the kids looking over my shoulder asked "is that legal?" legal, probably...but it does beg questions about the ethics of surreptitious street photography. are we invading this guy's privacy? or are people in a public place giving up a certain expectation to that right? are images taken without the subject's knowledge simply capturing an true-life moment that wouldn't otherwise possible? are we exercising artistic freedom? or being intrusive? where is the balance? what do you think?

Rail Against Randomness

reading one of the blogs i have bookmarked, lucy creates, there was a challenge game in the feb 6 post...pick up the nearest book, turn to page 123, find the first five sentences, then post the next three. she said we could make our own rules and since the nearest book was a textbook, i grabbed instead an old favorite...thoreau's walden. in this edition, the passage was:

"We have one other pond just like this, White Pond, in Nine Acre Corner, about two and a half miles westerly; but, though i am acquainted with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of this centre, I do not know a third of this pure and well-like character. Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed it, and not passed away, and still its water is green and pellucid as ever. Not an intermitting spring!"

hmmm...not part of a paragraph i had underlined ;) the meaning-makers among you could probably extract a philosophical or inspirational take-away, but this is primarily a photo blog. so the connection brought to mind here was with a peaceful picture that we have blown up on a large canvas, taken on a summer trip to a good friend's cabin outside santa fe. maybe now it shall be referred to as our "pellucid" photo.

Vote Jones

if you, too, were not in a voting state on super tuesday, here is your chance to cast a ballot (albeit for a slightly lesser purpose). we posted a couple of shots to the jones soda photo gallery, from which they select pictures for upcoming labels. one is of henry doing a zeus imitation at white sands national monument. the other is zephyr submerged at the tech pool during mesa's birthday party. it is hard to pick photos with the "jones attitude" that you don't mind giving away the rights to for now and all time. so we chose a couple of the boys because don't you know one of them would be psyched to have their image on a soda bottle label? i don't really think the votes have any bearing on which photos are chosen, but you should vote anyway and feel like you participated in the democratic process:

vote for the photo of henry
and
vote for the photo of zephyr

Church Signs

we love church signs! that will definitely be a series we do some day. no offense to anyone, but baptists usually have the most photo-worthy signs. one of the best ones we saw (but didn't get a picture of) was "try jesus...if you don't like him, the devil will always take you back." (?) it amazes us what passes for christian sentiments. like this one, taken on our way back from the austin city limits music festival a few years ago.

we have developed an annual tradition...drink to the point of saturation with friends on fat tuesday, re-focus at an ash wednesday service, and then give up alcohol for the six weeks of lent. no, we are not catholic (everyone's first question). it is just good to have a dry season...helps balance out all the happy hours the rest of the year. also, it provides the perfect opportunity to break fast while hosting our annual easter champagne brunch. every year we use another church sign to create an invitation. here is our card for this year (as with all photos on this blog, click to see a larger image).

Outtakes

we did a photo shoot this past weekend for a woman who wanted a headshot to be used in newspaper articles. it is nice to be able to focus on just one person and on getting just the right shot for the intended purpose. some of the most enjoyable shots are the outtakes that we throw on the disk just for fun. like this one of her clowning around in her mink coat at the end of the shoot. or the one of her son peeking in from the other room to check out the activity.

we have learned to ask people if there is anything about themselves they are self-conscious about in photos, if they don't volunteer that info. because even if we think it is the best picture in the world, the client might hate it if a personal feature they dislike is too obvious. most women ask us to avoid the double-chin, but beyond that, everyone seems to have something specific they don't like brought to attention. for me, i have a tooth that ends up looking like a fang from certain angles and i can fixate on it in a photo, even if nobody else notices. anyway, it is good information to have up front.

The General Resigns

the big news in lubbock right now is that bobby knight resigned yesterday in mid-season. he does things his way...you gotta respect it. so as it turns out, zephyr had the fortune on saturday of watching the all-time winningest ncaa basketball coach chalk up his 902 and final victory, against oklahoma state. for all of coach knight's critics, you can't argue with the guy's basketball genius or with the national exposure he brought to texas tech and this city. it's pretty cool that we regularly got to see a legend in action just by traveling a couple blocks to the united spirit arena.

interestingly, the first photos we ever took with our new canon rebel purchase several years ago were at a red raider game. these are by no means great shots, but we were having fun trying out all the features of an slr digital camera. if you look closely in the photo above, you'll also see the general's son, pat--now his replacement. we got in trouble for taking the picture because there is no flash photography allowed in the arena ;) at halftime of that game, zephyr's fourth grade boys and girls club team played a demonstration game. check out these little guys at the scorer's table!

Tennis & Tech

having talented and involved kids is great, but it sure does fill up the calendar. the busyness continued all day saturday. josie won her challenge match that afternoon and continued her ascent up the school team's tennis ladder.

saturday evening, mesa followed in josie's photo-steps from last weekend and got her turn as "junior photographer" at the tech lady raider game. so we all got treated to court-side seats while mesa took pictures that will appear in the newspaper later this week.

naturally, we had our camera too. we need to do a series on odd-feet-out (see also the january 25 post). in a huddle full of nikes, those stiletto heels look just a little out of place.

Making History

it was another incredibly busy weekend, so we'll have to slowly make our way through all the photos taken. on saturday morning, zephyr and his history-buff partner, manning, presented their award-winning project at the south plains regional history day. it is a mystery what part of the israeli-palestinian conflict they are displaying in this photo...but they did impress the judges enough to make it to the state competition to be held in austin in may.

Travis

who knew a 250gb hard drive wouldn't be enough? so now we are trying to winnow down our 30,000-image photo library to create some space. it is kind of fun going through old pictures, albeit a little tedious. the same thing we love about digital is also what we dislike (how often is that the case?) the sheer volume of pictures you can take at no extra expense is awesome...having to wade through a lot of junk shots when reviewing them all is not. with film, you seem to take more time composing the shot because every snap costs. but still...as much fun as we had in the darkroom, we wouldn't switch back.

going through the recent archives, these are pulled from our new year's eve trip to san antonio. while sitting in the park one afternoon taking pictures, a kid going past us started goofing around and calling out "yo...take my picture!" the camera sure does attract attention. to his surprise, we waved him and his friend over for an impromptu shoot. travis postured a lot and was actually pretty photogenic, but our favorite shot ended up being as he was walking away with his head down, laughing and a little bit embarrassed that we'd actually taken him up on his request. we also love back shots. it is amazing how much can be expressed without in a photo without even seeing people's faces.