It's Spring!

So, I battled the traffic and headed an hour north to check out the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It was really beautiful. I love tulips and have never seen so many --- I'm talking probably millions of tulips. Inspired by the beauty, I decided to buy some flowering plants for my balcony to spruce it up a bit. I am not much of a green thumb, so hopefully I don't kill them.

sad day in photography

This was published today:

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2007/04/toledo05.html

A Toledo Blade photographer altered 79 photographs through-out the course of 2007. This incident came to light within the last week but the full extent of his manipulation has just been made known.

The article is very disturbing. The fact that a 25-year veteran of photojournalism could do this--and do this so often is hard to take. He clearly has no respect for his co-workers, his community or his profession.

I know many non-photojournalist people have a hard understanding why this is such a big deal. Photoshop is a widely use tool nowadays. However, as journalists it is our duty to tell the truth. That means taking pictures that document the scene as it is. Not removing or adding pieces of it and not asking subjects to pose a certain way. The true scene. I like to think most photojournalists hold those ethics very high and live up to that standard.

It's amazing to me that one person can damage an industry that took so many wonderful people to build. But that is essentially what has happened. The Toledo phtoographer wasn't the first to alter a photograph and get caught---and sadly, he won't be the last. And with each instance the entire photojournalism field loses integrity.

M's Opening Day

My first home opener for Mariners. For being a crazy day and being short staffed, things went very smoothly. Earlier in the day there was a shooting at the University of Washington. I had 3 photographers shooting the game. One shooting just features. --the other shooting action and taking turns transmitting back to the paper. The Mariners actually won the game, in large part due to starting pitcher Felix Hernandez great performance.

Here are a couple of the pages from that day....

'melo

Last night I went to the Supersonic/Nugget basketball game at Key Arena. And better yet, I was able to shoot my first NBA game.

Of course, one of the main reasons I went to the game was to see Carmelo Anthony---the former Syracuse superstar. But I have to say, Allen Iverson was very impressive. That alone was probably worth going to the game.

There was a lot of speculation when Iverson was traded to Denver earlier in the year. But these two seemed to really like each other. Actually, I think the Denver team really seems to enjoy each other. I was doing a lot of "watching" of the players to see how they interact with each other. And my very unscientific conclusion is that Supersonic Earl Watson is good friends with Anthony or Iverson---or maybe both. At one point one of the Nuggets had this huge slam dunk over Watson and I've never seen players laugh so hard before.

It was fun to see that everyone was having a good time.