Best of '08

After much diliberating, taking out, putting back in...here is a gallery of what I think are the best pictures I took in 2008.
To start you'll find a group of 10 single images, and then two photo essays — the first a yearlong piece about how things that may be considered antiquated or old fashioned are still very much important to a lot of people today. The other is a piece on the special season had by the Naselle High School football team this year. This is the core of what I plan to enter in the year end photojournalism contests.
If you want to see it bigger, which also features full captions on the side of the photos, click HERE)
Use the arrows to navigate through the gallery.


Thanks so much to David, Mike, Timm and everyone else who offered up some sage advise on what was good and what was not...

Happy New Year eneryone!

-DKM

Cartoons before Christmas

I know it's a bit center-focused, but it was a bit of a grab shot — the kids watching Xmas cartoons two days before the big day.


-DKM

Hoops for the holidays

I guess I just wanted to show that I sometimes shoot stuff other than my family these days. Here's a pic from the Astoria holiday hoops tourney that Naselle played in over the weekend. It's the first game I've shot in over two weeks, due to the weather canceling everything.
Back with more pix of the fam tomorrow....


-DKM

Happy Holidays

Hey everybody,
Here's hoping that everyone has a great holiday and an even better new year!

A couple nights ago I took our annual kid Christmas pictures. My mom makes the kids Christmas outfits each year, so of course pictures are a must. I usually put together a little backdrop upstairs and use a couple lights. Wyse was a little unintersted, especially in the sitting sit department... Merry Christmas!





-DKM

Snow day 2

Today was more of the same as the "Cape Cod of the Northwest" began to resemble the real New England at wintertime more and more. More walking, more clicking. As I sit here working on images and pages at the office, every time I look out the window and worry about driving home later as the snow keeps on falling and keeps on piling up...



-DKM

Snow day #1

This morning we were treated to a bit of a surprise as overnight the Peninsula was hit with several inches of snow. Sure the weatherman said it would likely happen, but who ever believes that guy? In the morning me and the fam hit the neighborhood to find a good sledding spot. Didn't take long to find the best hill and some good friends to hang with. Here's a mix of family, friends and neighbors. Good/bad news for me is that the best pic IMO is the first one, which is of Kenz ... which I can't use in the paper.

Press the arrows below to advance through the gallery


I hear it's supposed to snow some more over the weekend, and then freeze on top of that...

-DKM

Fires on a freezing night

I had been home for all of about 15 minutes Tuesday night when I got a call from work that the new WorldMark condos were on fire. So I ran over there and sure enough two rooms were ruined by an innerwall electrical fire. About a half hour after arriving another call went out over the firemen's radios saying that there was another structure fire in north Long Beach. I was pretty cold from the first one, but headed over to the second one and made a few pix there too, including of the owner of the house, who was sleeping inside when the fire broke out in his garage. I'm glad the fires weren't too bad, but in a way I kinda wish they would have been a little more toasty, cuz it was darn cold that night...




-DKM

My snow angel

Over the last few days it has been unusually cold — temps not getting over freezing and even more notably, a fair amount of snow. Kenz got out and enjoyed it some, while Wyse was more content to stay inside and stare out the window.



-DKM

Grrrrrr......

Last Saturday I shot my first wrestling meet of the year. I've never felt as though I ever really get good pix when it comes to this sport. To be honest, I feel a little lost at the moment as I transition from shooting a lot of football to now hoops and wrestling which are a lot different on many levels.
When I worked in Mac we would shoot a lot of swimming this time of year too, and I'd usually get some pretty cool stuff from that, but they don't have swim teams at the high schools here.... so yeah, anyway
For this assignment I concentrated more on emotive faces and was somewhat successful I think, though IMO they all kinda look the same to some extent. Funny thing is, though I liked these ones best, we didn't use any of them in the paper, as these players were not particularly successful on this occasion ... but I guess that may be obvious from the looks on their faces...




I put up a gallery with some additional pix from this that night at our new SPORTS BLOG if you feel like checking that out.

-DKM

Valley Christmas

Last night I drove up to Rosburg to shoot the annual Grays River Grange community Christmas party at the old Rosburg school. This has been a tradition in the valley forever it seems and is kind of old fashioned by today's standards ... which I why I love it. I photographed it last year too and had a great time and decided to go back this year (I figured if nothing else I might get a pic to add to my year long "Something Old, Something New series about people in modern times still doing things that are considered old fashioned). It is definitely a plus that all the folks are so nice and seemingly glad I was there.
So here's a group of pix I liked from the evening.

Press the arrows below to advance through the gallery


Epilogue
I was given the wrong start time so I arrived well over an hour before the start of the party, so I decided to snoop around the old school and found the Naselle fourth grade basketball team practicing in the gym, so I snapped a few...



-DKM

PDXcross photo blog

For those of you who dig on bikes and cyclocross events (or for that matter just some really cool photography) you should check out the PDXcross photo blog HERE
I just came across it after reading about their cool new book DIRTY PICTURES
The blog is updated by a number of great phoogs, two of which (Rob Finch and Torsten Kjellstrand) I've been a fan of for many years (a few years ago Rob actually gave me some portfolio help on a couple of occasions which was most helpful). Anyway, they are both bike enthusiasts and have been making some really great pix at these events for the last couple months and post photo galleries after every event (all in B&W which is great). Anyway, check it...

-DKM

For those with a sense of humor only!.....

This was being talked about on Sportsshooter today. A lot of people have been complaining about how the new Nikon D3X is a rip-off at $8,000 and not that much of an upgrade over the D3 which sells for about half that. It's hilarious — but if you are morally opposed to laughing at Hitler .... well, maybe not your cup of tea.

Watch the video HERE


-DKM