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Sorry for the Delay
January 08, 2008Wow... I didn't realize it had been nearly a week since I posted something.
I'll wrap up my best of 2007 today and tomorrow and then resume regular blogging later in the week.
Here are a few shots that are completely unrelated.... but some of my faves. of the year.
Jason Palmer/Times Record News
DJ MF Maniac poses for a portrait.
Shots like these are a total crapshoot. I was told that in about 15 minutes, this DJ guy was going to come up to the office for a portrait shot. I was like "He's coming up here?!!?!"
There aren't exactly a bunch of great places for a surprise photo shoot. I remembered that the unused old film changing rooms had a dark blue tile all over the walls. That just might work. The room was tiny and there wasn't much room to spare to set up lights and whatnot.
Actually... I was crammed in a corner, holding the camera up over my head not even sure if I was getting the right shot or not....
Everything worked out just fine and the shot was the perfect mix of attitude and lighting.
Jason Palmer/Times Record News
Pastor Bill Jackson from Victory Baptist Church
I'll be the first to admit, I don't like doing religious stuff for the newspaper and presenting it as news. It's okay to have a religious section with profiles and features I guess...but it always comes across as just a little biased.
That feeling non-withstanding, this was one of my fave. portraits of the year, probably because of the religious themes going on. The fact that they have a lit cross made the perfect background for a portrait of the pastor.
All I had to do was figure out how I wanted to light up Bill Jackson to complement the light coming from the back. I ended up pointing my flash at the far wall and letting it bounce back toward him, providing the side-lit look of the shot.
Jason Palmer/Times Record News
Art Litteken climbs over a few large rocks near Hackberry Spring on his 2,950-acre ranch near Windthorst. Hackberry Spring is one of the natural springs on the Marcy Trail, an overland route from Ft. Smith, Arkansas to California that was mapped out as a way for gold miners to get to the gold rush in 1848. Litteken was awarded the regional Lone Star Land Stewards for the Cross Timbers and Prairies region by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He is one of eight private landowners to be honored for their accomplishments in habitat management and wildlife.
This was one of my fave. assignments from the entire year.
Basically, a reporter and I walked, hiked and explored the Windthorst countryside with Art Litteken. He owns a huge ranch that has about as much variety of landscapes as you could want in this part of Texas.
This shot is from one of the natural springs on his land, and I walked a bit ahead to get a shot of Litteken as he walked up to it. He walked right past where I was standing on the other side of the spring and clamored over the rocks like he was my age (or younger). I wanted to show more of the landscape than just zooming in on him.
I had a lot of good shots from that trip, but this one stood out for me. He just happened to cross a shaft of sunlight shining through the trees and that makes all the difference in the world.
Jason Palmer/Times Record News
A colorful burst of fireworks explodes in the sky over the crowd behind the Kay Yeager Coliseum Sunday night during the Wichita Falls Family Fun and Fireworks Extravaganza. The event was originally scheduled for July 3rd, but the area flooding postponed the event.
As I've said before... shooting fireworks is easy. Getting something else in the photo that helps tell the story isn't.
I wanted to show some of the crowd that was in attendance at the Not July 4th fireworks show. It was postponed by the summer flooding.
All you really need to shoot good fireworks is a tripod and technical knowledge of how the exposures work. The rest is out of your hands and depends on what the exploding shell does in the sky.
Posted by Jason Palmer at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Comments
i always wondered what that room was....
