Dangerous Wager

I bumped into my former intern Tim Martin at the photojournalism club at Northern Arizona University and almost walked right past him. He was a little hard to recognize as he had no hair or eyebrows. When I asked him what happened he sheepishly said that he had lost a bet with an old friend about who would graduate from College first. The loser had to shave.
I had gone to the meeting to give the students a challenge to photograph one fun subject a month. Tim seemed like a perfect candidate. I got him in the studio a few days later after a shopping trip to buy some eggs and an old straight razor.
I love this shot of Tim. It's very dark and moody which is the opposite of his personality. The next week I returned to the group meeting to share the photos. By now Tim is off in South East Asia on a photo safari. Hopefully the hair is coming back in. It's one thing to be bald but having no eyebrows is going to raise a few Thai eyebrows at passport control.

Spring at 7,000 Feet Above Sea Level

My wife Amy has been praying for snow. Apparently someone's listening as we've had and Alaskan storm system sitting over our mountain town for the past week. Supposedly it is going to be moving on by the weekend. It makes for pretty pictures but I'm more than ready for spring to arrive and stick around.
I learned how to shoot in the dark . Not playing with the snow downtown but in the local library photographing kids watching a 3D movie in a room to dark for my camera to autofocus. It was also too dark for manual focus. I had told the editors that I would send in a photo from the event for the front page so it was time to teach myself how to shoot in the dark. This was the first time that I used the LCD display to walk my focus in. I think it worked out pretty well.

This image would have been impossible with the Nikon's I was shooting with last year. I shot this a 6400 asa with a 1/2 second exposure hand-held. It's a testament to the Canon 5D Mark II and an 80 - 200mm image stabilized lens. This camera simply makes light where there is none.

Out of the blue

I got another reminder of just how stinkin' cool my job is today. Yes I get to spend plenty of time pointing a camera at people standing behind podiums but every once in a while I get a reminder of why I do what I do. My assignment today was to go down to the IRS office and photograph procrastinators filing their taxes. I pulled up at the social security office next door and noticed a lady pulling up in her car. Since it's against the law to photograph inside the office I approached her to see if I could photograph her sittinging her car. When I introduced myself she gave me a million watt smile and said that I had just won the lottery. She said that she was Frank Sinatra's daughter! Yep Old Blue eyes himself. Apparently the Chairman of the Board had an affair with her mother who told her just before she died that Sinatra was her father. As I leaned on the window sill of her car photographing her she told me of her trials trying to prove to the Sinatra family that she was indeed his daughter. Her name is Julie Sinatra. http://www.spike.com/video/daughter-of-frank/2804229 Her story is a sad one. She said that she is iving on $400 a month social security check and is about to become homeless. She was at the social security office to see if she could get her payments increased.