My faves/best of 2010

Every year in the course of doing my job, documenting the various goings-on of our community, I take a whole bunch of photos. This year the magic number was just shy of 71,000 shutter clicks. Incredibly enough that is actually up from 68,000 last year.
So what got the most clicks? Day one at the state basketball tourney with 1,415 shots taken of the Ilwaco boys team, the band, the cheerleaders, etc., followed closely by day two at the tournament with 1,325 shots (thats more than 2,700 photos taken during a five to six hour stretch). Trying to edit 1,400 pix in a hotel room that first night on an outdated PowerBook following the game was quite a time-consuming process. It was, however, a very fun 24 hours that included a beautiful, snowy drive over White Pass.
And while in most cases the best or my preferred photos make it into the paper from each assignment, other times the best falls through the cracks or just doesn’t go with the story or the space well enough and is relegated to my blog or the cutting room floor, so to speak.
But with the end of another year comes a time of reflection, and in my case a chance to reexamine all 71,000 pictures and try and determine what was good, what was bad, what can be learned from, and what can be done better. It’s kind of funny to think that a group of 20 or so singles from that can be considered a good year, but I’m happy with what I got, and am looking forward to making more next year.

-DKM

Christmas kids

It's the most wonderful time of the year ... and time for the annual Christmas kids pic, happy holidays!


-DKM

Baby Abby

On the front page this week is a lead feature about a family and their life caring for daughter Abby who suffers from mitochondrial disease. And while sad, as every facet of this girls life is affected by this, the love her family has for her is palpable and heartwarming. As soon as the story is posted online I'll add a link. I have to say that I'm particularly happy to have been able to make the portrait above for myriad reasons.




-DKM

R U not entertained?

Tuesday night Ilwaco High held their first dual wrestling meet in a few years and pulled out all the stops to make it a show including a fog machine, rock music and GLADIATOR lighting. What I'm talking about is the practice of having a single lamp hanging over the single ring for the matches, something which isn't very common anymore, but is pretty fun. Even better, Ilwaco destroyed Seaside, only dropping two matches.









-DKM

Sou'westering

This week on the Life page we have a feature on the new managers of the historic Sou'Wester Lodge, a particularly unique inn here that has hosted art events and artists for decades. Len and Miriam Atkins, second pic, have owned the place for more than 30 years and still live there on the third floor. The new caretakers, Stephen and Catherine, are in the process of "sorting out the obsolete."




-DKM

Power pioneers

Lead story on the front page this week is about folks around the county who are working to or are already living off the power grid thanks to various alternative methods. I though a good way to illustrate this would be a series of diptych style portraits. This worked particularly well due to the fact that most of these alt energy devices were up in air.




-DKM

Opening night, Pt. 2

Friday night was the opener for the Naselle boys, and was also their annual K-M Trophy game with Wahkiakum. The boys, however, are in a rebuilding mode this year and didn't have much of a chance. One of the few bright spots was Leo Mendoza, who had a game-high 22 points.

Then last night, after shooting a city council meeting where people voiced their displeasure for an hour, I caught the last half of the Ilwaco boys opener, against Naselle. Once again the Comets were vastly overmatched and Ilwaco won by like 30 points.


-DKM

Opening night, Pt. 1

The high school basketball season got underway tonight and I was at the Ilwaco-Astoria girls game. Kinda like the team, who lost by a few points, it took me awhile to get a good rhythm going and missed a bunch of shots, but by the end I was starting to get a feel for it again. And with that the three month marathon of hoops begins. Tomorrow night, the KM Trophy game between Naselle and Wahkiakum.






-DKM