In Flight
July 20, 2008 | 1 Comment
Like the bumble bee flying from flower to flower, I’m about to go airborne again.
We’re all about smiles here at the blog, so this post is for laughs. I’ll write more when I’m conscious again, though that could be days from now. For now, some travel advice:
You never need to pack your suitcase for a trip if you didn’t unpack it after the last one.
What do I need to do to get ready for the trip? Here’s the list:
(NOTE: Portions of the following list have been redacted so as not to provide any information about our plans to the competition.)
1. Pick up XXXXX from the office.
2. XXXXX the XXXXX.
3. Charge camera batteries, iPods (yeah, iPods plural), laptop, and cel phone.
4. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and XXXXX.
5. Sync podcasts on the nano. Sync videos on the touch — remove Mad Men season one and whatever else I’ve watched. Put new videos on for the flights to and from XXXXXXX. Maybe it’s time to watch season one of The Shield again? I might need the adrenaline rush for those pre-dawn flights.
6. XXXXXXXXXX the stuff that I said I would XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and the same thing with the XXXXXXXXXX and Francis.
7. Pray that the accounting department turned my company credit card back on after I finally turned in all of those delinquent expense reports.
8. Send a nice gift to the accounting department for their understanding about the late expense reports. Charge gift to the company credit card.
I’ll just improvise the rest of the trip preparations. If I’m lucky I’ll have enough clothes. If not, these ancient words of wisdom will apply:
Only if someone sees you twice do you need more than one shirt.
Deron Williams Press Conference
July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
On Friday Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams signed a contract extension. As Ross Siler reported in the Trib:
Having concluded that the Jazz’s “track record speaks for itself,” Williams signed a three-year extension with a fourth-year option that will pay him between $50 million and $70 million and keep him in Utah at least through the 2011-12 season.
I’ve had a few of these press conference-type assignments lately and was thinking of putting together a post on how to work these situations where good moments and angles can be hard to find. But the idea of writing that post was boring me to tears so I’ll just give you a couple of press conference photography tips.
First, look for anything out of the ordinary, like Deron’s little girl Daija peeking under the table before things got started:
Second, anticipate. They announced that Deron would come down from the podium for interviews. His wife Amy was directly in his path, so it was a pretty good guess that he would stop and “interact” with her:
Here are some of the other frames:
American Idol - Faces of Disappointment
July 17, 2008 | 2 Comments
The reactions of David Archuleta fans as David Cook, not Archuleta, is announced the winner of the seventh season of American Idol during a live broadcast.
We’re going back nearly two months to the night that Utah’s David Archuleta DID NOT win American Idol. It’s taken me that long to get to these photographs and piece together what the face of disappointment looks like.
Here’s a little of the creative process. As the announcement was made, I shot photos of the fans from across the arena with a 400mm lens. Photos like this:
I went through 25 photos like this and pulled out these 70 faces:
Once I had the 70 photos on the screen (oh yeah, it’s a 140 megabyte file with 70 layers), I started playing around with placement. It was quickly apparent that smaller groups of similar images would be more effective. Like this panel of people stunned with their mouths open:
And I couldn’t pass up playing with these pieces. Without heads:
and with:
Provo Rock City
July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
A piece of tape converts a don't walk sign into an automated rock fan. Best effect when flashing.
Historic Downtown Provo
July 15, 2008 | 2 Comments
The assignment was to photograph Provo’s historic downtown. In this case, I found historic to also mean decaying, like the vacant storefronts along Center Street (above). There were a few signs of life near University Avenue, like Chelsea Marvell on a date at the Smokehouse…
…but most of Center Street was in poor shape. As an example, this Tribune machine, loaded with yellowed copies of our competition’s edition from three weeks ago:
None of these were published. The story ran with a photo from the reporter. Here’s the page:
