This past week one of the staff photographers was off, so I volunteered to come in and work his shift for the week. I only had one assignment on Monday (which is later in this blog) so I will start with Tuesday. I came in at 10 a.m. each day, and on this day my first assignment wasn't until after noon. The paper was doing a story on spring break and the impact on local businesses. I was sent to Fudpuckers in Destin to photograph anything about the business as a feature to go with the story. I captured a few people holding the small gators they have there (top) and a group of people eating (below). The top picture ran in the paper as the main photo the next day, and the Associated Press in New York called the paper to ask them to put the photo on the wire! The photo later appeared on yahoo news with AP credit. That was the highlight of my week.
The photo editor then sent me to Alvin's Island to photograph the business as a part of the same story. The business on the Island isn't doing as well even though the Panama City and Pensacola ones are doing great. So the idea was to capture that in an image. Here is what I came up with:
Wednesday morning I was on a wild goose chase trying to find a place to photograph a group of runners in the Law Enforcement Torch Run. Their purpose was to raise money and awareness for the Special Olympics. By noon, I finally caught a group as they were about to hand off the torch to the next group:
Later that day after being misdirected to the wrong game, I finally made my way to Fort Walton Beach high school and photographed the second softball game in a doubleheader. The Vikings won this game 11-1. The action has increased since the start of the season, and I was able to catch a few interesting shots. Here is the one that ran in print:
Thursday served as another interesting day as my first assignment was at the Boardwalk photographing a camp of kids that learned what to do if they find a beached dolphin. The kids started by learning a little about dolphins and then split into teams of about 5-6. They then were taught how to place a dolphin onto a stretcher and carry it a few feet onto the sand. The kids got really excited and dumped water all over the fake dolphins...and on each other. This photo was published:
I drove to Fort Walton Beach High School to photograph four boys that are a ranked 7th nationally in track. The idea was to capture an image of the four of them in a non-posed fashion. But since they were expecting me to call the shots, I had them run side-by-side for a "picture" and then snapped a few frames when they were walking back for the next shot. This ended up being the picture I submitted:
The last assignment of that day was a softball game at Northwest Florida State College. The Raiders won the game 9-8 in the last inning. I only stuck around for a little while and capture this image for the print:
Friday morning was my last assignment of the week. I traveled onto Eglin Air Force Base to photograph the re-designation ceremony for the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501. The squadron was redesignated as the VMPFAT 501 that day and will begin training the first pilots on the F-35B near the end of the year. Here one of the members of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing stands in attention as the Marine Flag is unveiled during the ceremony:
Rewinding back to Monday, I photographed a brother who received a few quilts on behalf of his brother, Daniel, who was injured in Afghanistan. The quilts were presented by a woman from Quilts of Valor. Here his brother looks over the quilts:
Going back to the week before, I photographed two games: baseball at Fort Walton Beach and softball at Niceville. The baseball game was against Navarre High School, where Navarre won the game 8-1.
The softball game was Niceville against Crestview with Niceville taking the win, 6-0.
till next time!
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