Thanksgiving is a good time of the year. I spend time with family and eating an evolved dinosaur is icing on the cake. Some people like to spend 8+ hours outside in temperatures that don't break 20 to purchase items at a discounted price, but to each his own.
One of today's assignments was holiday travel. Ugh. Should I look for cars on the road or somebody filling up their tank? I headed to the DeKalb Oasis and met a very friendly family from Virginia heading to Mount Morris sitting down for a fast food meal. I talked with them only moments before they allowed me to photograph them. Most of the time I expect people to say no and that's one of my faults, but I know if I saw some goofball who looked like me with a camera asking to take my picture or my family's, then I'd probably say no, but that's just me.
Nothing special here. Just one of ten portraits from our basketball preview section that came out today.
Yesterday I photographed a woman making dinner at her home for her family. The woman has a LINK card which wasn't credited at the beginning of the month when it should have. Feeding her family is a constant struggle. So while watching her cook dinner I noticed a calendar on the wall near the stove with a painting of a man presenting a turkey to his wife for Thanksgiving done by Norman Rockwell and so I came up with this.
The last hip hop album I purchased was a Hieroglyphics album back in 2003. Does purchasing the Gorillaz album count because I liked Del tha Funkee Homosapien? Anyways, I can't say that I am into it anymore, but that doesn't matter. On Tuesday night I had to cover an assignment about a Northern Illinois basketball player who moonlights as a musical artist in the hip hop genre. The bar where the show was at was very dark and of course I didn't bring a flash. Shooting at 2500 isn't something I like to do so I had to think. I kept seeing flashes pop during the show so I decided to poach the light that was available and I came up with this. Word is bond.
Telemarketers are annoying, but we don't get many calls from them anymore at our home. However, in the past week we have received three phone calls from individuals asking us to vote for Candidate X. These calls have been made at the most inopportune times. Either we are trying to eat dinner or my wife is trying to put the baby to bed. It definitely pushes my buttons and I often find myself hanging up on them and asking aloud, "What kind of idiot calls at this time of night!?!" On Thursday evening I worked a later shift and I got to meet some of the folks that work at a campaign office in DeKalb. These volunteers were making calls and asking individuals to vote for Candidate X. My job is definitely weird.
I went to Champaign today to cover NIU vs. the Illini. I didn't get anything I really liked, but I thought this was kind of funny. While running the ball for NIU's second touchdown quarterback Chandler Harnish stuck his tongue out and looked up at the Huskies' cheer section.
It took four high school games, one college game, and one Bears game to finally get my first football shot of the season that I actually like. The game was real ugly and I had my doubts that they'd pull out a win, and I still think the officials blew the call near the end, but Chicago won and I got what I wanted.
Recently I had to photograph a new business in the DeKalb area, Daisy's Sports Bar & Grill. I visited the business in the late afternoon and not much was happening and I was running out of time. I don't usually take assignments literally, but with all three elements, I thought I nailed it.
This August I have taken photographs for stories about the tax break for school supplies, NIU students moving into their dorms, eye exams for children entering kindergarten, first day of school in Kirkland, Malta (above), and Sycamore. Luckily the story on going back to school for home schooled children fell through.
I hadn't been on an airplane since 2004, so it's odd to have been on two different airplanes in three days. The first flight was on an experimental aircraft and the second was on a B-17 (above) where I got to sit in the nose of the plane as it flew over DeKalb county. A flight in the B-17 costs the public $425 for a seat in the mid-section or $600 for a seat in the nose. For $0 as a member of the media, I couldn't pass up this opportunity.
If the temperatures are in the 90s and the humidity is 100% then it must be the beginning of the football season. This also means that we need to photograph practices, set up portrait times, and be prepared for ridiculous deadlines. Oh well, it is still by far my favorite sport to photograph.
Today I was asked to look for "wild art." I'm still not sure what that means. Anyhow, I found these two guys with cowboy hats selling corn from a pickup truck so I stopped. While photographing them, Beck Diefenbach my co-photographer from the Chronicle, was across the street waving to me. Apparently while going to the Sycamore post office he'd seen the two guys with their cowboy hats too and had tried calling me to photograph them without even realizing that I was already there. It's all about the hats.
Today while driving out in the boonies I found a group of workers dusting crops with a helicopter. The pilot, who previously flew for the military, would land on top of a truck as the ground guys would quickly refill the fungicide and fuel about every ten minutes. Only a few days earlier I tried to photograph an airplane dusting crops with little success so this was a nice surprise. I stuck around for an hour or so since the workers gave me access to shoot whatever I wanted. Cameras make for a great ambassador sometimes.
It's pretty miserable outside right now. Very warm and way too humid. I had to find a weather feature today and I decided to head north to Genoa where they have a public pool. Growing up, if a pool had a diving board that was awesome, nowadays if a pool doesn't have a water slide it's just not cool.
Yesterday, Newark, Ill. ended their week long celebration for their 175th anniversary with a parade and many other activities in and around their downtown area. This was my sixth year that I have witnessed the festivities first hand. According to an old wise man who grew up in Newark, but now currently resides in Chicago, this year was by far the largest turnout.
I'd like to believe that I'm getting better at taking portraits of athletes. I'd like to give some credit to Beck Diefenbach, my co-photographer, for that. Anyhow, I was a little bummed to see this shot of Logan Markuson in black and white in our paper today instead of color. Oh well, there will be more opportunities to improve and more pages in color in the future.
The DeKalb baseball season came to an end this past weekend in Joliet. The team lost to Chatham Glenwood, 11-1, in six innings. My favorite image from the season, however, was from June 5 (above) when they won their Sectional championship at home. Just before the shot I focused on the pitcher and then I heard the strike three call. I was behind a fence and all I followed was the pitcher and out of nowhere the catcher jumped into the frame and I snapped away. I know you can't see either of their of their faces and it was hard for me to select it as the lead photo for our sports section, but it just screams celebration so I went with it.
On May 31, 2010, I covered the Memorial Day parade in DeKalb, Ill. I had photographed many of the veterans that were a part of the parade in the past for other assignments so it made it much easier to get closer and shoot more intimate moments like this one.
