Farewell

Rocky Mountain News.

It's not fair.

MMA Round Two

Some more from Saturday night's fight.

Back to MMA

Tonight I heard about a cage match happening just down the road at a hotel, so I decided to go check it out because it's been a long time since I've photographed MMA. There were about 20 fights, all being amateurs, and there were about 9-10 fights outside of the ring, all being drunk idiots.

Just some random shots from tonight that I liked.

Pro Tennis Hits Midland (no pun intended)

School closings

Due to budgets and the current state of the economy not only in Michigan but the rest of the country, Midland Public Schools met Monday night to propose to close two elementary schools and make budget cuts in other activities and educational programs around the county.

Letter to a Pilot

Debra Smith, of Midland, wrote a letter to US Airways pilot, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, following the January 15 emergency landing of flight 1549 into the Hudson River. Being a frequent flyer to San Francisco and Portland, Ore., to visit two of her five children, she felt compelled to write a note to express good news admist, according to Smith, a time of bad news. On Sunday, she discovered her note was read on the television program, "60 Minutes."

Not sure why I can never get the colors to look right on this thing, but it's not supposed to be flat.

Archive

I was bored tonight, and after hearing about and seeing people self publishing books, portfolios and projects, I thought I would see what I had and if I could put something together from the photographs I have of the teen squatters and riots in Denmark from a little bit ago. It made me miss Denmark and wish I knew more about long-term story telling when I had an opportunity like this. I noticed a lot of the time someone was smoking a joint or a cigarette.

Page

Here's a page Ryan Wood designed the other day for our special business section called "Progress" with a few photos from Apple Mountain.

Out of War

So a few weeks after I started working in Midland, I began this story about Jaafar who is a student from Baghdad, Iraq. He is here in the US as one of fifteen students part of the Iraqi student project and the only one in the area. I was interested in his life and how he quickly adapted to a way of life in the states, making friends extremely easily and quickly. Unfortunately, for kind of unknown reasons, he isn't comfortable being photographed anymore, just when the story was beginning to take shape. So here are the photographs I have. I was hoping to show his interaction with girls at house parties, two things that are non-existent in Iraq. Along with dancing with the opposite sex. We also talked about the lasting affects that the war has on his life. One of the big things I wanted to show was that he has been suffering/struggling with insomnia recently, something that hit full force when the war started. So, Jaafar is here for the next 4-5 years majoring in computer engineering. He's vowed to head back to Iraq when he's finished and help rebuild his country. Until then, he won't be able to see his friends or family back home because he was only granted a one-time entrance visa. His parents call him twice a day to see how he is.

Snow Sculptures

I tried to work a little more with thoughtful layering today while photographing local middle school and high schoolers competing in the 36th annual Midland area snow sculpture contest. These two were my favorites and we went with the first one because of the moment.

It's days like today

It's days like this why I love my job. A few days ago I met Tim Drier, a glass blower for Dow Chemical, for the first time at a gallery showing of some of his work. I was assigned to do a portrait and there was a possibility of going to his studio later in the week. We talked for a bit and then decided to meet for breakfast at a local diner before heading to his studio this morning. He first took interest in glass blowing when he and his dad were at the library (when he was a little kid) and they found a book with glass blowing information. His dad did it as a hobby, but Tim said he was never the same afterwards. He went to school in New Jersey and eventually landed in Sanford, Michigan. Having moved around as a kid, he wanted to settle in a place so his three daughters wouldn't have to deal with some of the emotional and mental exhaustions of starting over in a new place after moving a lot. So, we ate breakfast and chatted about everything from how he got into glass blowing, to photography, to the economy, to a project his daughter is doing dealing with the photographs taken for the (FSA) Farm Security Administration. We headed over to the studio, which was tucked back in the woods overlooking the Salt River. Tim had mentioned a few times that he didn't care one-way or another if he were photographed or in the newspaper, or if anyone liked the work he produced. He does it for himself and just out of the love for doing it. He sells things here and there and has a sale of glass butterflies at the local gardens, but he keeps it special by only selling them once a year. It was nice to come across a genuinely nice person and make a new friend.




portrait

Curtain action

The 2-10 shift means...hockey and basketball...

so I hope I can work on getting better and seeing stuff that isn't just the action jackson.