Up in smoke ... lots and lots of smoke

This afternoon I covered probably one of the biggest fires in a long time around here as a local kite shop caught fire, sending large plumes of black throughout downtown for almost an hour.

Apparently the fire was started when while fixing a kite line a hot edge caught on. The amazing thing (besides the fact that no one was hurt) is that the combined efforts of the Long Beach and Ilwaco volunteer fire departments were able to keep the adjoining businesses on either side fire-free. Great job guys!



I can only imagine what it was like for the guys going inside, as I wreaked of smoke and my eyes were burning by the time I left, and I was a fair distance away from the blaze itself.


-DKM

Absence makes the heart ... wanna post some stuff

While its been on my mind every day to post something it was actually today I realized that it had been more than a week since I was last on here. So to prove that, yes, I have been busy, here's some proof (I'll try and post a few soon from the project I've been working on the last few weeks about the final class of the local alternative school that is being closed).

(with respects the Decemberists) ...Oh, Valencia!

Yesterday I visited the Warrenton Soccer complex for the first time this year to shoot some pix for a feature we're doing about a new Peninsula team — called Valencia — made up almost solely by Ilwaco high students. Ilwaco does not have a soccer team so these players joined the Liga Hispana, which is a men's league. The difference between the men and boys is evident — they lost yesterday to the other Peninsula team which has won the league the last two years 7-1. I didn't get many pix that I liked or felt told the story well so I see myself returning next week too. I did however like these two quite a bit.


Circus, Circus

On Memorial Day Monday I spent a few hours at the circus. It was the first time that a circus has come to town in more than 20 years according to the locals who've lived here that long. While the show was surprisingly pretty good, their tent left something to be desired — let's just say with all the holes and patches in it (pretty evident in the last pic), we were all lucky it wasn't raining that day...




Looking up, and over

Last Thursday I went to the 2B district track meet to shoot Naselle, and spent a fair amount of that time getting stuff of Tylor Nortrup winning the pole vault and nearly topping the best mark in the state this year. Here's a tip for all you aspiring sports photogs out there, if you wanna clean-up your backgrounds on pole vaulting, shoot from underneath the pole straight up. Man, only took me 14-plus years of shooting track to figure that one out...
I also got this "s-portait-y" pic while he was waiting to go again. I figure we'll probably use it this week if he does well at state (which is in the Tri-Cities and way too far away to make it for coverage). Cool light.


-DKM

Pigtail

Monday night the Ilwaco softball team won the "pigtail game" with Winlock in order to advance to the district tournament, which starts tomorrow morning in Centralia (guess you know where I will be headed at 8 am tomorrow morning). Here's a few pix that I liked best from the game. There's a gallery on the sports blog if you were interested in seeing some more HERE
I have no idea why they call it a pigtail game, but it was winner to district, loser to go home. Ilwaco, after starting the season 9-0 lost their last 9 games, so the win was huge for them.

Ilwaco pitcher Alexis Couch can be pretty intense when she's on the mound. That's one hell of a determined look she's got.

The Lady Fishermen won the game by a single run (they've lost several of their games of late by the same margin). And they didn't get any help from the "men in blue" either, as they should have had at least two more runs if not for obvious missed calls.


So my BB is loaded up with some fresh podcasts for the trip over and back tomorrow — now if this wonderful Washington weather would just clear up...

-DKM

Who knew math was so exciting?

Thursday morning I was in Astoria shooting the Mental Math competition between area elementary schools. Teams of students from 3rd-8th grade compete in a three-part challenge of their wits, answering complicated math problems in their mind (no writing stuff down or scratch paper).
I've found in shooting things like this — Knowledge Bowl comes to mind — that it can be a challenge to make pictures that illustrate people thinking sometimes. I followed the 6th graders to their written portion after noticing that Pritti Petel used her fingers a lot while thinking in the first round, often writing out numbers in the air while figuring out the problem.

The final part of the tournament was the "math relay." Similar to a regular relay race, except on the other end of the gym they had to answer a math question. Long Beach won that portion handily. I watched the students waiting to be tagged for most of this and found some nice reaction.



-DKM

Baseball boy

The other morning Ness and I were in the kitchen and when we came around the corner this is what we found, Wyse in his eight-year old sissy's baseball cap, mit and cleats...


-DKM

Escape thwarted!

While watching Kenz' debut t-ball game Friday night I saw little Cooper here crawling out to the field and got the camera up in time to get his capture, thought it was pretty funny. That look makes me wonder if he's just like, "oh, come one, really?" Funny stuff, on the front page this week,

-DKM

Souza — The "Photog in Chief"

I've been a fan of photographer Pete Souza for awhile now, as he has had essentially unfettered access to President Obama since his first day in the Senate, including his run for the White House. He is now the official White House photographer for the Obama Administration. Here's a video of a report that CBS did on him the other day. It's a nice little piece, but I wish they would have used more of what I consider his really best photos, because he has taken a ton of great pix of Obama and his family. Don't get me wrong, the ones that are shown are certainly good, but there's more that are even better.



Here's a link to a flickr slideshow of pix he's done from the first 100 days. There's a some really great pix in here.

-DKM

Parade days

Another year, another Loyalty Days weekend. Kids parade Saturday, main parade Sunday. I'm the first to admit that shooting parades has always been a challenge for me, because I always want to find something different, and with parades, a lot of the time they are the seem kinds of things every year. That being said, I was pretty happy with how it worked out for me this time around (of course they all end up being bheind the scenes sorta pix...). Here's my faves from the the two-day event ... and yeah, those kids are indeed dressed up like Honest Abe







-DKM