Fighting the man, I (heart) stage lights & keeping sports on the DL

There's an old adage in photojournalism (I really can't remember who said it first, or for that matter, who said it to me), but it goes something like this: "Get there early, stay late, and always look behind you." These words paid off for me last night when I attended a meeting/rally at Naselle School where the community had a chance to sound off their support for Naselle Youth Camp (NYC). The lone minimum security juvenile detention center in the state has been slated to be closed according to the governors budget for 2009. Such a closure would have a devastating affect on the community of Naselle. Read Amanda Frink story about it HERE
As the meeting wrapped up after almost two hours I wasn't feeling too good about what I had. The pix I was making were usable but weren't very good and either showed one side (those in the audience speaking their piece) or the other side (the reps from JRA who were being roasted by the audience all night). But when the meeting ended a flood of people took to the stage to continue the conversation, in a heated fashion, and thats where I was able to make the picture above, as JRA reps try to defend their position on NYC.
About two years I shot a long term project on life inside NYC, including a photo essay on one of its female residents. You can view the audio slideshow I did for that HERE if you like. The presentation isn't great (it was one of my early ones), but the photos I think are pretty good and tell a good story hopefully.

Today it was a bit lighter faire, as I hit the Hilltop Auditorium to shoot a play being directed and produced by a student for his senior project. I've always loved that building, and it's so great that it is back open again. Here's an outtake that I liked as I was trying to make something interesting looking. Don't know if I succeeded or not, but I liked the pic.
God I love theater lights... By the way, in case you're wondering, the comical murder mystery will be presented Feb. 12-15.

And finally, lately (and as I tend to do) I've been trying to do some different things at basketball games, including shooting on the down low. I have to admit I get pretty tired of the same old standard shots that we see so much. So I took a page from Scott Strazzante's book and tried a new technique (well, new to me at least). A few weeks ago on his BLOG he was talking about shooting hoops with his camera placed on the floor with a wide angle and pre-focused at a certain distance. I've had a variety of good and bad with it, but have liked some of the results thus far.
The Ilwaco girls game I shot last week was the first time I came back with something really usable from that vantage, and I particularly liked this one of Vallori Crowston flying through all these players.
Then last night for a quarter and a half of the Naselle boys game (before I had to split to go to the before-mentioned rally) I found that the floor there gave a great reflection (especially with the lights I had set up). Not a lot of action going on in the pic, but it gave me hope (and an idea) to try again here in the near future.

-DKM