A quick one while I'm away

(dig the nod to the Who) Sooo, one thing I was going to do before leaving town for the week was post a BUNCH of pix from my busy week last week. Well.... that obviously didn't happen. So....with nothing to do at the hotel tonight I copied off a couple of sports pix from last week off the ftp server to post.
First up, I made a drive to Aberdeen on my day off to shoot an NHS softball game as it didn't look like the weather would cooperate later in the week. Worked out alright as I got a couple I liked.

Here's one after catching a surprise line drive right at her.

On Friday I checked out the Ilwaco boys in awful weather. But while the weather was bad, they were not, winning easily. I liked this one quite a bit (despite the pinch points on the top and bottom right) as it was an interesting play where two baserunners end up at second with Justin running around tagging everybody and then pleading his case to the ump.

Will probably try and post some stuff from SoCal as the week unfolds.

-DKM

Bell of the ball & the Big Empty

I hate it when I get behind in posting stuff, cuz then there's a log jam of things I'd like to get on here, like today. I'm out of town all next week so the end of this week is super busy, so I want to get a few things on here from last week that didn't make it yet
First up is the Miss Loyalty pageant, which I wasn't planning on shooting this year, but hey things change. Here's this year's winner Amanda Bell, who was pretty psyched about winning.



Next up is something that has really become a secret love of mine — shooting pictures inside old empty buildings. In this case it is the old high school building here. Last Friday teachers were told there would be a "scavenger hunt" in the old building to try and save anything left behind after the move that they may still want. Not many showed, and I can't really blame them, some of the stuff that was left behind was pretty weird. These are all from inside old classrooms.

I found it interesting that the one unifying thing throughout all the classrooms was that they all still had their American flag on the wall.

We were supposed to run one in the paper this week but it got bumped, along with the online gallery of 20 or so pix I put together called The Big Empty, which you can check out HERE if you like, some pretty interesting stuff — but only if find things like pickled animals in jars interesting...
More to come,

-DKM

Digital/Analog

Oxymoron? Sure, but it fits.

Today I did a little test of an idea I've had and forgotten about a few times over the last couple years — shooting pictures through the viewfinder lens of an old Kodak Duoflex II view camera. After editing I then put some together in a diptych or stereo format and liked it quite a bit.
Wyse was a particularly good model for the first set. I pretty much just told him to sit here and he did the rest (and yeah, the one on the right is out of focus on purpose). My set up consisted of the Duoflex (which I've had since Halloween of 1995 when I went as an old time news photographer) on a small Gitzo travel tripod (that I've had almost as long), with a digital camera directly above it, on a larger tripod.

After Wyse got bored with me I moved on to some flowers I had picked for the guest room when my mom was in town for spring break, and an old wooden tiger pull toy I've had since I was a baby. And after fussling with the focus some I even made one of myself that wasn't too bad (dig my lint eye).

My plan is to use this technique for a portrait shoot for the advance of Hello Dolly (opening in a couple weeks). I think the look will work well with the period costuming they're using.

Oh, here's a link to a post by Fla. photog Chip Litherland who shot a series of ports a year ago with the same technique. I was blown away that someone had beat me to it, but apparently it has gotten somewhat popular in some areas of photography (shows how in touch I am with the art these days) even before his, so I guess I'm a bit of a sheep... oh well, I still think it'll look cool for the play pix.

-DKM

My girl at 9 - plus some friends

Unbelievably - to me and my wife's sense of time - Kenz turned 9 this week. And while we had a family party for her on her actual b-day she of course wanted to have one with some friends too, which we did today. I was able to make at least one pic of every kid, except for Bella (sorry girl, catch ya next time), so thought I'd share.
Here's Arianna making a get away down the corkscrew slide during a game of tag
Ben was nice enough to help with clean-up afterward
Emma provided some musical accompaniment - wonder where she gets that from?
Wyse, once again looking up to his big sis
Alicia on the get away
And Victoria, caught sneaking a show on her iPhone

-DKM

At least you'll have something for the blog...

... Those were the words of my buddy Alex Pajunas as we stood in the rain at the Daily Astorian Invite track meet on Monday. I wasn't super psyched about being out in the elements having just come off a month-long sick spell. With all the mud and rain ... and mud, he was totally right though.




While mine were pretty cliche, I liked his umbrella pic, which ran in a gallery on the DA web site.

-DKM

Teen wolf

Today I got to check out the play IHS will be presenting next weekend, "You ain't nothin' but a werewolf"

I decided to try something different and shot a series of simple ports after practice of some of the interesting characters in the show, including werewolf Owen Sutherland who was good enough to go through a series of howls for me.

-DKM

Controlling the light

This afternoon I shot for a feature piece we're doing this week on an artistic couple, the Lemke's of Ocean Park. I spent a majority of the time with Dick as he worked on a still life painting. When we first walked into his studio and was beautifully lit with afternoon sun — and then he closed all but one set of blinds in order to control the light so he could get a better sense of light and shadow as he painted. It worked for me too.



-DKM