Tag Archive for photo

Culture Change

Today I was reading one of my favorite items on my RSS feed, the New York Times Lens blog. One of today’s posts was about street photography.

I normally don’t do a whole lot of what you would call street photography but I think the topic is still really relevant.

The piece talks about how people don’t just walk to where they need to be anymore. They have to be connected. Most of my photo work has occurred on a college discount meaning I’ve felt this first hand.

While street photography hasn’t been my thing, I have many times had to find a photo. And I can tell you first hand that this is a big issue for taking photos of strangers. People very rarely are looking up, which makes it very hard to make a compelling photo.

Everybody wants to see a face in a photo, and you can’t do that when everyone’s face is pointed at their phone.

Story of a pot farmer on PDN

A Pot-Farming Life

I just came across this post in Photo District News’ Photo of the Day. It’s a photo story about a marijuana farmer in Northern California by Maureen Drennan.

White really strikes me about this is the story behind it. As far as interesting subjects go a marijuana farmer ranks pretty far up there. Mostly because you have a profession that is so taboo to so much of our country and culture yet is perfectly legal.

To really get a good look at it I would take a look at her website as the story has a real depth in visuals that you can’t see in the five photos on the PDN website.

Catching Up

Well I’m now almost two weeks behind if not more. I have some various work from Greeley to post, so I’ll start with that.

These next few photos are from the Northeast Weld County Fair in the little town of New Raymer Colorado. I covered it last year for the Tribune and got to go back again a two Saturdays ago. I was amazed at how many of the same people there were there.

Next are a few photos from what turned out to be one of my better baseball games of the year. Kinda a shame to because the game wasn’t anything huge. Like I had already said to a few people I have a really hard time with baseball. Takes so much patience and focus at the same time.

And last is a photo from the Sam Brownlee Memorial Ride. Sam Brownlee was a Sheriff’s Deputy for Weld County who was killed at the end of a high speed chase last November. You can find more about it here.

I walked in not having the slightest clue what it was or who Sam Brownlee was. I really wish in hindsight that I would have looked it up first. So instead I came back to the office for an hour midway through the event and read about it.

Out of dumb luck my favorite photo of the day included Heather Brownlee on a motorcycle, which really connected the story of the ride and the photo together I think.


More to come soon. Please feel free to comment.

Sunday’s Freelance Work

Yesterday I went to go do some freelance work for the Loveland Reporter Herald again. I’ve actually been able to do a decent amount of work for them on Sundays, which has been really nice for the money and experience.

So yesterday I shot New Belgium Brewing’s Urban Assault Ride in the morning. Every time I see an event like this I wish I gave myself more time to actually participate.

Don’t get me wrong, I love shooting photos of things like this but I occasionally find myself wanting to actually participate in the event like a “normal person.” But work is work so here goes:

 

The second assignment of the day was shooting the last match of the Loveland Open Tennis Tournament. Before Sunday I had only shot tennis once in my life, and honestly it was a frustrating experience. However this time turned out to actually be alot of fun, the competition was friendly yet close with the players on both side fighting for every inch.

Thanks, and please drop me a comment.

Pet Blessings and Softball

Today I got to shoot an interesting subject. I got to go shoot an animal blessing ceremony. It was interesting and the people were very passionate about it.

Not being very religious myself I don’t really get it but the people were nice and the photos were good.

Next I went and shot some softball, unfortunately I was only able to be there for the last 20-30 minutes so I had to stick with the standard safety photos.

Thanks and feel free to drop a comment.

-Sam

Town Days

Today I went and shot both Eaton Days and La Salle Days. They were both kinda the typical town fair event. Parade, food, fireworks and maybe some other crazy shenanigans like La Salle’s mud volleyball.

I’ve always had a hard time figuring out exactly how to approach these. I have a tendency to just walk up and feel like it just hit me in the face. I get overwhelmed. Everywhere I look there is something that could be a photo, but most of them would just be mediocre photos.

So instead of just trying something I circle the whole place, wandering and not accomplishing much for about half an hour. Then, I get desperate and make myself shoot something. Then I tiptoe from there until I have to leave.

Anymore I find myself being able to walk up and choose something to shoot a little faster. Today on the Eaton Days parade, I was able to pick a group early on and walk with them, shoot photos and talk to the people in the parade. My first subject of the day was a little boy riding in the “rumble seat” of his grandpa ( or maybe great grandpa, didn’t catch the detail). But I chose it because I loved the kid for his hair and the interesting way the seat just kinda hung from the back of the car.

I also found a child who seemed to be cranky to be receiving candy. But it was also kinda hot, so maybe that was the problem.

But for now I think I’ll end my commentary here, with just another plee for interaction and of course, more photos. I’d love to hear what anyone has to say about the photos or the format so please leave me a comment. The comment system is supposed to link with facebook but I’m not sure if that’s functional.

 

Cheap Trick and Blue Oyster Cult Concert

Well, this is the first post. Hoping that I like wordpress for starting a photoblog but we will see.

For the first post I shot photos last Saturday at The Greeley Stampede of Blue Oyster Cult and Cheap Trick. Was alot of fun to shoot having not done alot of concert work. I did forget how fast those three songs can go.

Not my best work but still some fun photos anyway.

Thanks for looking and I’d love to hear from you what you think about the photos, the new blog, the new website or just to say hi.