off day

What makes a good editor? I guess that is why I created this almost journal-like blog to help me find the answer to that question. Sometimes decisions aren't so easy. This Huskie game came down to an unbelievable hail mary play during the last seconds of the game. We tied the game...but lost the game when our new quarterback threw one of his 5 interceptions of the day. No one had the picture of the game-ending interception. Our photographer took a great shot of the game-tying hail mary pass in the endzone with a very jubilant player and had UW won the game, it would have been the perfect picture. Unfortunately, we weren't that lucky. The play was hard to illustrate, for sure. But watching the game, talking to the sports and other people in the newsroom, we did feel that it was an important play. I thought about other angles of the game to illustrate...interceptions, bad offensive defense, but I didn't feel like we had strong enough pictures of those to lead the section. So, I made a tough decision and ran with a wire picture of the big play, instead of going with a staff photo. I talked to the photographer about it and I believe he understood. But it definitely has me thinking. A friend of mine, when describing his favorite photo editor told me "he makes me look smart." So, perhaps the best editors don't make good edits of great pictures but help their photographers shine when they are having an off day. And perhaps I should have tried harder to do that.

This is one of the inside pages of the Washington State University game.

smart work

So, I might be a little behind with posting. At the University of Washington football game last Saturday, the star quarterback was hurt. A photo of that was the cover of the next day's paper. So, in the middle of the week, we learned that the quarterback was out for the season because of the injury. I think many times photographers get caught up in an event and just focus on the immediate needs of the paper. I was definitely guilty of that at times. Now, as an editor, I think it is great to work with photographers that really think of events and see not only at the current needs, but also take into account the future needs the paper will have. And that is exactly what this photographer did. These pictures didn't run right away, but they saved us later in the week when the story continued. Very smart shooting...

best seat in the house

My co-worker and sports shooter extraordinaire, Rod Mar, has created a blog on The Seattle Times website. He talks about photography, sports and life --- check it out.

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/bestseatinthehouse/2006/10/

big play sunday

4 seconds left and a 54 yard field goal to win a worldwind game. Why is it not on the cover of sports? In a crazy game, even though the spectacular play won the game, I believe it was more than just that single event. Also, I didn't feel as though it was our best picture. Could we have added a secondary element to the page of the kicker? Of course, but given how things played out with a strong vertical picture- I felt that adding a picture on the side might distract from the main image. We also had a field goal kick that won the game lead a couple weeks ago--- Was it the right call? I don't know...but Deion Branch having a great game certainly helped the cause---and overall I think the page looked good. We played the winning kick big inside....

Here are some other inside pages.





Every week we run a photo page from the game, that our photographer shoots and writes a brief blurb about. It is definitely an added challenge for away games when we only have one shooter. Our photographer is remarkable though- this week it was Big Play Sunday. The fourth quarter was filled with them---and we got them. Design wise, it is probably not the best example---but it gives an idea what we are doing.

barnstorm XIX

So, I just got back from being a part of the black team at Eddie Adams Workshop XIX. Fun time, great people, wonderful experience. I had such an amazing time when I was a student there, I really wanted to go back again and give back. It was everything I remembered it to be. I drove people to and from New York City ---if you need directions into an airport, let me know. I think I have the runs down cold. And of course, thanks to Tom, Anne, Kim and Judy for being patient with my NYC driving skills.

media day

Media day is always standard. You set up a little "studio" --- seamless, lights, etc. The players go from one set-up to the other posing for pictures. We had two assignments from this---one was to get a couple specific players for our upcoming NBA special section, the other was to get a picture from the day to run in the daily paper. I thought our photographer did a great job getting something a bit unusal and creative from an event that is all about being "standard."

all editions?

Thought it would be interesting to show the difference an edition makes. This is our 2nd edition sports cover for Sunday. We normally cover two different college football teams. University of Washington and Washington State University. Since both our games were late (even for west coast standards) - our plan was to have the earlier game be the centerpiece for our second edition and the later game, which was UW(located in seattle), be the cover for the final edition. The WSU game really came down to the final play---that was intercepted near the endzone. Would have been a huge win for Washington State if they could've pulled off the hail mary.



This was our final edition. It is big deal that the Huskies are now 4-1. Apparently they haven't had this good of start in a number of years.