A New Leaf

Art at the beach. It's not a bad way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon with family and friends. I joined in the atmosphere and photographed the 14th Annual Destin Festival of the Arts at Henderson State Beach Park. Many of the tents had paintings and photographs, but the glass art drew me closer. I scouted the area for awhile and finally settled for the first photo. Another interesting photo opp was at a 3D picture art tent. By looking through polarized lenses, certain sea life would jump out at you and create that 3D visual. I caught this girl gazing through the lenses and snapped the picture for the second print photo:



I always search for funny or unusual moments to capture, and caught these two women asleep on the park chairs. I thought their postures were funny, so I snapped a shot before returning to the assignment:





On Tuesday I photographed a district volleyball game at Rocky Bayou Christian School. RBCS won against Bethlehem and advanced to the next level. The published photo:



I also videotaped my first sports video for the Web site:



Thursday morning I traveled to Choctaw Field in Navarre to photograph the Air Force Special Operations Command's new joint training program. In the first picture, one of the trainers launches the Battlefield Air Targeting Micro Vehicle (BATMAV) as a Navy sailor operates the vehicle by ground control (bottom photo):



The Aircraft is already being used in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the number of trainees in the program is only increasing. They started with 11, but plan to do more throughtout the first year. (paraphrased from article)



Thursday I once again traveled to Rocky Bayou Christian School to photograph the district volleyball game. RBCS advanced to the next game and beat Central High School. Here is the photo published:



I also did another video of the game:



Already 10 weeks into football, and I still can't get enough. This week I traveled to Niceville High and photographed them against Daphne High School (from Alabama). The game was largely in Niceville's favor as they dominated the scoreboard early in the game. One of the touchdown passes was my picture in print:





My first football video of the season:





Roy Finch (#24) accounted for several touchdowns during the game and was knocked onto the track after scoring on one of them. I caught the footage on video, and Finch rose to his feet as the crowd cheered in relief.



The crowd cheers while the band plays a song. I noticed the pink breast cancer ribbons on people's shirts and the player's pink wrappings around their feet, but I never found out the reasons why they chose that week to support breast cancer cure research.



The week was productive and the sports videos were a new leaf on my experience tree. I plan to continue shooting sports videos (esp. on Friday night football games) and work on my shooting/editing skills. Until next time...

www.nwfdailynews.com
www.varsitysportswest.com

In the spotlight...

Billy Ray Cyrus. Present but without Miley. The crowd didn't seem to mind as they cheered and screamed on the top of their lungs once Billy walked out on stage. He is a long time performer and a veteran to the Mullet Festival stage. As he belted out the high notes, danced with a pretend guitar, and spouted out random sayings from Hannah Montana, I scrunched down at the corner of the stage and snapped picture after picture of him. I always love crowd interaction with performers, so the first photo was the dominant photo in the paper. The second picture also ran with the first:



When I was a kid, I used to play with Barbies like most girls. I thought the dolls were almost non-existant now until Nick and I traveled to the Fort Walton Yacht Club to photograph (and video) a woman's 50th Barbie-themed birthday party. She loves Barbies and chose the theme because the 50th anniversary of Barbie also resided on this year. Many of the women there dressed as different Barbies and several men dressed like Ken.



Nick shot stills so I covered video. I've been wanting to practice video and learn Final Cut Express, so I took this opportunity to do so. Here is the final version of the video:



I wanted to capture some stills since the assignment was interesting, so between takes of video I snapped several images. Her friends got her a bike that she simply adored:





There is nothing like another Friday night football game. I drove to Crestview for the second time this season to photograph them playing Mosley. I arrived at that game with the knowledge that Crestview would win this game easily. What I didn't expect was the final score to be 34-33, with Crestview barely grasping the win.

This "flying" picture reminds me of a side-ways heisman pose (and a little of the tim tebow flying picture):



This photo was published in the paper as a vertical:







Crestview colorguard during halftime:





Another "flying" photo (of the same guy):



This kid was adorable. He didn't want his small, white, plastic football, so instead he went after the real football. He wouldn't let go of it for a bit so his dad had to take it from him and toss it away. Then he gave his son the plastic football again and they walked away. I thought it was funny:



www.nwfdailynews.com
www.varsitysportswest.com

Michelle Obama visits Eglin

As a photojournalist, I love taking on new, challenging assignments that push me to think outside the box and produce something more creative. I also love when those assignments involve another exciting element to them...like first lady Michelle Obama. Thursday afternoon she arrived to Eglin Air Force Base to speak to military families and show them her support. I was bused onto the base where I waited for over two hours for her appearance. The hangar was hot, but the crowd was patient. The wait was worth it.

The top picture was taken after her speech as she greeted several military families and exchanged comforting words and hugs. This image was published in the paper and submitted to the AP wire where I discovered it on yahoo news later that evening. The next photo was also published in the paper on the inside cover. She was walking the stairs where she would wait for Maj. Gen. Charles R. Davis to introduce her to the crowd (even though she really didn't need an introduction):



Here is a wide shot of the amount of people waiting for her to speak in the hangar. There was another press section directly behind the crowd on the left. There were about 1,100 people there:



The first lady waved to several of the crowd members as she finished her speech. I found the flag in the background as a great backdrop and took advantage it:



Before she gave her speech, I noticed she smiled a few times from the introduction the Major General was giving. After I snapped this photo, I noticed the woman in the background holding a baby was looking at her admiringly:



The crowd smiles, claps, and listens intently as the first lady gives her speech:



Michelle Obama sympathizes with the military and their families as she tells them how much she is in awe by them:



After the exit of the first lady, I saw these two women gushing over the pictures one of them took. So many people were emotional over the few minutes they got to listen to her or look directly into her eyes as she keenly looked back into theirs.



I knew the experience was humbling to me as I walked out of the hangar with a CF card full of pictures of the first lady. I hardly saw that assignment coming and barely had a chance to absorb the atmosphere before I was back to the office editing away. Assignments and opportunities like this remind me of how great it is to be a photographer.