Models are here

The online slide show for the Dominican Fashion Show "Framed" from 2007 is finally up here. Check it out.

Killing Time

Models curling their hair and killing time before the next part of the beautification process.
Karolina Cabaj reads while Ashley Rounds curls.

Goodbye to the Models

Mike Shallow (gotta love that name, just screams star potential) checking
out his garment "Formal Woodsman" in the mirror during the final fitting.

*Update - The online slide show is here.

The Dominican Fashion Show 06 piece got published. It's not what I would have liked, but it never is.

Over the couple of weeks of my time I spent on the piece I met a couple of really cool students, some nice models and saw some pretty hard work being done. The show consisted of over a 120 outfits on a multitude of models in multiple collections.

More interesting to me watching how many hours went into getting the whole show done. I'm sure there was a lot I didn't see, in fact I know there was, but even what I did get to see I didn't expect going in.

Hours for the final fitting, and last minute adjustments made to get the outfits to their final state and work with the particular models.

Hours more with the models wearing the outfits again so the professional panel could review and critique the outfits. I'm guessing the designers were around these outfits literally every day for the two weeks I was around and from what our story says for months before hand.

And then, and this I think is more shocking for a guy, the hours of hair and make-up before each show. There are many reasons I love being guy, one of these is certainly that should I want to do my hair up nice and fancy it adds an extra 30 seconds to my day, not 30 minutes.

Having said that, the show looked gorgeous. Beautiful outfits, beautiful women and decent lighting makes for an easy shot for me. I need more of these.

As stories go, this certainly wasn't the deepest one, it was after all all about looks. Though that can be kind of fun on occasion.

(middle image) Zorana Duran in "Blue Caribbean" by Rose Turner
(above) Sondra Ellingson curls her hair 2 hours before the show on Sunday.
The room was packed full of models getting hair and make-up done
and the women who were helping them out.

Fish

Max Zavell of the Kids All-American Fishing Team.

A New Edition

Meet Luke Bowker.
First son of two old friends of mine. Happily asleep in his mother's arm,
and she was getting some well earned sleep also, having given birth the day before.

Election Night in Chicago

Former Alderman Wallace with Alderman-elect Fioretti

Vote early, vote often. A great saying, made in Chicago because that's what used to happen. Even in my suburb of Forest Park the election judges, jokingly mind you, asked me if I wanted the ballot of a dead person along with my own. Classic Chicago humor.

So near the end of my very long day, I had been covering election related events since 7am, I was trying to take photos of a new alderman-elect. I showed up at his party as he was walking out the door, literally. I asked him, Bob Fioretti, where he was off to next, he told me "Wallace's" a retraunat on Madison and California. A bit out of our coverage area, but it's what I got to work with, so I work with it.

Turns out Wallace's is a real hoot. I love anyplace where people are genuinely happy and having fun. So I'm watching the band play, the Alderman-elect is having fun, being forced to sing and dance a little, but generally enjoying the moment. Eventually he gets pulled into watching the guitar player play the guitar with his tongue (and the song was even played pretty well still). How can you pass that up?

So I get a photo of Wallace, former Alderman Wallace actually, behind Fioretti watching the guitar player and the singer play the guitar with there tongues. Okay, pretty weird to start with. Now, go back to the office and find out that former Alderman Wallace, is actually disgraced former Alderman Wallace, something to do with corruption charges I think.

So now the picture is of two people playing guitar with their tongues, the Alderman-elect watching with the disgraced former Alderman behind him. That's Chicago.

Easter Socks

My grandfather on my mom's side on Easter Sunday. He's got the most kickin' socks.

Graffiti as fine art

Acid Etching, never heard of it before myself, but apparently it's fairly common. Actually I've seen it plenty of times before, just never knew it had a name, I just thought of it as crappy graffiti.

Acid etching is a method to put a gang mark onto a pane of glass, typically from what I saw on businesses. I could never tell what any of the 5 examples that I found actually said, I could just tell that those businesses were marked.

Christa, left the etching on her windows. It appeared about a month after she opened. She's left it there for a year and has never been marked again. It seems that as long as the business is marked it's left alone, which is good.

On the other hand the acid etching just never had enough content or shape to really look like anything or be visually interesting though. It was just there looking like vandalism. On the other hand old school graffiti. Spray paint on a solid surface, that can just look sweet.

If I owned a building I would probably find a good graffiti artist to decorate the outside of my building. Graffiti artists are can be great artists. I wish there was more of it around. And if the business is really that against spray paint graffiti they can just have it sand blasted off.

Maybe it's just me.

Making Myself Laugh

My impression of the world has always left me with the feeling that people think a joke is only worth while if the listener laughs. Personally, whatever you want to believe.

I know the jokes I like, and they're the same if you tell them or if I tell them. Those are the jokes that make me laugh.

So most of my jokes are focused on making me laugh, and if you laugh also, great. If you don't, bummer...for you.

This image was made during a judging of the pieces for the upcoming Dominican Fashion show. I had spent some time shooting in the judging room. The models would come in, walk to one end of the room, then back to the other, do a little twirl and then approach the judges that asked for a closer look.

It was interesting and somewhat depressing to watch. Beautiful young women, but yet almost no personality behind the walk. Admitadedly that's unfair, and probably inaccurate, but from where I was the ladies weren't much more than dolls with new clothes. Yet these "dolls", I know, are well educated and becoming more so every day and probably have sparkling personalities. It's just a bummer to me when that isn't shown more in any person.

I know it's just this situation, but I just always like it when a persons personality can shine through. Call me cheesy, it's fair at this point.

Anyhow, after watching them show outfits for a while I wanted to get a shot of the line at the door waiting to go in. While watching that I noticed one of the models kept looking back at the vending machines. It's a stereotype, and it's unfair also. I guess you can also call me a hypocrite.

I couldn't help but take the photo though. It brought a good laugh to me. Maybe it's just me, but again, that's enough for me.

Passion for passion

It's been a few years since I've covered the Passion March in Pilsen. Every year that I've covered it previously it's been a circus of photographers. It is still.

Besides every TV station in town sending a crew, you get every newspaper that can justify sending a photographer sending one, plus every college photojournalism class in 10 miles sending half of their photographers. This means you get about 30 photographers of all stripes.

I have no love for photo scrums. They're not fun. They involve photographers climbing over each like a pack over a downed buffalo. They generally make the media look bad, if you ask me. And you get a few people not following the rules, which I think makes the lot of us look bad.

That's what can really bother me. I don't mind when photographers climb over each other so much at political events. That's just the way it's supposed to be, but at spirtual events it just doesn't feel right. We all got jobs to do, but at some point you also just need to be respectful of others and the community.

At the Passion March the organizers ask the press to be out of the ring of the participants at a certain point. As is a habit of the press, they stayed till that point, and then beyond. I've got no problem pushing limits when necessary. I just don't feel this is a situation where that behavior is appropriate.

Ultimately members of the press must weigh the needs of their jobs, the needs of informing the community, but they also must weigh the needs of respecting those participating. This, to me, is especially true when people are practicing their faith. While for me, and the other photographers, this may be another assignment we have to do, for the people participating, this is a religious observation. At some point I just think there is a way to be respectful of people practicing their religious beliefs while also creating the necessary images.

As a further example, and on a humorous note, every Chicagoland photographer has a picture of the Passion March from the El tracks over 18th street. We all shot from there at one point or another. I was coming down from the tracks, and chit chatting with another photographer. As we reentered the mass of people following the march he got ready to start darting ahead. As he was leaving he said to me, "I'll see you at the hanging." Now it's normal enough to say something similar to that, but he could both find a better way to phrase, any other way to phrase it, and know what the proper terminology is. Hanging is just, wrong.

There are many fine members of the press, as with all professions, there are less skilled members, and we all have days where we just say the wrong thing. Still it deflates a person a little.

Passion

The Passion March, or Stations of the Cross in Pilsen, is a re-enactment of Jesus's final days. A lot of places around Chicago do a Stations of the Cross ceremony. The Pilsen community is the only one I've seen that has a man carrying what looks to be a very heavy cross over a mile.

This year there were probably 5000 people in attendance, and it got up to almost 30 degrees. It's always impressive to see people display, viscerally display their faith. It doesn't matter much to me what faith people have, but that they believe in something, anything, that gives them an inner strength is a good thing.

Maybe for the man carrying the cross 30 degrees was a good thing. On the other hand when they put him on the cross at the end, dressed appropriately for the period, meaning shirtless, I'm guessing thirty degrees wasn't so comfortable.

Fashion Fitting

Abby Zupancic checks how the dress she designed fits
model Darci DiBuono during the final fitting

These are a few of the starting images from a story on a fashion show at Dominican University.

The show is an annual affair. The usual fair, student designers and student models put on two shows on the weekend of April 14th and 15th. There might be an interesting twist, but we'll see if it develops. In the meantime I'll be focusing on the seniors, the process, and the finishing phases of getting the show together before photographing the show itself.

The original request was for photos of the show, but why do that when I can get a little more involved and get some more interesting photos?

These images were from the final fitting. The designers had to put their outfits on the models that are going to wear them during the show and have them approved by faculty in charge of the show. She was offering recommendations for small changes while I was there, but everyone seemed scared enough of the process that I'm sure there were some major changes being made as well.

Julie Binggeli fits a part of her senior collection made from recycled sporting goods.

This shoot also presented what may be the most difficult part of the process. In any story the first shoot is always a little tougher because everyone has to get comfortable with each other and learn what to expect from each other. In this case this had to be done in a room full of women who were often changing. I have to say, the models did a good job of ignoring me, and I did what I had to do, be professional, and ignore them and take pictures of the work. Hopefully this boads well.

Next time for shooting is hopefully the designers tired and working on finishing up the last of their outfits.

Doggy Dining

Megan Davey with her 8 week old pup Munch at Potbelly for lunch

Apparently in Chicago it is against health code to take your dog to dinner with you at an outdoor cafe. Chicago is a big dog town. Cat ownership just isn't zoned for the city anymore, all of Chicago is zoned for dogs. (Yeah, I'm a cat person.)

Of course in such a dog heavy city people will be allowed to legally take their dogs to dinner with them. At least for the outdoor patios. So a reporter and myself went to find some outdoor diners.

We got to our second restaurant when we met Megan and Munch. An 8 week old pup pretty much seals the deal photographically. Especially if he's named Munch and keeps chewing on her hand.

Good Music

Went to another another Pat McCurdy show.

Pat shows, or at least the two I've been to, are a good time.

A mix of song and humor. A small club environment. (I'm not a fan of large gatherings. They lack intimacy.)

Fans hanging out chit chating with each other. Fans chit chating with the the sound guy (Jim?) and Pat.

It was also a good chance to hang out with an old friend of mine, Adrienne. She usually has something going on, and who doesn't enjoy catching up on a friends dirt? Well, not really dirt, but it's more fun when you make it dirt with a little exaggeration and hyperbole.

On my way out for a fun night and...

Life seems to have a bad habit of having random bad things happen when I go out for an evening with the friends. Not bad things happening to me at least, but bad things happening to other people that I then must take photos of.

So I'm driving a few of my friends over to another friend's new apartment for a night of hanging out. We're almost there when we turn onto Lake St. only to have it blocked by fire trucks and cop cars.

At this point I know I'm going to be delayed for a little while. Drop my friends, and take the two block walk over to the scene of the accident.

In photojournalism classes they teach students to always have a camera with them. I use my carry around camera very little it seems, yet it comes in so handy. So I did what I could with my little P&S (Point & Shoot).

What amazed me about this is that the other car, a BMW four door, had the front drivers side knocked in a good foot or so, but was otherwise alright. What I would call major damage, but nothing that would make me think that the accident was all that bad. I apparently don't understand the dynamics of car impacts very well.

At least from what I could see there were no major injuries.

And the joke is....

Let me start by saying that I work long hours, some weeks, and have to be able to handle a whole variety of situations and reliably be able to get images out of any situation.

That said, today I spent an hour and half shooting at one park, then went and spent an hour and a half at another park, then went to dinner. All of these things were work, on a warm sunny high 70s day.

To hell with offices.

The other thing I always wonder about. Guys like this guy. In town for a conference on bio-engineering or something like that. Hard core science stuff. Looks like a hippie. Looks like the devil with his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Very nice. People like this are what make the world so good.

Are scientists just artists with the good sense not to go into the arts?

Predictability

Certain events, actually many events, are pretty predictable. It gets to the point that wondering what is going to happen is a nice change of pace.

In this case local teams Fenwick and OPRF face off in water polo. Fenwick wins the state championship most years and is in the final game almost every year. Suffice it to say, this game wasn't all that competitive and ended at something like 17-2.

Problems with Passion

As an artist, you have to be passionate about your art. Or at least I can't see any way of doing your art and not being passionate about it. The two go hand in hand.

I'm also a strong believer that all things which are strengths are also weakness, it just depends on the situation and how you use a particular trait.

The problem here is that sometimes that passion for a work, the passion that existed when creating a work carries on long after the work is complete. This passion can lead to see with tinted glasses.

As an artist unfortunately you have to see your work as what it is sometimes. You have to divorce yourself from that passion that so motivated the creation of the image in the first place. It's a challenge, or at least it's a challenge for me. Ultimately I see an image and I remember the conversation I had with the person. I remember how I enjoyed their company and laughed with them and enjoyed an exchange of ideas. None of that matters if it doesn't show in the picture, but for me, it always shows in the picture somewhat because I was there.

Unfortunately when you have a piece of art you really like, but the circumstances surronding it are painful, to work on the piece and display the piece you have to feel some of that pain each time you deal with the piece.

For me that's true with my Bed Series. It's a piece of art I'm pretty proud of, I really enjoy the images from it and the ideas behind it. It also came from a relationship that brought a lot of pain into my life. Happily I'm far enough out of that relationship to work on the piece without the remembered pain being all to bad, but it still has it's pin pricks and probably always will. But the series of images, as with some of the other images from that relationship, are images I really enjoy and am happy I created. Pain and happiness walking a path together, maybe that should be the synopsis of that whole relationship?

I don't know how other artists work on pieces that were strongly emotional for them. I just know for me, when I work an image, I feel a little bit of that orginal emotion, the good and the bad. I also know that I can handle that emotion, to a point, and use that emotion to make the work better.

And then at the end of the day I need to set that emotion aside, remember that those days are past days, and go on with today.

My passion has to be there to drive me to create the piece, and edit the piece, and show the piece, but sometimes it also needs to not be there to truly and evaluate the piece, to decide how to use the piece and how to improve it.

Suffice it to say, it's all a big balancing act.

I'd be curious to hear how others handle this conundrum, let me know if you get the chance.

City

I'm always working to capture that image that speaks to how the city feels so often; large, busy, overwhelming, hectic.

This is one of those "corners" in Chicago that almost always has that feel. It's at the intersection of Damen, North, and Milwaukee in the heart of Wicker Park.

This area always has something happening, people moving.

I also just felt like posting a photo.

Because it was a good day

To be honest, this post is about nothing. I just had a good day, so I felt like throwing something up, but I'll spin it a bit and make it about the opening of this new bridge.

This is a handy dandy (at least for me) new bridge crossing the Des Plaines River from Forest Park to Maywood. It extends the starting point of the Illinois Prairie Path.

Very importantly, to me, it also means that bicyclists don't have to try to bike down Madison, a death defying experience some days, to get to the path.

For the photographers out there, may I humbly suggest, get out of your cars. Cars are wonderful, but not for seeing the world. And if you're going to be a photographer you need to see the world, and get out of the room on wheels that is your car, at least sometimes.

At some point during the spring, I always like to do a few assignments on my bike. I find I can do spring shots better that way. I can see the smaller details, express the feeling of the season better, be more open to the experience of spring because I'm feeling it, because I'm in it.

It's not practical, working on a bike. Who wants to have 10k in equipment on a bicycle? But if the equipment isn't capturing the images, why own it at all?

Anyhow, enough subject matter. I had a good day. I like that.

Plains in the big city

I love the city. Couldn't live without it, but as with many people, some days I can't live with it.

Getting "out of town" requires a bit of effort when you live in Chicago. First you've got to get at least sixty miles from downtown because the city itself stretches a long ways. Then you've usually got to drive at least another hour or so to get past the corn fields. Welcome to the Midwest.

My solution for getting "getting out of town," when I've only got a short a while to do so. Northerly Island.

Northerly Island, isn't really an island, and isn't really north of much of anything, it's pretty central. It is right off of downtown Chicago, it is pretty reasonably large, and has some relation to the plains that this area used to have. Though Northerly Island itself is a man-made island.

For anyone who played with Microsoft's Flight Simulator it was the starting point of that game. It used to be known as Meigs Field. An airport off of downtown Chicago on Lake Michigan.

We're going to ignore the fact that it was 70 degrees and somewhat sunny the other day, and that I felt like being outside.

Northerly Island is also a place where you can have some wide open space, on the lake, but within sight of the city.

It also makes an odd statement being a man made version of the nature that used to exist in this part of the country, while yet overlooking downtown Chicago. All the tall buildings being the first thing you see.

It also to me says something about what we, we as in Americans, have destroyed, reduced and otherwise left behind. It makes me want to get out of Chicago for a few days. Alas, that will have to wait till summer. And that's fine, I'd prefer the nice weather. But for an afternoon hike I'll take Northerly Island.

Also, if you want to buy either of this images as print, go here. There are also a couple more images available for purchase.

More from the cutting room floor

The ongoing complaint of every photojournalist, every photo department, the paper never runs the photos they should run.

I can't change this at my paper, at least not quickly. It doesn't seem most photographers can change this at their papers. So we all end up with piles and files of photos that we, the photographers, think should have run, but never did.

So I'm now going to run them here, at least from time to time.

Having shot basketball for the last few months, you would think my editors would be tired of printing lay-up shots. Nope, not even close. In game that was about stiff defenses, hard fouling, rebounds and turnovers, not a single one of those images ran.

Oh well. At least I've got them, and they make me happy. At the end of the day what else can I ask for?

So just to provide some context for these images.

This was the lowest scoring championship game in Illinois AA Girls basketball history.

Turnovers we're happening left and right, shots weren't sinking very often. Elbows seemed very...let's call it free, under the basket.

This was, as has been widely reported, a game based on defense.

Maybe these shots don't show the victorious Fenwick Friars looking victorious, but they do show the game more as it was. Hard fought, and close till the very end.

This program was modified to fit the time available

Weaknesses are strengths, and strengths are weaknesses. The only difference between the two are how you choose to use the inherent qualities of something. One way makes a quality a strength, one situation makes it a strength, another situation or use makes it a weakness.

Audio slide shows, for the most part, have to be kept pretty short. People just don't watch them for that long. Or at least that's what I'm always told, and that's what I do.

So the rough figure is that you have about 2 minutes of time to keep viewers attention on a website. This means my recent Chiditarod audio slide show had to hit about 2 minutes. This also means some real beauties of quotes got left out.

This includes the winning team captain talking about his various forms of sabotage; replacing race maps with fake race maps, shoving opponents into snow banks, various forms of bribery, taping opponents wheels so they wouldn't roll and tying carts together. Also cut, a good 45 seconds of the judges bragging, outright bragging, about their bribes (transformers, head rubs, 3 shots, cupcakes, chocolates, you get the idea.) And after listing all this off, "It was pretty awesome." I also had to lose a woman saying she was going to get the next round. I really wanted this to get the drinking end across, but alas it had to be surrendered to the time goods.

Ya gotta love competitions that encourage cheating.

On the other side of the coin being forced into a tight edit usually makes the piece better overall. It makes the final piece tighter, more focused, which tends to be a good thing. It tells a better story for it's shortness.

Also check out the coverage by Matt Bigelow, good stuff (video also available through Methods Reporter). Always love seeing all the different views of the same event.

A Good Day, or the end of creative constipation

So I think I've mentioned a couple of time over the few weeks that I just haven't found anything, any stories that have really got my blood flowing.

I, like most artists, need a subject to be working on, a piece to be completing. Otherwise I just feel like I'm missing something, and something vital to me.

The advantage to journalism is that different subjects are put in front of me day after day. This means, if for no other reason than the sheer chance of numbers, that one of these assignments will eventually turn into something interesting, into something more than an assignment, and more about me creating something I want to create for my own reasons.

So I got lucky and got one and half of those in one day, and it was a damn long day.

The one, the main one, was covering Chicago's Chiditarod. It's a grocery cart race around Chicago's northwest side with bar hoping interwoven. Basically the competitors run from bar to bar, where they must wait, until they get to the end. The different teams all go with themes; secret service, bunnies, team zissou, etc, and the associated costumes. The grocery carts are usually decorated also.

Basically it's a reason for a bunch of people to act silly, dress silly, and drink. Good time for all. Not to mention very easy to get a fair number of decent photos out of.

For me it's a chance to work on something more interesting than "this week's business feature is..." It's a chance for me to have a story that makes me want to create something cool. A chance to make something longer and with at least a tad more depth. It's not the long-term story I'm still looking for, but it's a nice filler for a while, and I should be proud of it when I'm done.

I'm hoping to turn it into a audio slide show in the next day or two. Just got to do the computer work now.

That was my morning assignment. As soon as I got done with that I got packed and made a two hour drive down state to the girls high school state basketball championship.

Typically sports kind of bore me. They're a bit repetive and we rarely run anything too different photographically. State championships though can be more fun, if for no other reason than there is more energy and emotion.

So I spent the night shooting Fenwick winning state. I got a lot of jube (jubilation) shots out of the deal plus some good action shots. The tighter the game usually the better the action shots.

I've shot state championship many times before, and I've shot losing teams before, and I get good shots out of those, but they're just not as much fun as winning teams. Anything you photographic the emotions of the subject are going to effect your emtions. Does it really need to be said that over-whelming happiness beats saddness?

Now I need to turn all the basketball images into a slide show. The other thing about a good day, is that it tends to be followed by a few long days to get all the back end work done.

A good morning of shooting a fun subject and a night of shooting shooting good sports with good celebration.

A good day, all and all.

Problems, Problems, Problems, or...An Ode to Bitching

Something I've discovered over the last few years is that I love to bitch about things. Most of the time the things I bitch about bother me, but not all that much. I just find joy in the art of bitching. It's fun.

Now, luckily for me, my job gives me ample opportunity to bitch in that something always seems to be either getting messed up or just randomly falling apart. I bitch about these things, pretty much every time. But I've also discovered that I like it when it all falls apart.

It's just no fun when things are working well. There's no challenge. I thrive on the challenge. Put me in a situation where I have every reason to fail, and usually I'll do pretty well, come out with some decent to good images, and have fun doing it. Put me in a situation where everything is alright, or working for me, and I'll do fine, I'll make some good images, but probably not as nice, or at least not to me, and I often won't have as much fun. I love the thought of overwhelming failure, and the ability to succeed in those situations.

Really, who doesn't like a challenge? It brings out the best in all of us, or at least in me. I have to get more creative in my problem solving. I have to look beyond what I've done and I know I'm capable of and find more and go further. If people only grow by pushing their limits and expanding their horizons, aren't the situations I should fail the perfect opportunity to grow?

I really rather wonder how poets, musicians and painters do it, how they grow. They often don't have loads of problems bearing down on them. They don't have to worry about a word not showing up to the party. I guess they might have writers block, and maybe that's the same as the candidate not showing up. I don't know. I just think it helps when artists have obstacles to overcome. It pushes them to find that extra something in themselves to succeed. I'm sure it also builds confidence in themselves as well.

One of personal, favorite, sell imposed limits, and I work so much better when I have this limit than when I don't, is using prime lenses. For the non-photographers out there, that means using lenses that don't have a zoom capability. When I have a zoom lens I can just stand there and select what I want in the frame and be done. With prime lenses I have to figure out how to get the lens to work regardless of the fact that it's just a little to wide, or a little to tight for what I would like. I look at this problem, and compose around it, but I also have to spend time examining the image, thinking about the image, and then finding some way to cope with the limits. Often this leads to making a better image. If for no other reason than I've spent more time thinking about the image and thinking about what else I can get rid of in the image if the lens is to tight, or what else I can add if it's too loose.

Plus there is something that is good for the ego and self-image (I have done the entry on "Don't feed the Ego" yet?) in success in the face of obstacles. Sometimes it's nice to show off and just show, "I'm a bad ass, I'm so good, you can't stop me! Bring it on, I got it, I'm that good." Okay, this wasn't that serious of a situation, but really, this was asking for trouble.

The situation was that we had to cover election night. The other photographer, and my boss, had to bow out of working due to illness. So now instead of two photographer we got one. This meant I had to cover 3 candidates for mayor in Forest Park, plus at least three candidates for alderman in Chicago. The 3 Forest Park mayoral candidate images also had to be in pretty quick as the paper had to be out the door an hour or two later. The aldermanic images didn't need to be in till morning at least, but involved a lot of driving. This just had the potential to fall apart, there is no way to be in six places at once. Three sure, six is a definite stretch though, especially with driving.

Suffice it to say they all got covered, with images to spare. 6 locations, 4 hours, 30 minutes of editing in there, and over an hour of driving. Loads of fun, though not even close to my personal record for number of locations in that amount of time. Now mind you I can't take all the credit. Once we at the paper realized we had one photographer my editors did a great job of narrowing down coverage locations and minimizing drive time. They deserve a lot of credit, but I'm still really, really cool.

I've also discovered when I'm happy, my ego is feeling good, I tend to sing, mostly in the car. I think it's my new sign of happiness. I don't know when it started, but it did, and I like it. Mind you, I don't sing well, but I enjoy doing it. I think it's important to notice those signs, the tells we make when we have different moods. For me it's singing in the car, and singing the song "I'm too sexy for my...." when I'm walking down the street.