Bass

"What kind of drums are these?" I asked. "Bass," they replied together. "Gotcha, thanks..."

This weekend marching band districts are being held a block from my house. We're publishing a double truck on Monday, so I'll have a bunch more band features to post early next week.

XC

Drama Under the Lights

After getting home late from researching an upcoming Saturday Feature I walked the short distance to Jasper High's football stadium. Jasper was still on the field playing arch-rival Heritage Hills, another local squad, and I arrived just as Jasper tied the game 7-7 in the fourth quarter. I knew my coworker Dave was already covering the game so I left the camera bag in the car and brought a 24mm to shoot a few features. I hung around the Jasper's bench for a few minutes and as Logan Hettinger turned to pump up the crowd and I fired a few frames. The game went into overtime and Jasper eventually came out with the win and stayed undefeated.

Sunset Silhouette

The sun was setting over the Dubois Quasquicentennial festival and I was looking for one more feature to before heading back to the paper to edit. I saw the shadows that the sun was making through the trees but the woods were empty. I knew that I wanted a photo with people so I set my exposure and waited. And kept waiting, praying that someone would walk through the scene. Finally, a few 10-year-olds came to play in the trees and I shot them for about a few minutes until the sun dipped below the horizon. We published the above photo (which is my favorite from the take) although I like some of the elements in each of the other photos as well.

Welcome Home

(above photo by Lauren)

I'm really not sure what to write to introduce this post. It's about family. My family. And I love them lots.

I spent a whole week with them last week and we did the usual Blake things. We went to Lake Michigan (though I think Lake Superior is really more "Blake"), we canoed down the Pine River, and we spent some time fixing up our battered fleet of Hondas and Toyotas while keeping an eye out for new old vehicles. My youngest brother Travis ended the week by buying his first car, a 1990 something Dodge Shadow.

Some snapshots from the week. Dad won a disc golf game through a gnarly woods course. My brother Justin miraculously edged out my sister Lauren in a peanuts game. Lauren and I made great canoe partners. Travis burned his "hobo" pie and then melted a plastic knife and one of Mom's food containers. Mom and Dad shared "ghost" stories around a campfire. Travis and Justin finished editing their Drank video (I'll post a link when it goes online). And we celebrated my 23rd birthday with Mom's strawberry pie and some of the most creative gifts I've ever gotten.

It was a great week. I can't wait until the next time I get to see them all again.

For those of you technically minded (i.e. Sean) all the photos were grabbed from video shot with my Kodak Zi6, the only camera I used all week. The camera's only downfall is that it overexposes everything, back focuses like none other and the quality of the stills are worse than those from a happy snap point and shoot. I really like the simplicity of it though and it's fun being able to chose moments after the fact by grabbing frames while watching the video.





(above photo by Travis)