Turkey Vulture

Nearly ten years ago while traveling through Missouri on a road trip I saw a turkey vulture for the first time. Since then I see them everywhere in northern Illinois. I am fascinated by turkey vultures because they remind me of dinosaurs. I also like to pretend they are thunder birds flying way up high looking for children to carry away. Anyway, I called up a local animal rehabilitation center and the director there confirmed that yes indeed turkey vultures are fairly new to the area. I then stopped by the center to get some up-close images and I almost got more than I bargained for. At one point during my visit, Vinny, a 23-year-old turkey vulture, and I were left alone in his enclosure and he hopped down from his perch and started biting my shoes and pants. I thought "oh great, this damn bird is going to bite me with it's bacteria filled mouth and I'll have to go to the hospital and endure a series of painful injections." Well I climbed up to higher ground and just kept lifting my feet. When I was finally rescued I learned Vinny just wanted my shoe laces.

Red, White and Blue

Receded

I meant to post some photographs of the flooding in DeKalb County when it happened, but I didn't so here you go. The above is from today and the rest are from April 18.

Pie

The Sycamore Pumpkin Festival pie eating contest occurred this past Saturday. I wasn't pleased with my images from the first two groups of children that participated, but then I saw this guy. I didn't bother looking for anything else and just focused on this bearded wonder. Our designer didn't run this image, but I can understand why they didn't. Oh yeah, he won.

POY

I haven't posted for some time now and I decided to post some more portraits of student athletes. Taking a portrait of someone that I just met is always weird. I'm not sure that will ever change. I wonder how the subject feels about being photographed. 

The 'Super' Football Preview

Last year while exploring sportsshooter.com I saw a series of football preview images by Corey Perrine that was based on the theme Friday Night Lights. The images inspired me and I wanted to do something a little different with our football preview this year. I approached our sports editor and told him I wanted to take portraits based on comic book characters, which he approved. I gave him the names of characters that I wanted to make images for and he found players that fit. For the most part, I'm happy with the results.

The shot above of Sycamore quarterback Ryan Bartels was definitely the least difficult, however the most expensive. The Sycamore Spartans colors are black and gold, so when I found the Superman shirt in those colors I was thrilled.



Shanon Davis of Hiawatha plays on the defensive line and was the biggest of all the athletes that I had to take a portrait of and fit the bill for my Juggernaut themed character. This is for sure my favorite of the six and the one I worried most about making. I used green floral foam bricks that I sprayed red for the wall and I used toothpicks and skewers to give the appearance of bricks flying as Shanon busted through. We have a Hobby Lobby right down the road from our office, so when they had their 40% off one item coupon in the paper, I visited their business just about every day to buy more bricks. James Nokes, one of our writers for the preview tab, got a great quote from Davis to fit the photo, "I like to run people over. I run people over a lot; as much as I can."



Joe Diedrich is a center for the DeKalb Barbs. If I had the time to, I would have liked to re-shoot this one, but I think it still works.



Gabe Williams is a running back for Genoa-Kingston. Before I shot this I had planned to use the rear curtain sync function on my camera to fire my flashes at the end of the exposure. For some reason when it was time to shoot I couldn't get the function to work on site and I had to improvise.



Jordan Kalk plays at least three different positions each game; kicker/punter, linebacker and wide receiver. Batman was the original character that I wanted to base Kalk's portrait on because he's a utility player and the Dark Knight has a belt with which has many uses. I couldn't really come up with anything other than a cape, so I researched more characters and I found Multiple Man. This is a composite and I used three images to create this illustration. The front image of Kalk is the original. I used a tripod and had him move to the sides of the frame to get the two other shots.



Quinn Buschbacher is a wide receiver for the Kaneland Knights. I made the web using a dowel rod painted white and a hot glue gun. I suspended the ball with fishing line and I came up with this.

The Beach

I knew before last week ended that I'd have to get a weather photo today as we are in the midst of a heat wave. The problem is that this is DeKalb county. You can drive and drive and see nothing. You can walk downtown, but everyone is just scurrying to get back inside to air conditioning. Also, we've gone to the local pool way too much. I needed a new location so I asked my editor. She told me that there was a beach in Sycamore at the local RV resort. What the what? There's a beach in Sycamore? So I got this while stood on the sandy beaches of Sycamore, Ill.

Welcome Home

On Friday evening, Marine Cpl. Chris Piatt was welcomed home with an escort by the Warriors' Watch Riders and local police and firefighters. The parade was to be a surprise, but Piatt heard a local radio station asking for supporters to line the streets of both DeKalb and Sycamore for his return home. After hearing this, Piatt felt the need to put on his uniform. It was great to see a community come out to greet the soldier, especially one dressed in uniform and thankful for the support.

Two POY Portraits

The spring season is over and it's time for player of the year portraits. Here's a couple from this week.

Pickle

Got this rundown situation today without anybody blocking my view, which includes defensive player, on deck batter, or umpire... Amazing!

Homer

I finally got my photo of the ball off the bat for the game winning home run yesterday. I think the anticipation was more exciting rather than the photographic result, but oh well. I also thought that 1/6400th of a second would have eliminated the blur on the ball.

Hats

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.