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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)

Get Ready...

...for lots more football. This weekend is Jasper's first home football game which I'm looking forward to shooting. And as a bonus the field is within a frisbee throw from my house.

Big Wheelin'

(Sadie Waddell, 4, of Jasper, sat poised to go on her big wheel during the Strassenfest big wheel race held in the Square.)

Starting Again

After a long hiatus I think it's time to start up on the blog again. This past week I've been in Michigan with my family (which will be a blog post in itself). It was a great break and I'm excited to be back making photos again. This is the start of a new season, and a time to take stock to see what changes need to happen to make the most of autumn in Dubois county.


(Nicole Epple, 12, of St. Anthony, played the playground at the St. Anthony Fireman's Fest on Saturday while music from "Acoustically Yours" pumped out over the crowd. The proceeds from the annual one day festival went to support the fire department.)

Leftovers

These are the ones that didn't make the cut for Saturday. Some of them were for other fair stories published during the week, or were published in our online galleries. Also, a lot of these were shot using similar lensing (can you say 24mm?) so for variety purposes they were left out. This will be my last post from the fair. I think...

Wrasslin'

Before going out Justin told me there were two ways to shoot this. 1: stand back with a 300, or 2: get in there. I chose the latter, and ended up as muddy as the kids. It was a blast and well worth it for the experience.

4H Layout

The Dubois County 4-H Fair week is a rite of passage for interns at The Herald. Or rather, any photographer that works here. We cover the fair extensively during the week and publish a Saturday Feature of fair happenings at the end. Between Dave, Krista, and myself, one of us could usually be found at the fair feature hunting during the day.

Here is the final product of a lot of sweat (literally), and a great effort by the staff. A special shout out to Olivia, our writing intern, who probably logged as much time at the fair as the photo staff combined. Hope you enjoy! Pig wrestling was on Friday this year, so we couldn't include it in the Saturday edit, so I'll blog about that muddy experience separately.