HS Girls Basketball

Just an action shot from tonight's game...

Not sure though whether I like it better cropped like this... aside from removing the annoying background elements, this crop is also closer to a "natural" 4x6 image, though it's still not quite 4x6.



What do you think?

Soundslides

This is more or less a test to see how a Soundslides project would look inside a blog post. The pics are from a story I did last year on a jockey making a comeback at the age of 50, after 9 years out of the sport. I also found out just recently that this photo story took third place in the NJPA Better Newspaper Contest. (I also took first place for sports action, for the second year in a row.) I hope you enjoy this. Hell, I hope this works...

Snow!

I love how it's a giant news story when it snows. In the middle of winter. Imagine that, snow during February. It wasn't even an inordinate amount of snow, yet my paper sent the entire photo force out and created multiple photo galleries filled with pictures of kids playing and adults shoveling, as though this is something foreign that never happens. And FOX5 News had at least 5 reporters who all said the same thing. "It's cold, it's snowing, be careful while driving, and now back to the studio!" which, of course, didn't take into account the 15 weather reports we were subjected to over the course of the 1-hour newscast. It's like nothing else goes on around here when it snows...

Anyway, I'm still recovering from the flu, so while the rest of my family played in the snow, (and Evan for his very first time!) I didn't leave the garage for more than 30 seconds at a clip. Evan, Staci and Mocha got to have all the fun, though I did get to take their pictures!

A New, Old Toy.

So I'm stuck in my house with this whole flu bug and everything, and while going through some of my old gear I found one of my old toys. My 50mm f1.4 lens from back in my RIT days. I'm not sure how practical it would be for me to carry around and all, since its autofocus is slower than all my other lenses, but in certain low-light situations or for assignments that call for very selective focusing it might be nice to have it around just in case. I tried it out on two of my favorite subjects today, since going outside was just not a possibility (aside from seeing a doctor). Really though, I should keep myself quarantined from Evan for at least another day or two. Doc said I'd be contagious for the rest of the week. Bad Daddy! Bad!

Intense Wrestling

I'm sick as hell, so here are a few photos from a wrestling match I shot last week. It was intense. The visiting team hung around all meet and, in the final bout of the night, went ahead of the home team, the favorite, by a final score of 30-29. Like I said, intense, and by far the best wrestling match I've ever been to.

Feature Hunting

Found this old school barber shop right down the street from my house. "Tony's Barber Shop." Tony's only open mornings from 9am to noon, and only on days he chooses. He's been cutting hair in this spot (and previously at a location right across the street) for just over 50 years, and man does he have stories. While we were waiting for customers to walk in (he doesn't take appointments) he told me a few of his stories.

First of all, when he started, Route 79 was a dirt road. He showed me a photo of his previous location, and you can kind of see the dirt road. The big, white building was town hall, and is now a Chinese restaurant... He's now located right across the street from here.




The Shell station and strip mall across the street from his shop used to be a dairy farm, and he'd position his chair to face out the window so kids getting their hair cut could watch the cows grazing.

As someone who just moved into the area 2 years ago, and who's only been working in this area for about 7 years, these stories were pretty hard to fathom. Just 50 years ago this was farmland and dirt roads? Wow. I'm glad I went in there this morning.

When he first opened in October, 1957, he charged $1 for a haircut and $.75 for a kid's cut. Now it's $8 for one and all. Here's Tony cutting the hair of a longtime friend who happened to walk in as we were talking.

ISO 2500

Yes, this image is average, at best. The reason I'm showing it, though, is because I shot it tonight at a high school girls basketball game. At ISO 2500. I love the new camera (Canon EOS 1D MarkIII). Until now, I could never get away with using available light to shoot games in high school gyms. But now, more than half the gyms in our coverage area are lit well enough to get a shutter speed of 1/800 @ f2.8 @ ISO 2500... and on these cameras, ISO 2500 holds up quite nicely, especially if the final output is just newsprint or the web...

Guide to Life in Freehold

I was sent to the racetrack (Freehold Raceway, to be exact) to get some "slice of life" photos for our "Guide to Life in..." series, with this month's edition featuring Freehold. What a sad place. (The track, not the town...) Barely anyone would even give me their names because a) they were ditching work to be there, or b) they were embarassed to be there, or c) both. Any why wouldn't they be embarassed to be there? To say the place is awful is an understatement. It was the kind of place that makes you feel unshowered just by being there. The entire building smelled like pee. But I'll probably get in a bit of trouble if I go on, so I'll just stop there and show you some of my pictures. By the way, I wouldn't consider this a slice of life in Freehold by any stretch of the imagination. Freehold is a lot nicer than this...

A Giant Parade!

Manhattan, 02/05/08. I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking really...

Black History Month

This is the first of what will probably be many Black History Month profile portraits I shoot over the next few weeks.



This is a citizen activist in Red Bank, as he peers through a hole in a utility pole at the corner of River St. and Leighton Ave., two blocks from his home. He's been trying to get someone to fix this pole for over two years now, and feels it could fall on somebody at any time.

The Amazing MarkIII

Sure it's a little noisy, but come on. ISO 2000, f2.8, 1/400. At a swim meet in a dungeon of a pool that had no outlets for plugging in strobes. MarkIII to the rescue!

FDU at Monmouth Men's Hoops

Just one from the game tonight. FDU beat Monmouth 70-66.

Something Different

Just a slightly different photo from a swim meet tonight...

If You Can't Make it to Lambeau...

...do the next best thing. Visit the Green Bay Packers shrine that is Vince Lombardi's grave at a cemetery in Middletown, NJ.

How Bizarre

This is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen in sports. Mike Deane, head coach of the Wagner College Seahawks men's basketball team, buckles himself into his seat during a game at Monmouth University. He had a special seat constructed with a seat belt, and he uses it both at home games and on the road in an attempt to limit the number of technical fouls he receives for running onto the court during play.



Anyway, Wagner defeated Monmouth 77-62. Monmouth kept it close for a while, even well into the second half, but Wagner just had too much for the Hawks in the end.

When You Really Just Have Nothing to Work With

Today my assignment was to shoot a door, or more accurately, a lock box that a guy couldn't get off of his door. The story actually was pretty important, but it's not one that should have required art, IMHO. (This guy is having trouble with the real estate company he hired to sell his house. His problem is they don't exist anymore, and no one's left to remove the lock box from his door.) But for some reason it was also 150 miles (round trip), roughly 65 miles outside of our coverage area... to shoot this guy's door! At least the weather cooperated I guess, and I was able to make a halfway decent photo. But come on, 150 miles (round trip) to shoot a door!

State of the State

Apparently the State of the Garden State is, well, not very good... Here are some photos from the afternoon in the NJ State Assembly Chambers.











Thanks for visiting. I promise I'll try to update a little more frequently...

History

It's late, so no story, but here are two pics from the historic Patriots/Giants game tonight... I (might) add more at another time...

Randy Moss (top) catches a historic TD pass against the Giants. Not only did this catch give Moss the NFL record for the most TD receptions in a season (33) but it also gave his QB, Tom Brady (bottom) the NFL record for most TD passes in a season (50). The bottom pic is Brady's reaction. Someone needs to teach the Golden Boy how to celebrate....

The Pats' 38-35 win also gave them a perfect 16-0 record for the regular season, something that's never been done before. (The 1972 Dolphins went 14-0 in the regular season, but that was before teams played 16 game seasons.)