Recent work

Here a couple of my favorite images from the past week. This first one is from a snowcross race held just south of Granby last weekend. I covered this series last year and had a great time--there was great action and great light. This year the light just didn't cooperate, so I challenged myself to find something, or more accurately SEE something different away from the usual straight-forward action. This was the result:



The other photo is from the miserable day of weather we experienced on Wednesday. I had heard that U.S. 40 over Berthoud Pass had been closed due to adverse weather, so I headed that way to get a photo of the road block. Having got that shot I headed back to Granby. As I got to the west side of Red Dirt Hill I noticed the blowing snow was causing whiteout conditions. I found a safe spot along the edge of the highway and photographed traffic as it passed into the white cloud. This was my favorite:

Our small staff gets smaller

I've been meaning to post this for several days, but just haven't had time. Two weeks ago the paper I work for announced several layoffs and that our paper would no longer be printed on site. A few days later as I walked through our press room, it really sunk in that I would no longer hear the press running or be working with some great people.

The final Sky-Hi Daily News printed in Granby.

The clipboard showing the final press runs hangs on the silent press.

I'm going to miss Will, John, Jennifer, Carol, Mike and John.

Worth the wait

So after eleven months of procrastinating I finally made time to get my car fixed after my accident last December. I have to thank my friend Bobby who did the work for a lot less than the body shop wanted--he also made some great suggestions to liven up the paint scheme.

Old and busted....




New hotness....

This hasn't happened in a while

Ah, the joys of being a high school coach. I guess this is a sign that I am loved...



You gotta love Halloween.

State playoffs bound

I now have a pretty good idea what it's like for those basketball teams waiting for their bids to the NCAA tournament. The Middle Park HS boys soccer team (which I am an assistant coach for) finished its regular season last week and finished second in their region, thus securing a spot in the state playoffs for the first time in several years. The seeding committee met this morning and finally around 12:30 the bracket was posted. We were seeded 25th in the 32 team field--a little lower than we had hoped, but are looking forward to the opportunity to extend our season. We will be traveling to Hotchkiss on Tuesday to take on a team that went undefeated with record of 11 wins and 4 draws. With just one practice to prepare, we will have to be on our game. Although we like our chances going up against a team that we have no history with, so we have no preconceived idea of what we need to do. We just have to play our best soccer and see how things play out.

goo goo g'joob

One year +

I'm a month late in celebrating my one year anniversary of working for the Sky-Hi Daily News. But I guess that's okay, because my boss just did my annual review today, so I'm not the only one late in marking the occasion.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I've had to work for the newspaper. In these times when many newspapers are laying off staff or even folding, I'm thankful for this job and the support I receive from my editor and the rest of the editorial staff. Working for a small community paper does have its advantages and there are also a few disadvantages. We just finished putting together our entries for the state press association contest and I was hard-pressed to find any strong news images from the last year. I had plenty of feature and sports photos to choose from. I guess that will be a challenge for myself in the next year--to produce more news photos.

One other thing I want to do in the next is make this blog more interesting. I think I said that a while back, but I'm now to the point where I like the title and I feel I have a better vision of what I want it to be, so that anyone who actually reads it will have a reason to keep coming back.

So I'll be anxious to see what the next year holds in store for my community, the nation and the world, and what we will be talking about a year from now.

goo goo g'joob

A Weekend in Missouri

I visited my daughter at the University of Missouri over the weekend. It was great to be able to spend some time with her--coming from a high school of 400, then being a part of the largest freshman class in Mizzou history (approx. 5,900 students) has been quite an adjustment. We were able to watch the Missouri women's soccer team defeat my alma mater Iowa Friday night and then go out for a nice dinner.

I shot the Missouri-Buffalo football game on Saturday, then we headed out for dinner in downtown Columbia. You just gotta love the atmosphere of a college town after a football game.

Emily mentioned to me that she had seen a building in downtown Columbia that had our last name on it. We drove by it a couple of times during the weekend, but I didn't get a photo of it until I was on my way out of town Sunday morning:

Apparently in the late 1800s/early 1900s there were two brothers named Hetzler who had some sort of meat packing operation in downtown Columbia. Hetzler isn't a very common name, so it's always interesting to come across things like this.

It was an all too quick couple of days, but well worth it.

NOTE: Shameless plug to follow!

One of the things that made traveling easier for me this time was the purchase of a ThinkTank Airport Security rolling case. I had been reading about them for a long time and talked to other photographers who own this particular case and each of them had nothing but praise for it. I had been using a LowePro Computrekker for many years, it's a good bag, but it was taking a toll on my shoulders and back. The ThinkTank case is carry-on size and I was able to fit everything in it I needed to shoot a football game.