Seeing the light

I was lucky enough to see and capture this image when hiking Old Ragg in Madison County for the 1st time ever last week. A big thanks to my tour guide Jason Watson (pictured). This is by far the best hike in the area.

Close call

This is a sequence from a remote camera behind the net of a recent women's soccer game. Luckily, camera's today are tough enough to take the occasional kick. The cool part is the last image in the sequence shows the UVa player who scored the goal. The last image overall was what I had intended to capture with the camera position.

The overlooked photo

Scanning through 1500 images under deadline from Saturday's UNC football game I was bound to overlook and image or two. Although my colleague Megan Lovett got THE game winning shot, this was a nice runner up showing good emotion from Cedric Peerman after he scored a TD in the last minute of the game.

Need color for the front page

Here are two photos proposed for the front page of the DP. The one on the right is more visually stimulating but the left photo was choosen because it was a color front. It would have looked good on A2.

Great Balls of Fire

Last night while 99% of you were in deep sleep, I had the genius idea to drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway and photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower. The above blurry photo is the only visible fruit of that labor. But what you can't see are the dozens of fireballs that streaked all around the tiny frame of sky that I was capturing. Or the crisp mountain air that transported me straight into Fall.

It was a really great night. And even though I had to wake up four hours later for work, I'm thinking of doing it again tonight. Even though yesterday was the peak night, there will still be meteors for a few more days. I have experience now, I have a better plan. Then again, my pillow seems really attractive... maybe I'll try again during the Leonids in November.

Fields with Song

This image comes from a story that never made it into the paper. Uriah J. Fields, a local musician and civil rights leader, belts out a song while visiting central place on the downtown mall. Fields is a mall regular and known for his singing. According to Ace from the Cville- Fields served as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s secretary during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 (about which Fields later wrote a book, Inside the Montgomery Bus Boycott) and fought in the battlefields of the Korean War. He’s one of many interesting characters here in beautiful Charlottesville, VA.

Crosby, Stills and Nash

Local photographer Jack Looney getting up close and personal with the band on Thursday night at the Charlottesville Pavilion.

Ostrich or Emu

I can never tell the emu from ostrich. In any case, both are scary up close. This is a picture taken at the Safari Park in Lexington. It's so much fun to drive thru and feed the animals. My wife and I were laughing all the way. If you get the chance, you have to go. Watch out for the zebras.

Bush protest

This is a photo that only made it to the online slideshow from the President Bush's visit earlier this month. As DP photographer Megan Lovett spent her time at Monticello walking with Bush and his entourage, I was left to cover the protest at the bottom of the hill. With about a hundred anti-Bush protestors situated outside his home on HWY20, pro-Bush supporter Jeff Wray stood alone holding up his American flag as the President drove past. It created the little balance needed for that situation. It was a good moment.

Rosey in the Frame

Sometimes reporters and web editors can get a little too close to their subjects. Here's Matthew Rosenberg (glasses) getting audio for the DP podcast at a press conference. Even Rob from WINA nows to stand back a little bit.

Camera in hand

I always keep my camera in hand at all times on assignment because you never know. This is an image I took while following the director of Kenwood down side stairs that happened to be lit by a skylight. This was my favorite photo of the day and it didn't make it into the paper.

Old Skool Revival

So I shot my first concert at JPJ tonight... I was really hoping this milestone would be Van Halen, but they keep not showing up. So instead my first arena show was KID ROCK, former Mr. Pamela Anderson, current "Rock n' Roll Jesus," performing a revival style review.

Big thank you to the security guy up front who gave me ear plugs. You, sir, are a hero.

Remote Camera Sequences

It truly amazing to me that I'm able to capture multiple viewpoints of the same play. If you look carefully you'll see that the positions of each player do not change. I also think it's funny that I can see myself sitting on the opposite baseline in the occasional image.  

Many thanks to Jason Watson for being my sounding board through the learning curve of remote camera photography. Also to McG for his headlines writing skills in todays Progress!

Shadow Play

The best part about setting up remote cameras is you never know what your going to get. After several hours of set up, game action and tear down it was time to view the images. Several cameras didn't fire properly (user error most likely) and there were a lot of images with the referees behinds in them. The ceiling remote produced this image. 

I thought this is really a cool shot. All the efforts are worth it for this one image. 

Ball Head

This image of CHS star Shalita Brown is a classic ball for head shot that makes me laugh out loud.

Firefighters Rescue Cat

Albemarle firefighters worked to extinguish a house fire in Mill Creek Monday evening. A ferret and two cats including smokey (pictured) were saved by firefighters from the blaze. The resident of the home was in shock when she returned from the gym to find her home destroyed.

Extreme cold condition did not effect the classic light due to shadows from puffy cloud today on the Parkway. A

Making ACC History

Here's the actual assist Sharnee Zoll made to break Dawn Staley's record with 730 assists from Thursday nights game against Clemson.

Snow Days

I really liked the lines in this photograph that didn't run in our snow photo spread.