A break in Florida

Since my last post so many weeks ago I have made the move from St. Louis to Peoria where I am now the Spring intern at the Peoria Journal Star. Before moving further north into even colder weather, I took a trip back down to Florida where I visited Camille and the all the Gainesville folks. So, here are some shots from Gainesville (and one from Jacksonville) replete with warm sunset light and fireworks. I tried to make this post last night, but blogspot's desaturation of all the photos (which are actually just links on the page, I guess) was unsatisfactory. I've made a temporary fix for the color problems, but if anyone wants to give me the magic formula for posting larger, correctly toned photos I would welcome the info with open arms (the little messing around with the html that I did wasn't getting me what I wanted).

interim update

I'm back down in Gainesville right now, soaking up the sun before heading back north to start a spring internship at the Peoria Journal Star. Here are some more shots from the end of my internship in St. Louis.


Ultimate frisbee practice of the SLU woman's club team on a rainy, cold night (temperature in the upper 30s, I think). I was working the evening shift when I got the call that my horizontal photo from a fire needed to be vertical to fit into the page design. So, I decided to stop and shoot this practice. I only shot verticals, and then rushed back to my car to send the shots back before deadline.


The next day I shot some guys playing frisbee golf. The paper didn't go for back-to-back to frisbee sports pictures, but I thought this turned out alright.


Rick Bess, of Jackson, Mo., goes through the process of taking apart a United States Navy T-34 aircraft for inspection at Sabreliner Corporation's facility in Perryville.


Dan Serafin, of Robertsville, works in the shipping and receiving department of Laderle Machine Company in Pacific, Mo. and prepares to weigh a box loaded with plate rolls that is being shipped to Famira, S.A. in Santa Domingo.


After a full day of shopping, Robbie and Lauren Stites of Atlanta relax with Lauren Stites' cousin Elizabeth Lloyd of Eureka while Lloyd's three children played with the other children at Playtown in the Chesterfield Mall. "I've got three kids, four and under, so we had to come here," Lloyd said of the playground in the mall.


Adeline Jenicek, 3, of Ballwin peeks out at Preston Devlin, 4, of Chesterfield, from inside of a fake log in Playtown at Chesterfield Mall.


Lafayette High School sophomore Jessi Holtz switches from the buttterfly stroke to the back stroke on a turn off of the wall during swim team practice.


I took this photo of the swim coach while I was waiting for the two swimmers that I was assigned to cover to return to my end of the pool.


Ashley Grammar, a sophomore at Lafayette High School, glances at the pace clock after finishing a lap at swim team practice.


Jerry Kronable, center, of Fred Weber, Inc. lays down concrete on Tuesday during construction of the new flyover ramp that will connect eastbound I-64 to northbound I-170.

food and chef portraits

This post is all shots of food for a recurring section in the Post-Dispatch. The assignment is a for a photo of the food and sometimes an additional simple portrait shot of the chef. These were all shot using either window light or my two strobes (one on camera and one off) or possibly a combination of the two. In order, there is a festive Christmas time dessert called tree bark, a low-fat, low-cholesterol bundt cake, a meatloaf meal from a diner in Jerseyville, Ill., a plate of gorgonzola green beans, a serving of red beans and rice from Blueberry Hill, and lastly a bowl of Pozole, which is a Mexican soup served at Christmas. The hardest to shoot, by far, was the meatloaf. The photo of the chef precedes the photo of that chef's respective meal. Feliz Navidad.

Senator Clinton and Soulard Kids

Here is a much needed update. Today was my last day at the Post-Dispatch and as I was gathering together all the stuff that I shot over the last few months I realized that I have quite a few photos left to post here. Below are some shots from when Senator Clinton made a visit to St. Louis not too long ago. Shots one and four ran in the paper. And I also have some pictures from a story we did about kids at a school in Soulard (south city st. louis) that go with their culinary arts teacher to the farmers market to pick out food to be prepared for the school lunches and then help the teacher prepare the lunch for the school later on. It was an enjoyable assignment. More updates to come soon.

Tanning beds and stuff

A bunch of mo phos I know spent the weekend in Atlanta. I did not. Oh well. Here's a bunch of photos. Some of these are from a while ago, but I figured I might as well put them up now. The first three are from an assignment at a tanning salon. I wasn't real hopeful since the assignment said the owner would be organizing bottles of product, etc. Luckily, the guy actually went into an upright tanning unit and changed some of the 200 watt bulbs. The side of the stall that the unit was in had a mountain scene painted on it, and I thought it was just really weird and neat looking. Tricky to ballance. If he hadn't changed those bulbs I would have just gone with the second shot, which isn't too bad thanks to that cool metal ceiling. I also tried an up-close all inside the tanning unit horizontal shot, too. My left eye felt totally out of synch after shooting into such bright light (that's right, I'm a left eyed shooter). Up next is a quick feature I shot of some guys rolling out a sign onto the windows of the newly completed casino in downton STL. Next shot is of some telephone operators. Not an exciting assignment, but I kinda like how the longer lens compressed the scene like that. Next is a photo of a woman dressed in full mourning attire at one of St. Louis' historic houses. It was taken back before Halloween. After much difficulty I managed to get a shot with my second strobe popping in from the side so it lit her face up beneath the veil...Spooooooky, huh? Up next, an old man and a B-25 bomber. I also photographed a prop christmas present in the studio with a wide angle. The next two shots are from a folow up to a fire the week before. Unfortunately, there wasn't much going on except in the adjacent building that was wet and smokey from the fire fighting. So, I tried to borrow one of Jeremiah's old tricks and do some framing and then I also went for a reflection shot. Next is a shot from the backside of a PET scanner towards the control room. I also experimented with painting with light on an assignment to shoot some orange peels in a sink drain with a disposal. Lastly, why not another fire picture. A brush and old railroad ties fire next to some railroad tracks. P.S. I've decided that the discriptions belong at the bottom of the post from now on.