Cranberry Rd.

Here's an outtake from an unusual thing I went out on today, where a truck carrying 6,000 pounds of cranberries jackknifed, spilling it's load all over the road. You can find more in the paper next week.


Here, Julie Rhoads, the owner of the cranberry farm, hops out of one of the broken cranberry totes after transferring the berries inside to a non-damaged tote. They were only allowed to salvage the berries that did not hit the road — saving a little less than 2,000 of the 6,000 pounds they were hauling.

I've known Julie for about as long as I've been here on the Peninsula. She's a great lady and was the first cranberry farmer I met. I've shot harvest at her farm a couple times too. When I got to the scene and saw it was her berries all over the road I felt bad for her, but she was as she always is, great, and didn't really mind that I was there chronicling an event that will likely end up costing her several thousand dollars in lost crop and vehicle repairs. Though when I asked her if this was a big hit to take, she said she was just happy that no one was injured in the incident. Like I said, she's pretty great.

-DKM

Taking a dip

Here's an outtake from the fourth annual Baker Bay Kayak and Canoe Race in Ilwaco I shot on Saturday.
It was kind of a last minute thing to cover, as the original story for the Life section got switched up and sent me scrambling a bit. Instead we went with a photo package from this.
This one was taken prior to the start of the race and one of the few I got off the water, as I was able to hook up a ride with the surf rescue team, which was patrolling the event on the water, where I shot a majority of my pix from.

-DKM

And they're off

Here's an outtake from last night as Naselle High School held their first cross country meet in eight years. This is the start of the varisty boys race, the only race I was there to see, as NHS — the only local school competing — did not have any female runners come out for the team this year, so there is only a boys squad.
I took a quick sequence similar to this at the start of the junior high race, but from a little further back. The starter gun didn't seem that loud so I thought I'd get a little closer for the start of the varisty race — I figured about a foot behind the starter would be good. Seems it was louder than I thought as I got a good pop in my ears as I fired off 3 or 4 frames.... Worth it? Well, the buzz didn't last too long...

-DKM

Some recent stuff

Hey out there, so sorry for being vacant on the blog here for over a week. I wish I had a really good reason (excuse) but I don't...
I did have a pretty good last 10-11 days or so though. Too many pix to upload on here, but you can check out my latest update on my Sportsshooter.com page to see more.

see ya soon, cheers,
-DKM

Ode to Leica

As those of you who have read my blog for awhile know, I am a card-carrying member of the Cult of Leica, having owned an M-4 for a couple years. eBay and Stuff magazine recently named the Leica M3 (the quintesential rangefinder) the "Top Gadget of All-time."
Here's a cool ARTICLE about Leica published recently in the New Yorker. It's a little long, but interesting for sure.
cheers,
-DKM

Ready for some football

Tonight was the home opener for the Ilwaco HIgh School football team, a game against 2B powerhouse Willapa Valley. The Fishermen didn't fair so well, losing 28-8. Here' s some pix from before the game as the team listened to the pregame speech of new head coach Kevin McNulty and on the field during introductions. You can find some action pix from the game at the Friday Night Sights blog.


This was actually the first time that we had been invited into the locker room before a football game. Coach McNulty seems like a guy who doesn't mind that sort of thing and I could see it possibly paying off at a later time, like a halftime maybe when a more emotional photo could be had perhaps? Still, it was great to have the access.


I love these early season games if for no other reason than the fact that the sun is still out for nearly the first half of the game, and you get great light early on. Such was the case here. The light of the setting sun gives dramatic tone to these players as they await introduction in front of the home fans for the first time this year.


-DKM

Some interesting pic sites, videos

Came across some interesting photo links the last day or so.

First up, this is a 13 gigapixel image taken of Harlem and is zoomable to the 'enth degree. It's pretty cool, as diespite how much you zoom you still get a great deal of detail. Pretty cool. Do a Google search for other gigapixel images and you'll come up with a number of sites.

Next up, Robert Hanishiro, a staff sports photog with USA Today rigged up a three camera set-up in the outfield during Barry Bonds chase for the all-time home run record last month. He rigged them together to shoot a sequence equal that of 30 frames per second. Here's the resulting gallery he got that night after chasing him for 11 games (he traveled with over 175 pounds of gear). Here's a link to a video on how he did it, hosted by his great sports photojournalism site Sports Shooter.

Finally, here's a link to a video about the photographers at the New Orleans Times-Picayune who photographed the devestation of Hurricane Katrina. Their photos contributed to their winning the Pulitizer. It's about 25 mins long, but worth giving your time to.

-DKM

Back to School Blues

"She's had two years of preschool but she still doesn't want to let go," said Heather Magee, after comforting her daughter Mariah upon arriving at her first day of Kindergarten Tuesday morning. "I don't who it's harder for, her or me." Fortunately for mom, after some tears and hugs, Mariah was soon busily coloring her picture of Humpty Dumpty with the other new students in Mrs. Lewis's class at Long Beach Elementary.


This morning was the first day of school here on the Peninsula, and while some were very ready to head back (my daughter was up at 4:30 this morning telling us she was ready to go to first grade) others were not so thrilled, as seen above. Even though it looks kinda sad, it was really a sweet moment between this mother and daughter. To tell you the truth, I've always wanted to get a pic like this from the first day of school, something real, something with emotional weight to it, and this is the first time I've actually succeeded. Defintely my best back to school pic I've ever made.

The key, as always, was patience, just hanging out, waiting, watching. I spotted her right away amongst the other kids in the class. She was clinging to her mom, which I thought could have potential, but they needed to seperate a little. They hugged a few times, which didn't really work. Then, as she was pulling away from her daughter she reached out and wiped away a tear, BINGO! That coupled with the way they are holding hands made for a great moment.

I shot it a litttle bit wide because I didn't want to get right in their face at that sensitive time, plus I wanted to show their situation juxtaposed to what other kids were doing in class at the time. All-in-all, a pretty good morning. On my way out of the building I stopped off at my daughter's classroom door, she was already busy holding court in her new room, big surprise...

-DKM

Opening night

Naselle's Jason Gradt celebrates his team's opening night 22-14 victory over Vancouver Christian Friday night.



Tonight was the season opener for local high school football, which also means the real kick-off of our new Friday Night Sights blog. Check it out to see a couple more pix and game recaps from players.
Tonight I was at the Naselle Comets home opener against Vancouver Christian. What a great night. It was nearly 70 degrees when I got to the game at 6:30, and I can honestly say that this was the first time I had ever worn shorts to a night football game, EVER.
Despite the great weather and over an hour of natural light (which you just don't ever get at a night game) I was actually having a really hard time getting stuff in the first half of the game. Half the field was in the light of the setting sun, the other half in shadow that was easily two stops darker. Of course the action tended to roll from one side to the other and it felt like every shot I got was either over or under exposed.
I got a couple of decent action pix and more importantly some stuff that told the story of the game. The frame above took place right after the game was over as the team met at midfield to celebrate a little. Nothing too crazy, but the guys were intense. You could tell this was a big win for them. I like capturing the emotion of the game just as much if not more than the action of it, and I think Jason's face kinda sums it up.

-DKM