New Life, New Camera
I’m living a new life.
Gone are the days of calling photo editors pining after assignments that never materialize. Gone is the feeling of failure as a person and photographer. And after two challenging years, gone is the hurt from the layoffs.
I’m no longer just a photojournalist. I’m now a student, public servant, and social media fiend. Two days into my EPA fellowship and I feel this new life breathed into my lungs. The mood around the office is happy. No one’s lurching behind their desk waiting for the axe to fall. They have goals, purpose, and an incredible team spirit. I feel like I belong.
I’ve been wanting to make pictures like I used to before I ever became a professional. Images fueled not by deadlines, but by my desire to see things differently. I’ve not had access to my trusty Nikon for hobby work for the better part of three months now. I could experiment with film again – or, I could get a BlackBerry. I chose the latter – and have been putting the little 3.1 megapixel technological marvel to work.
Welcome to my new life.
IB
The house we are trying to buy
We are most of the way through the buying process, so we thought we could tell everyone now. We are waiting on final word from the seller, but everything is looking good for now. If all continues to go as planned then we hope to close by the end of the month!
the house is 2 bed, 1 bath and has room to grow. The yard is big, but not so big that I have o give up golf to maintain it. The two-car garage has a shop and pot belly stove!
More soon.
Sorry for the delay
Ingrid and I have been busy since we got back from Mexico and haven’t taken the time to update here much. The things that have been keeping us busy are the usual mix of work/school/play with a new twist or two. The work and school are about the same, but Ingrid will be finished with the quarter next week and then start a fellowship at the EPA. There has been much play including golf and getting some use out of my new bicycle. The other thing that has been eating up time and energy is looking for a house. Not sure exactly what the future holds, but hopefully this house is a part of it…more on that later.
Ingrid’s brother Kurt is playing n the High State Baseball tournament this weekend. His team played in the first round in Yelm last week so we went and Ingrid made some photos which you can see and download here if you are interested.
We are both shooting some Prep sports this weekend and Ingrid is working on a paper, so not much fun there.
I’ll post some random photos here later and we’ll try not to be away for long this time. Until then. Bye bye!
The view from our room
I’m sitting here working on a video from our trip to Mexico. It was a nice trip (UNDERSTATEMENT) and the entire video will be long, but here is a taste. This is a timelapse I made from our room. enjoy.
Mexico
I took a break from photography, school and work to vacation in Mexico last week.
No, I did not catch the Swine Flu. Yes, I had a blast.
Here are some pictures from various point and shoot cameras.
IB
We’re back!!!
And rested. Maybe a little pink from too much sun in Mexico, but feeling great.
Over the next few days you may see a few images that we will post randomly as we have time. Sorry for the haphazard publishing, but our heads are still in PV and work does call.
It was a great time. These images are the same as a facebook gallery I posted today. The rest of our images will find a home only here on the blog, so stay tuned!
JB
Everett for a few days
As a tuneup for our vacation, we spent the weekend with Dan and Tracy in Everett. Many good times were had, that I will share soon, but for now…some photos.
JB
Easter 2009
It’s been a while since I have posted and for that I am sorry. Things are moving along at work and Ingrid is hard at work on school for the quarter. We spent Easter with Mom and Neil and then headed over to Sam and Laurie’s place for a bit. Both of us are ready for a vacation and conveniently enough, we are leaving in a 13 days for a week in Mexico.
We hope you are all doing well.
JB
A Walk In The Park
Ingrid has been working on a project for school for the last few months and it is now finished! She spent hours looking for photos and documents to illustrate her project. She interviewed a local historian and the city forester. Read more old documents and maps doing her research than you can imagine. And, she made the video to prove that she did all that other stuff I said she did. I’m proud of her final product…and all the hard work. I hope you are too!
Enjoy!
doneFrom the back row
Ever since I became a student at the University of Washington in Tacoma, I’ve wanted to take advantage of the cheap student tickets to sporting events. The hoopla, team apparel, beer breath and voices hoarse from cheering and yelling do something to a person’s psyche that’s hard to explain.
As a photojournalist, I’ve been assigned to shoot many college basketball games and always enjoy bypassing crowds of people to take my front row seat on the court. This shooting position lends itself to nice, (mostly) unobstructed views of the action. It also happens to be known among fellow photojournalists as, “the best seat in the house.” (You can see what I’m talking about below)
Today, I decided to marry my two interests and BUY a ($5) student ticket to a sold out UW-WSU season finale game and shoot the entire game from the position of my seat no matter where it ended up. As I walked into Hec Ed arena with ticket in hand, I started to realize my lot was not going to be so lucky. Yep – you guessed it, I had a ticket to “the worst seat in the house” in the very back row. (See photo below)
As I waited for the game to start, I contemplating giving up on my “self assignment” in favor of something better. I watched as other photographers took their customary seats on the floor and felt a twinge of envy creep upon me. Since I work for the UWT school paper, I could have just asked the SID for a pass. But then, the challenge and experience wouldn’t be the same.
As I started playing around with my 300mm 2.8 lens and my Nikon D300, I realized I could probably pull a couple images out of the position after all. The elevation of my seat gave me more available light to work with and allowed me to shoot at 1000 iso at f2.8 at 1000th of a second.
The game started with all the gusto you’d expect for the final game of the year. After about five minutes, I found myself standing on my seat, leaning against the back wall of the arena with the 300mm and thousands of fans. Besides the near Coug/Husky brawl, the experience was everything I’d been expecting and more. The game was fantastic – of course, the Huskies won. And I’m pretty happy with the images I got.
All but the last one, were made from my seat in the back row.
IB
