San Juan Island

This is a harbor on the north end of the Island called Roche Harbor. A very cute, small little harbor. The picture below pretty much is the whole town. Back in the day, it was famous for its' lime production and the Hotel de Haro located on the right of this picture is a very historic building.

Now it's mostly a marina and small quaint resort town.



I wasn't a big bloody mary fan until I had this one. It was simply amazing! The perfect amount of spicy with nice, big olives and celery and little onions. Not to mention an amazing prawn. Very Tasty!



The end to an awesome day.

kayaking with orcas

Doesn't that sound awesome. I was talking to one of the copy editors I work with last week and she was telling me about her kayaking adventure. And heck, it sounded fun and I wanted to do it too.

Orcas are also known as Killer Whales. Needless to say, when I was chit-chatting with my mom on the phone about my upcoming trip she insisted I fill out a living will. She went from "make sure you have a living will" to "be sure to send me lots of pictures" in a matter of a few minutes. I wasn't that nervous, Killer whales don't really want to eat people, they received their "killer" status because they do sometimes eat other, smaller whales. But there was no need to worry, because we struck out and didn't see any whales at all. The pod that was swimming near the island decided to go the other direction, away from our kayak tour. What a bummer!

But it was still a fun day kayaking around and seeing the amazing sights. In the picture above, the land to the right is Victoria, BC and to the left, hazed out by the clouds you can barely make out the Olympic Mountains.

We did encounter other wildlife though, such as Harbor Seals and a few Bald Eagles.





This was our campsite. Pretty awesome falling asleep to frogs and crickets and waking up within steps of a very chilly lake.

very northwest

A complete last minute trip, I decided to head to the San Juan Islands on my days off. One of my tennis partners is quite adventurous and came with me. I left on Friday afternoon and hopped a ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Our plan was camp that night and kayak all day Saturday. We waited about 3 hours in the ferry line, and was able to get a ride on one of the last ferries that night. Which turned out great because we were able to witness a wonderful sunset.

I've been wanting to try and take more advantage of living in the Pacific Northwest. One of our photographers, Alan Berner, is always asking me if I've been to various places around the state. My answer is always "No." We regularly have this conversation. Now at least I can cross off one of those places.



The picture below was from our first stop at Lopez Island, which is one of the San Juan Islands.

return of the storm

The Storm is back! and with some new talent and new owners. Local, female owners. Gotta love it.

Our plan for the Storm special section was to photograph the 3 main players together. This was to take place the day before the cover was suppose to run.

So our photographer headed out early to set-up since we knew they wouldn't give us a lot of time. He got there early, set up and was able to catch the end of a photo shoot for internal video ads. You know, the kind they play on the jumbotron during time-outs. (See below picture with smoke)

We debated about what was a better picture. The one we originally planned on going with or the smoke shot. We decided to go with our original plan, mostly because our picture was a lot more in your face and carried more impact. I didn't like the far away feel of the smoke shot. Also, while this wasn't part of their shoot, our competition in town, the P-I, was using smoke too.
I like the way the package feels with the picture we used. It worked well with the story too.

cirque

Cirque du Soleil decided to set-up the big top and give performances for about 5 weeks in a park just east of Seattle. Pretty cool. Although, I've never seen it in person, I hear it's pretty amazing. The Cirque PR people sent us a bunch of press releases advancing the shows, everything from the tent raising to a dress rehearsal. But we weren't going to be able to photograph any live shows.

Back when I was working the dayside, I had been trying to come up with cool photo ideas for our staff to shoot. I thought trying to get access to their practice/warm-up tent before the show might be pretty cool.

I spent about 1.5 going back and forth with their PR people. And was able to secure a photographer to shoot the warm-ups

And luckily it turned out to be a pretty cool and the photographer was able to make some nice pictures from it.

I love it when things come together like that. It is a shame it doesn't happen more often though.

the mountain, revisited.

Playing around with my new camera, a Canon g9.

Mt. Rainier seen from Seward Park in Seattle.

nice work

just thought I'd share some nice pictures from some recent pages.

I had nothing to do with these pages or pictures, but thought they were examples of good work.

my happy place

Lame photo.

Beautiful, relaxing place.

Morristown, NY.

just horrible...

...our team, not this photo.

I think this picture does a great job of showing the starting pitcher feeling the frustrations of losing the game.

What was even better is the great display. It makes you feel the pain and agony...

clearing the benches...

I admit it. I love the drama of clearing the benches. It's one of the only exciting events that occur during baseball games. It doesn't hurt that it usually makes for better pictures too.

After the typical nonsense of hitting batters and then throwing people inside, Richie Sexson was apparently sick of it all and decided to charge the mound, throwing his helmut at the pitcher in the process.

What followed was the benches clearing. All very exciting stuff when your team is the worst team in baseball.

tourism

The story was about Washington State's new philosophy on tourism. Apparently, most visitors that enter the state drive in and stay between 1-2 days. So, in an effort to boost tourism, the new campaign is focusing on 4 main areas. The Museum of Glass, the Museum of Flight, Mt. St. Helens and the wine country in the center and eastern parts of the state.

The assignment that came in wanted us to photograph the Seattle Space Needle and Pike Place Market. Both tourist places but aren't an accurate depiction of the new campaign.

Instead, I sent a photographer to the one focus point in our main coverage area, The Museum of Flight. Meanwhile, I looked up file pictures for the 3 other remaining places the story focuses on. By doing this, I was able to help create a compelling package that really enhances the story and is able to run as centerpiece, if needed.

The photographer did a great job of really making the Museum of Flight look interesting and made a picture that draws readers into the story. It gave the entire package a fresh, new look.

ideas are pumping...

It's great when photographers come up with their own ideas for a story. Frankly, I don't think it happens enough. This was an idea that the photographer had brought to me a few weeks prior to the event. We talked about it, talked about what day we thought would be better, talked about getting a writer involved (which in the end didn't happen.) The communication was there.

The photographer was able to spend the day at this one event, and I think the pictures reflect the time commitment and the level of interest the photographer had. Luckily, we were able to give it good play on the local cover the next day too!

I think it is so important that photographer's help generate their own ideas and I don't necessarily mean long-term story projects. But projects that can be turned out in one day. As a former photographer it gives you the option of working on something you care about and want to do rather than be handed what could be a "lame" assignment. And as an editor, it can really help save the daily section on a particular day. It gives the editors more options---and editors LOVE options.

walking scenes

For the past few weeks, I've been moved off my regular sports night shift and have been working days as the Metro/A1 picture editor. The change in my routine has been great. It's given me a fresh perspective and provided me with a new challenge. It has also allowed for me to walk to work. I grew up in a pretty small town in central New York---we never locked our cars and only sometimes we would lock the house. While Seattle is relatively safe for a big city, I'm still a little nervous about walking the 8 blocks or so home from work late at night.

So, as the battery of my hybrid slowly drains from lack of use, I've been walking to and from work. It's been interesting. It's still pretty cold and crappy here in Seattle most days, but it's been good to explore the neighborhood a bit more. I live in an area of Seattle that is booming with construction and new businesses and shops go in all the time. In fact, Amazon.com is supposely moving into the neighborhood next year.

As a way to push myself, I've decided to photograph what I see along my walking to work journeys. Don't ask me what this is---some random shards of a picture that are implanted into the sidewalk. Very strange and very Seattle.

The Mountain

Even though I've lived in Seattle for almost 2 years now, it still impresses me when I see Mt. Rainier. We call it the mountain in Seattle ---and it really does deserve that name. It is truly amazing. I drive certain roads all the time and you'd never know that lurking behind the cloudy horizon is a huge volcano about 50 miles away. And when it's clear out, it's like BAM there it is and you wonder how it's possible that it is hidden the majority of the time.

Anyways, last weekend I was flying to Dallas and got stuck with a window seat. But I was pleasantly surprised to see the mountain so up-close and clear. The pilot must have been impressed too, because we practically did a circle around it. Luckily, I was able to take a few pictures.

making the gray, less gray.

I want to thank everyone for responding and reading my previous post. One of the reasons I posted the issue was for us all to have good conservations and discussions. And I'm glad that has happened. I think the more we talk about the big issues facing our profession the more chance we have at making those gray issues disappear.

I really don't expect non-editorial photographers to understand the issues and standards we as photojournalists hold so dear. For our community to believe in us and to have any faith in what we do we need to be honest with our words and our pictures. So, these standards and ethics are of the utmost importance.

It matters little to me what path this photographer has now taken. This picture was shot for a newspaper, and is owned by that newspaper. I see no logical, ethical reason for it to be altered. Not for a contest (either CPOY or PDN). The picture should always keep the integrity in which it was shot.

I am not saying that dodging and burning shouldn't be done. But I think this picture goes beyond "burning the edges down to take away from distracting features" that the photographer claims. Those "distractions" have been completely eliminated and brought to black by the burning---and that's what is in question.

Again, I'm not saying commercial photographers adhere to these guidelines. But this photograph is an editorial photograph. Photojournalists need to be more careful about what they are doing and how it affects the picture, the community, and their colleagues.

ethics and toning

There is a very fine line with toning pictures. Software programs that most photographers use on a daily basis allow them to do some pretty crazy things. I went to journalism school right at the start of the digital age and essentially the end of using film on a daily basis. We mostly shot film, used a minilab to develop the film, and then scanned them into the computer and used a program like photoshop to slightly adjust the pictures.

There is also a gray area about what is ethical and what isn't. There are the biggies that are fundamental--like cloning someone/something in or out of your frame. But to me the big part of ethics has to do with intention and misleading. Statements like "If I can do it in a darkroom, it's okay" or "This is what the scene looked like to me" aren't good enough reasons. I've seen what used to be done in a darkroom ---and you can do some pretty drastic things.

This is why for me it comes down to the intent of the photographer, and whether or not it misleads the reader.

These two pictures were shot by a former intern at my paper. It recently ran in a national photo magazine. And while talking to one of our younger photographers about the toning and light in the photograph we happened to do an archive search and discovered the former intern shot the picture during his internship for the paper. (The picture also didn't credit the Seattle Times, which is a violation of the copyright---but that's a different post. For the record, I did receive proper permission from the true copyright holder to use the pictures on my blog.)



Above is how the picture ran in PDN magazine. We scanned it in directly from the magazine and did nothing else to it. If you think it looks weird and drastic, well, that is because it does. But if you want to see it for yourself, it ran in March's PDN magazine as part of the top 30 photographers under 30. It won a CPOY award in 2005 and was part of a portfolio that also placed that same year.



Above is how the picture was shot. This is how it looks in our archive and how it was published in our paper.

So, do I have a problem with this? I sure do. To me, it is misleading. The newly toned picture looks flashed or looks like it was shot outside during a night football game. Not inside a well-lit dome it was shot in. The background is blackened out. And frankly, this new dramatic lighting changes the entire mood of the picture. The reader walks away with a different feeling.

As I mentioned, we discovered the toning/copyright issue when talking to a younger photographer who was curious about limits and what is allowed and what isn't. If one of our photographers turned a photo like this in while shooting for us, there would be severe consequences. But yet photojournalists are doing it all over the world and being rewarded for their work. This photographer received national attention---both by placing in CPOY and then in PDN with this photograph. What message does this send to photographers that are doing good work that is honest and straight-up? And how do we help photographers think about what they are trying to say with a picture IN the camera and not afterwards using a computer?

I don't have all the answers. But newspapers are facing a difficult time and I feel it is important to have pictures that are honest and tell important stories---correctly. We owe the readers that much and frankly they should expect that level of integrity from us.

Part II - Happy Day

Congrats to my friend, Pulitzer Prize winner Preston Gannaway!

This prestigious award couldn't have gone to a more deserving person! A hard-working, super talented, and overall fun person!

I'm also psyched for the Concord Monitor. The classic small town newspaper that has a strong commitment to great documentary journalism.

You can check out the amazing story by Preston at http://www.pulitzer.org/ or more of her work at www.prestongannaway.com