Most of the time it's really hard to tell a story of something that has already happened as opposed to what is happening. Such was the case on a recent feature about a couple who had lost over a hundred pounds combined on a new dieting system that incorporated pregnancy hormones.

Never like to go into a shoot without some idea of a shot for illustration purposes, but have to admit I was drawing a blank on this one. After setting through an hour interview while the reporter gathered the facts for his story, I had just about resigned to taking a standup of the couple and moving on and then it came.

The subject said they had kept record of their morning ritual weigh-ins on little scratchpads since the beginning several months earlier.  Bingo!

Found a spot in the den on what looked to be a bath mat and had natural light from the window, just not enough of it to get the DOF at close focus. Bounced a unfiltered flash off the window to mix with the harsh evening light to give the look of the morning. I felt a lot better about taking the standup afterwards.

Some of you might remember a recent post I did on the magic of the new version of  lightroom 3.

As much as I love lightroom after we made friends, which can take a while because it has a language all of its own, it's not my initial place to start in post.

Had a friend call me the other day asking the fastest way to edit 1700 photos he had shot at a Rodeo, He had saw my post on lightroom and downloaded the free trial version but was havind speed issues,

 In steps Photomechanic. There is a reason that this software is the leader amongst the news industry. If the speed of the edit and the user friendliness wasn't enough, surly the captioning ability and the automation would take it over the top.

Photomechanic is my first stop, with the developing, key wording, and archiving done in Lightroom, makes for a great combination.

Great article, Lightroom vs, photomechanic

Do you ever get a song in your head and you just cannot shake it?

These are the words of psycho killer! I recently watched a buddy of mine do a very poor imitation of the song in a highly inappropriate place. It left me with the knowledge, be careful what you bring to the table and where you bring it, but more importantly it left a song in my head that I could not shake.

Okay so what does all this have to do with the photo? As in the past I've said, the subconscious drives the creative side of all that we think we're aware of. So got a call from the sports editor, and  he had decided at the last minute to do a feature on the cross country runner from Northwest high school. And then the words came again run run, run away! My job, create a cross-country shot where there's not one. I mean, the season hasn't even started yet, give me a break!

So let the games begin. Went down first thing Friday morning, (did not have a clue whatI was going to do) and figured it would come, it did in the words of psycho killer provided by my buddy weeks before.

It just so happens there was a trail running through the woods at the very backend of the 440 which made an excellent backdrop, and created the scene of the shoot. Thank goodness for their willingness of this kid to share the location, and the pounding in my head by psycho killers!

Note to self; listen to more music by the original artist!

Ever feel like time just melts away?

This comes from an earlier shoot this week, there was a local fire, not any flames, but the follow-up next day revealed several eye-catching visuals.

I'm always looking for different abstracts to use as wild art or illustrations for some particular point.

I can see this one saying for the fall time change “don't let time melt away.”

The cool thing about this one is the fact of the morning light that was hitting it from an open door to camera left, nothing else needed, just frame it and shoot it!

Theme this year was electric football, remember playing as a kid, wow, eons ago long before video games was a thought.  Just plug it in and watch your team vibrate to the goal line, oh yea, only thing for sure is change.

In pre-season madness two-a-day, school start, get everybody's sport mug shot, I always have a lot of fun with the special section theme for the football tab. Every year it gets a little harder to come up with something new and different, but therein lies the challenge.

Football tab