Tristan Wyse gallery

If you're looking for more pix of baby Tristan you can find them HERE This is a gallery that will continued to be updated, thanks!
-DKM

Relay for Life

Friday night I photographed the Relay for Life, rounding out the story that was begun last week with the Faces of Cancer piece.


Watch the SoundSlides show HERE


— DKM

Sunset skimmer

As I was driving home from a meeting tonight I decided to take my time, cruise to see if I could find somebody doing something interesting in the great light of the sunset. I took a turn onto the Seaview beach approach and found CJ Velarde skimboarding in the surf. I hung back for a bit, shooting with a longer lens and got a few things (see below). After awhile we kinda approached each other. He was curious why I was taking pictures, wanted to ask if I was some sort of stalker. I said no and he said cool. I got closer and shot with a wide and made the picture up top, which I like best.
After he was done we talked a bit about local surf spots as he was new here and my wife is a surfer. I gave him my card and he gave me a surfer handshake. Not a bad evening.
-DKM

Dr. Dave

Sunday evening, a great time for a cold New Belgium Skinny Dip ale, some strawberry shortcake and Adult Swim cartoons. BTW, if you're a Star Wars geek (guilty) you gotta watch the Robot Chicken Star Wars special!


So the other day I was to shoot a portrait of a new surgeon down at Ocean Beach Hospital, Dr. David Friedman. His assistant said he'd be around and to just drop by. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the pic so I asked him for a suggestion (as he knows more about what it is he does than I do). He suggested we do something in the OR area, and I was all for it.
After showing me around some we decided to shoot the pic in the overflow room of the OR at the hospital. For one reason, the real OR was being used for surgery, and two, the overflow room had this great older-style operating lamp which still had a couple of working bulbs in it, which I actually used to light the shot (as you can see above)
The doc was a great sport, putting up with my "move here's" and "ooh, let's try it over here's" for a good half hour. He was curious how it was going so I let him have a quick peek at what we were doing and he said it didn't look like the standard "editorial style" pic he was used to other places. I took that as a compliment.

So earlier on I promised some record reviews, so here's a couple of quickies.
The Beastie Boys — The In Sound From Way Out: This is an instrumental album from those boys from Brooklyn that came out a few years back. I pulled this out a couple days ago after reading about the Beasties new album that is coming out which is also instrumental called The Mix Up. This is by no means my fave Beasties album, but it does feature a few tracks from Check your Head, which is my fave Beasties album (I know, shoot me, it's not Paul's Boutique...) It is super laid back, a lot of head space jazzy tracks, though I miss some of the lyrics from the originals, which were removed to make it a true instrumental record.

The White Stripes — Icky Thump: This just came out a week ago and I picked it up for my 6-year-old, believe it or not but she swears they are her fave band (my kid is way cooler than yours!), but I like'em alot too. This kicks, well, you know, big time. If you dig this two-piece, especially their first two records, you'll definitely like it. The title single is this crazy rock tune about imigration, check out the video here. A lot of crazy sounds on this record, cheap guitars played through old synths, bag pipes, a mariachi trumpeter....

The Giraffes — The Days are Filled With Years: This is an interesting little record from the guy who was the singer in the Seattle band Presidents of the United States of America. He made this record solo, but promoted it as being the first record made solely by his stuffed animal collection. Weird? Yeah, a little, but totally cool. Very groovy, lo-fi, sounds a lot like Beck in some spaces. I think he mostly does soundtrack music for kids shows now...

-DKM

The many FACES of CANCER

For the last several weeks I've been working on a project in advance of the local Relay for Life event, which takes place this Friday and Saturday.
When we originally met with the local RFL group about two months ago we had talked about doing a photo essay about a local person who had cancer. It was quickly obvious that two months was nowhere near the amount of time needed to do the story right.
The idea for the project I ended up doing came from a thought I had following the discussions of who to do the original story on, as we had talked about it being someone who "looked like they had cancer." I was thinking how naive that is to assume that someone is going to look a certain way because of the illness they have. I guess because you always see stories about people who have lost their hair from chemo or are in the throes of the final stages?
The idea that came was that there is not one face that defines what cancer is, there are many. My uncle Steven, who died of cancer 12 years ago, looked no different than anyone else. But how to show that?
The seed was planted further while attending the National Press Photographers Association's annual Photojournalism Summmit in Portland a few weeks back. Many of the speakers on the multimedia side were talking about "non-linear storytelling," as in there doesn't have to be a beginning or end or an arc that the story follows. First thing the following Monday I told my boss what I wanted to do.
The many Faces of Cancer
We quickly rounded up as many people as were interested and set up times for them to come in to the newspaper office after hours. We don't have a studio at our office so I had to improvise, throwing together a make-shift studio in the hallway. After each shoot I recorded interviews with each person.
I wanted the portraits to be simple, yet eloquent enough that people would want to look at them. This was important as the individual pieces would simply feature their picture while they spoke. I wanted people to really have to look at them while they talked, not be distracted. I told each person that the pictures were serialized, as in they were all basically set up the same, but each would be different in its own way. I did not ask them to look any certain way, but simply to think of something that was meaningful to them during the time they had with cancer — and just let it be naturally reflected on their face — and I would take pictures while they did this. I wanted the finished piece to be about them, not about what I can do with a camera.
One of my favorites is Heather Gray, who initially wanted to do a standard "getting my picture taken" smile. But as she thought and reflected, eventually, for just a second or two, this defiant look came across her face that to me said "Cancer, I don't care about you," you know what I mean? She is a brave lady who is in the midst of staring down cancer right now for a second time.

Please visit the link above to see the final product. I'm very proud of how it came out and hopefully it will shine some light on some amazing people and a very worthy cause.
-DKM

New dawn, new day, a new life in a new way

So this is my new son Tristan Wyse Mulinix, he was born on June 15 at 12:29 am, 6.25 pounds, 19.5 inches long. Tristan, who we are adopting from my brother and his girlfriend is doing great. It has been a CRAZY last 48 hours - from driving down to California on only a couple hours notice, to waiting at the hospital, running back and forth to the courthouse so we could file all the necessary papers. Did I mention how crazy it's been?
well, here's the important stuff, some more pictures!!!

new mom, new babe


mom and new big sis Kenzers


little foot


A gramma twice over now




THANK YOU Coffee Corner Cafe & Deli in Crescent City for having WI-FI!!!!!! (and great jalepeno bagel)
-DKM

Pomp and Circumstance

Hey out there,
sorry for the delay in getting something new on here.
Yesterday I shot the Change of Command ceremony at US Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment for outgoing CO Lt. Jamie Frederick. Jamie had been the CO at Cape D for about 3 years and was great to work with, always willing to have a photographer around when things were happening or for story stuff. He's moving on to bigger, better things — working as the Congressional liason officer to the US House of Reps. These are a few pix from the ceremony



You can find a SoundSlides from it HERE

Some more Pomp and Circumstance coming up tonight and tomorrow, with the graduation ceremonies for Tlohon-nipts Alternative High School and Ilwaco High.

Am also working on a new portrait project that will be an advance for the Relay for Life here and is set to come out, both in print and on the Web on June 20. It's simple, but I think (hope) eloquent, in literally letting the people tell their own stories. Richard Koci Hernandez inspired the idea by suggesting trying more "non-linear storytelling." We'll see how it works.... Will keep you updated.
-DKM

In the year 2000 ..... In the year 2000

Ever see that Conan O'Brien bit, which he used to do with Andy Richter, where they would make ridiculous prognostications about what the future would hold "In the Year 2000?" That's kind of what it felt like at times while attending the National Press Photographers Association's Annual Photojournalism Summit in Portland this last Friday and Saturday.
Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of interesting and helpful information to be had, but there was also a lot of speculation and prognosticaion being doled out as facts also. Multimedia was the hot topic and I learned some cool new techniques and ideas. I also heard some speakers say that still photojournalism is a dead medium and that newspapers as a physical thing is a thing of the past. That has all been said before ... in the 1950s.
In my opinion, the most important piece of info that was being talked about was that despite the tools being used, good storytelling should be at the core of whatever we do. If nothing else, hopefully everyone wrote that note down .....

It was great to see so many people there, some of whom I had never met or hadn't seen a long time. The East Oregonian Publishing Co. (of which the Observer is part of) was well represented, having sent me, E.J. Harris (very nice to meet and hang out with), chief photog at the EO and Alex Pajunas, the new photog at the The Daily Astorian.
I also got to see and hang with some old friends, Mark Ylen (the man responsible for leading down this career path so many years ago) and Sol Neelman (who I owe so much inspiration to and have missed talking to for far too long). I also got to see/meet some people I didn't know as well, or at all, which was really cool including, Tom Boyd, Richard Koci Hernandez, Troy Wayrynen, Janet Mathews, Andy Cripe, Craig Mitchelldyer and Paul Erickson.

Please check out the links above ( as well as the Observer's site) and you'll find a wide variety of stuff/opinions/info/examples of things related to the "future" of PJ. Enjoy,

-DKM