more from the daily grind...



boy scouts after the handmade car derby. i wish i'd had more time to work this scene. there was a stellar photo in there somewhere.


inline hockey at a local park district.





gymnastics in a dungeon with forbidden use of flash. sigh.


this girl lost her feet in a hunting accident. or maybe i shot too tight...



without a clean background or nice light to work with, i like to at least pull in a moment. this girl had just pulled off a near perfect routine (9.97). she and her coach were stoked.


recently elected pres of the local hispanic chamber of commerce. love that umbrella. maybe a little heavy with the shadow and also trying to find ways to make people alive instead of inert lumps on chairs and couches.

from the last few days.

spent some time with gold medalist swimmer Mary DeScenza as she gave some pointers to a local swim team. i think these are almosts. the compression didn't quite work in this first one. the flash in the second is a good start but it needs some more content to fill it. i wish i could have used the flash more in this dungeon of a pool, but the kids kept blocking the infrared sensor with their bodies. darn kids.






first sportrait for the DH. i really dig the umbrella for portraits. it's a pain to lug it out, even for quick shots, but i like the end results so much more.



on the bench during a basketball game. after this there were giggles and stolen glances into the stands at a group of young men. ahem...



random girl on the harp before a floral show.



the floral show turned out to be a sort of iron-chef florist thing where 5 florists each created 10 bouquets that were immediately raffled off to an adoring crowd as they were completed. the host described each bouquet in thorough detail, each flower and decorative flourish duly narrated to the crowd.

i haven't seen a group of middle aged women this tickled since the last time Oprah gave away convertibles. don't get me wrong. it was a lot of fun.

--

went to the art institute of chicago tonight. i made it through only one exhibition, the only photo show they have up right now. it's about photographers who traveled for different reasons and at different times in their lives and how that affected their work. seemed appropriate enough. it's a small hanging, but it deserves a second go-round for sure.

the oddities continue...

drove 60 miles roundtrip to a mansion in highland park to shoot a turkey sandwich. then i met a women embarking on her lifelong weight-loss goal at a health club underneath a massive steak house.

pulled my first late-night shift. going into a day of assignments knowing that there's no chance of sunlight is depressing.

sunday, sunday, sunday. not going to the big dance myself but i'll be shooting the revelry in bars. go bears.

Oh yeah, and the slideshow went up. As of right now the website is down for some reason, but I'm guessing it will be back online soon. If I knew how much time I had to turn this thing around in the end I would have gone to more laughter yoga sessions to get better photos and audio. Oh well, for a one-time half-hour assignment this ain't bad. Pushing for more with the next one.

strange group of assignments the past few days. yesterday, i photographed a man who was sexually abused by priests and then went straight to a supermarket sweep contest with local hockey players. today, i photographed a psychic and then went to a beluga whale's 1/2 year birthday party. weird.



i was tempted to say all sorts of dumb things to the psychic like, "hi, my name is julia, but you knew that already." thank god i have will power. it wasn't my best portrait assignment. i have to remember to go slow and take my time.

fyi, before you sacrifice the goat try changing the sample rate to 44.1kHz. just sayin'...

i'll post the link when it's on the site.

glad i got that out of my system

well, it was going to happen. each internship must have one bonehead intern move in it somewhere. today was that day for me at the daily herald.

6:00am - i woke up extra super special early to commence my first "dig" out after a big snow. turns out only an inch of splenda fell. my neighbors probably thought i was nuts for going out all bundled up and using the big ice scraper. in fact, i think my neighbor cleared all the snow off his car with a sneeze. in fact, i think that neighbor was wearing a bathing suit. it was only in the 30's after all. perfect tanning weather.

7:30 - so, i head to the office early and arrive without my electronic IDcard to get in the door. d'oh. back in the car for a quick 7-minute trip home. i decide that i know enough of this town by now to improvise my way back. wrong. sigh.

9:00 - back at the office, suitably humbled, i grab my assignments and race across town to a business portrait. oh joy. it's a story about female CEO's though and the owner is very nice. photos are so-so, but that's alright, you win some, you lose some.

11:30 - call from editor:

Ed: you can forget that 3 o'clock assignment. the reporter got the days wrong.
Me: uh...ok...umm...you mean the 2 o'clock assignment with the hockey players and the supermarket sweep?
Ed: no, umm, that's tomorrow's assignment...did you uh go to this morning's assignment? that MLK day celebration?
Me: (gulp. yipe. holy %$@*&!)
Ed: uh, well, here's the number. call the guy and see if anything is still going on.
Me: heh heh, right, ok, sure, you got it, no problem...
Ed: -click!-
Me: *&%$#@+*!!

11:45 - call bf for backup. i need directions stat and the map they gave me has just fallen completely apart! ach! tell me how to time travel!

12:15 - (in the office that i was supposed to be in three hours ago) there is nothing going on anymore for MLK day (crap!). Kind, wonderful PR guy tells me events had happened the friday before. the reporter had goofed on the days. (woo-hoo! i'm off the hook!!!!)

12:30 - gleeful call to editor:
Me: good news (sort of) the reporter got the wrong day. everything happened friday.
Ed: great. it's not our fault. we need some weather art. go. -click!-
Me: (napolean dynamite style: yessssssssssssss!)

1:30 - find crazy teenage boys playing football in sweatshirts in 20 degree weather. my hands are frozen numb in the first 10 minutes and these guys are playing without gloves, full contact, in a slushy field. my pen is frozen by the end so i have to etch all 10 boys' names, ages, hometowns, and high schools into a piece of paper with the tip.

2:45 - head back to the office to finish soundslide of laughing yoga class i shot last week. it just needs to be sequenced. no big deal. 30 minutes. max.

7:30 - i have just sacrificed a goat, two weasels, and a photo editor to joe weiss in hopes that his software will become bug free. audio scrubber refuses to be edited permanently. alignment of photos shifts a critical 2-4 seconds. i have tried my bag of tricks and the tricks of all my gurus (where do you think i got the idea about the goat?). this crap is busticated. consider a career in lithography.

8:00 - home again, home again. at least half my tuesday assignments are already shot. heh. yeah. there's something to be proud of...

home, home, on des plaines

I finally have a place to call my own at the end of the first week on the job. It's a huge relief to set my stuff down and nest a little. It's the small things that make the most difference: a good book, jello pudding, fresh sheets, new light bulbs.

Here's some snappies from the first week:


laughter yoga - palatine, il


award winning parks, inverness, il


tres leches detail, palatine, il


rosa parks lecture, hoffman estates, il

Home away from home away from...

I've finally landed in middle America.

2,500 miles ago I was in San Francisco. Oceans and big trees.



I thought I would need piles of books on tape to see me through the miles. Catch-as-catch-can NPR, a few new cds, and a healthy dose of silence were more than enough for four days. I meant to post every day on the road, but hotels in the sticks have gone from "internets?" to "sorry, wireless only." I've been lapped by the ruralites.

This is what I meant to show you: the american southwest along route 66, snow in New Mexico, no snow in Illinois, and the western hemisphere's biggest cross. My next cross country drive will have built-in time for more exploration of the side-roads.


san francisco, ca


mojave desert, ca


flagstaff, az


meteor crater, az


arizona new mexico


cadillac ranch - amarillo, tx


largest cross in western hemisphere - groom, tx


oklahoma, missouri, illinois