Working under pressure...

For a smaller market photojournalist, there are often several assignments to complete each day. On average, I shoot 2-3 assignments on a weekday and anywhere between 4-8 on a Saturday. Let me say right now I am usually up there in the upper end of that estimate on the weekend. The past two Saturdays I have shot 7 seven assignments, often one right after another in three and four hour blocks. Needless to say I have some busy days. The challenge of the job, then, is to still bring back something good, whether I have 15 minutes or and hour and a half to shoot an assignment. A good example of this was last Saturday when I had to shoot a noon soccer game, get to a boy scouts event where they were retiring American and Texas flags at 12:45 and then get back to the stadium to shoot another game at 2:00. When you factor drive time in there things can get pretty hairy. Once I got to the boy scout event I was ready to shoot them burning the flag remnants, but as will often happen to a photojournalist, they were running behind cutting the flags up. For those of you wondering why they do this, it is to make them easier to burn and to speed up the process which can take awhile. Myself and a photographer from another nearby paper were both shooting the boys cutting the flags and looking at our watches. We both had somewhere to be and had not budgeted too long for the assignment. I ended up staying longer since I could stay until around 1:45 and still make it to the soccer game shortly after it began. Of course there was a ceremony and some speeches so I was really wondering if I would even see some flames. Just before I was going to leave they began burning the flag pieces and I was able to shoot for about seven or eight minutes before running to the truck. Despite the event moving along slowly I made several images I was happy with. I have found that I need to shoot very quickly at events like this, especially when they don't stay on schedule, but I must still be thorough, getting names and such for caption info. Often, I feel like someone should be playing "flight of the valkyries" every time I jump into my truck and take off to the next assignment. I have have plenty of assignments where I don't have an 45 minutes to wait around for the action to happen and must get the best photo possible while I am there. I would have had to turn something in still even if I had only had five minutes to shoot. I find that sometimes I thrive in these assignments, but that some of my biggest mistakes come from these assignments as well. Photos © Midland Reporter-Telegram.



The stars of Old Glory burn as pieces of a flag are set afire during a retirement ceremony put on by area boy scout troops at Veterans Park.



Joey Aceves of Weblo Scout troop 129 in Andrews tears pieces of an old flag during a flag retirement ceremony at Veteran's Park Saturday afternoon. Boy Scout officials said the flags are torn into pieces to make them easier to burn.



Boyscout's Jordan Homefeld (front) and Joey Aceves (background) cut up old and worn-out American flags to make them easier to burn as part of a flag retirement ceremony at Veteran's Park Saturday.



A piece of American Flag is thrown into the fire as area boy scouts gather around to watch the flag remnants burn at a flag retiring ceremony at Veteran's Park Saturday.



George Friday, Unit Commissioner with the Buffalo Trail Council, moves around pieces of American and Texas flags to help the pile burn faster during a flag retirement ceremony Saturday afternoon.

Simple is often best

When I get a portrait assignment, one of the first things that usually comes to mind is that I need to check my bag o' flashes and make sure I have everything I need to complete the assignment. Yet, not all portraits require the use of flash, sometimes the light available on site is good enough or even better than hooking up the strobes and pocket wizards. The portrait below was taken of a local businessman, in the restaurant he has run for twenty-something years. The whole front wall was practically one big window, letting plenty of beautiful sunlight in so I decided to go with that instead of something fancy. Mr. Brooks seemed like a straightforward and simple man, so I hope the choice to go available light here adds to the photo and says something about the subject too.



Julius Brooks in his restaurant Mr. Brooks Barbecue, which he will have owned for 29 years in August. Photo © Midland Reporter-Telegram

For the baseball players below, I used just one light at camera right to light up their faces and to even out the exposure. Unfortunately, the sky wasn't blue and cloudy so it's mostly blown out. I include this here because six months ago I probably would have been too scared to even try a one light portrait as I felt I didn't have a good grasp of lighting basics. I have been a strobist reader (www.strobist.com) for over a year now, but I still felt nervous shooting with small strobes on assignment. Thankfully my job has pushed me to not only do so, but to begin experimenting more and more with simple setups that can easily turn a dull portrait into something better. I'm not saying the photo below is great by any means, but it is certainly made better by using a simple flash setup. As I grow better in my lighting skills expect to see some more complex portraits here on this blog.