>Sunflowers on Roids

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I busted out the Poloroid One Step and ponied up for some ridiculously expensive film. I haven't shot with it in eight years since the kids were babies. It has to have batteries in it, but I can't figure out where to put them in. I didn't need to though because it fired right up with the strobe and all. I shot of some now wilted sunflowers I got Carrie as part of her birthday present last week. T

>Bus Trip with President Clinton

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I've been going through some old prints and found these from a trip I took through Washington state with the press corps covering President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore on a re-election campaign run in 1996. It was one of the coolest experiences I've had as a photojournalist. A bunch of famous photographers were on the bus and even Sam Donaldson. The only photographers shooting digital at the time were two shooters from the Associated Press, one of which was Doug Mills. Larry Downing was shooting chromes for Time. David Hume Kennerly was shooting black and white for Newsweek.

Even on lonely rural roads people came out of their house and stood on the side of the road to see the convoy go by. Traffic was stopped on I-5 downtown Seattle and a log truck driver climbed on top of his load for better view. At one point, the photographers hopped in the back of a flat bed truck and shot these guys in Longview with letters spelling B-I-L-L-Y across their chests.

We had relatively good access to the president and I learned a lot about my job on that trip.

>A Stroll Through the City...of Eugene

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I shot this last week as I was out for a walk.

>Prom Picture

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These two were posing for a prom picture at Alton Baker Park. I shot this photo and they saw my camera and asked me to take their photo with their camera, so I did. It didn't look like my picture though.

>Greta's Friends

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Here's a snap in the backyard of Greta with her friends.

>Eugene Rave

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I went to this rave for a short time last night after covering a huge warehouse fire.

Tom

>More Taxidermy

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The top photo is shot on Tri-X with a lensbaby and processed in Aperture.
The bottom photo is grossly underexposed. Kinda on purpose, but I have to admit, it was more under than I expected it to be. I scanned it anyway and this what it looked like after some fairly aggressive toning.
This type photography is not really what I'm into, but right now I'm experimenting and testing. I will use this equipment/film on a shoot that counts eventually. In the meantime I just need to find out how it acts in different situations.

>The Coolest Assignment I Ever Had

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As I mentioned earlier, I bought a new film scanner. After I hooked up I wanted to see how it worked with chromes. I had a couple pages from my Belize trip sitting in my office that I had never scanned.

I originally went down there to shoot travel photos for website that specializes in travel to Ambergris Caye, Belize. While I was there a Medical School would be having a graduation. The guy who hired me had told his contact at the university headquarters in Maine that I would be there for shooting for him. She saw an opportunity and hired me to shoot their graduation for their publications.

So, on top of free travel and resales to travel magazines, I was paid goood money to shoot this ceremony that lasted about two hours. It was a pleasure.

Anyway, here's a image from that shoot. I really need some more assignments like that...soon!

>Read This

>David Alan Harvey has a really nice post on his blog titled "Moving On." Click on the link above to read it.

>Papa

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I just bought a Canon 8600F scanner to scan film, but it scans prints too so went through my massive print collection and found some prints that I have no idea where the negs are. I think it makes a good scan. This one is of my grandfather, who died in 1998. I shot this probably 15-years-ago. I miss him a lot.

>Big Print

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Here's a photo from Beth and Warren's wedding. I just ordered a 16x20 print for a frame they have ready for it.

>Cole's First Goal in the First Game of the Season

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That's what is. It was cool to see. Plus, I just happen to be shooting it with a 400/2.8 and a 1.4x teleconverter. Which, is kind of funny to see the other parents stare at me with such an obnoxiously large lens. I always think their thinking, "That dude really takes his kid photos serious."

>Heads Up!

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Today, I took Cole to a taxidermy shop I shot an assignment at a few months back. We saw mounts of a baboon, zebra, polar bear, fox, lion and a the usual bears, deer and elk, and bighorn sheep.

I've added a few more images from the taxidermy shop.

>One more baby!

>I just learned a new trick for toning black and white images. It looks kind of metallic and old-fashioned. I think it's cool.

>Always Shoot the Baby

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I started out with photography at a very young age, and I've always photographed babies that happen to cross my path.

When I was in 7th Grade I actually owned a Rollieflex. I didn't really know what it was but I bought it for $100 (it turned out to be worth much more than that). A friend of my mother's came over to the house with her 1-year-old baby. I shot a roll of black and white. It was a real turning point for me. I got most of them sharp, the light was good and the photos turned out really well. It was my the first shoot that actually worked well for me.

My mother told me a story recently about that child. Twenty-five years later the child in that photograph is dead. He was in the Marine Corps and in Iraq. He was killed in combat. His mother said that photo I took as a seventh grader has always been special to her. Of all the photos she has of him, that's the one she carries in her wallet.

That story really made me realize how important photos are to us.

Yesterday, I shot this photo of little Sophie. She was at Carrie's mother's house. Her grandfather his holding her up.

>The Best of Photojournalism - Photo Editing Team

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My boss, Rob Romig, Director of Graphics, and myself won an Honorable Mention award in the Best of Photojournalism contest for Newspaper Front Page. The photo above was the photo that ran with a story on cagefighting. You can click on the link above to see the actual award, but for some reason the image is whacked. We've sent a new version so hopefull they'll fix it.

>Splish Splash

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I shot the Oregon Invite track meet today. Here's a snap from my remote camera I had set up next to the steeplechases trap.

>Black and White Beach

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I had this crazy idea that I wanted to shoot some Tri-X. I borrowed Chris Pietsch's Canon 1V, bought a new Holga and bought some film. The beach was a great place to shoot it up. I was going to process it myself, but with small amount film I was going to shoot it wasn't a good deal. I had it processed at Dot Dotson's.

I paid $10 to have one 120 frame scanned. Ouch. Then I took the 35mm to work. I was going to scan 64mb tiffs of the selects on the Coolscan 4000. After fumbling around for almost an hour, I gave up and scanned them on the old Kodak RFS 2035.

I was really dissappointed in the quality of the scans. There was even a scratch left from the scanner on every frame.

But, after all that time and expense, I'm really pleased with the look. It's totally different than an RGB digital file converted to black and white. I'm not sure I can articulate all the reasons, but there certainly is a difference in the look. I have some more film to shoot, so all I have to do is figure out what the problem is with the Nikon scanner and I'll be set.

Tom

>Driftwood Fort

>Here's a snap of Greta at the beach in Lincoln City climbing on the driftwood. There are dozens of "forts" made of driftwood to provide shelter from the wind. Tech info: Shot with a Holga plastic camera on Tri-X and scanned with a Nikon 8000.

>Lincoln City

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Here's a few snaps from our trip to Lincoln City.