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.