Krista Kruse tips a header toward Belmont goalie Nicole Berner. The match was declared no contest due to weather.

There will be no record of this shot. No scorecard for this match. No official tally of the one goal Belmont managed to slip past the Missouri defense. For all practical purposes, the meeting between Missouri and Belmont at Walton Stadium never really happened.

There was a lot of rain. And then more rain. And wind so strong that the dinky press box atop the grandstands actually shook and suffered a broken door when a gust bent it too far backwards.

After a 75-minute delay before things even got started, the teams squeaked in 28 minutes of action. Then referees called the match due to lightning, and torrents quickly followed.

Haley Krentz controls the ball through sloppy field conditions.

Dominique Richardson lunges for a header.

Iceberg wedge salad with bleu cheese, bacon, tomatoes and red onion

Mmmm, bacon. Three slices to be exact.

When I visited Chris in Atlanta, I ordered an iceberg wedge salad at Atlantic Seafood Company. I’ve ordered wedge salads before, but for whatever reason, they never actually looked like wedges — the lettuce was always chopped up or spread out like a regular salad.

Atlantic’s version was good (and the proper shape) but had a little too much dressing even for my heavy palate. I was also disappointed with the miniature size of the bacon bits and finely diced tomato pieces. I knew I could make a better one at home, so I did for dinner tonight.

Super easy, super fast, super tasty. And not too unhealthy considering it was the only meal I ate all day.

Exposure: 1/125, f/6.3, ISO 320

Technique: natural window light, plate on black velvet.

Kim Shaw looks at final results for the Associate Circuit Judge, Division 5 race as her mother, Jane Poore, stands by at her side during a watch party at D. Rowe's in Columbia. Shaw lost to incumbent Larry Bryson by only 243 votes.

Election days are crazy for a journalist. Even primary elections in August when only 24 percent of voters show up, most of whom not even halfway decently educated on the issues or candidates they’re voting for.

Over the last month at the Missourian, I’ve been on the elections beat doing research, interviewing candidates, writing profiles and going to candidate forums. All in the name of objectivity, and ultimately, voter education. That said, it was frustrating to hear voters at the polls tell me, “I really don’t know what Proposition C is about” or “I don’t know either of those candidates so I left my bubbles blank.”

Well, voters, all of that information is available to you. In multiple places. I know, because I helped write it online and read it in the dead tree edition too. It’s not my job to tell you who or what to vote for, but there is really no excuse to say you’re uninformed. Not in 2010.

All of that effort culminated in an 18-hour work day Tuesday. When all was said and done, and after all the votes were counted, I ended up writing seven stories or blog posts on the election. This was my first time doing election day reporting. As a photographer for The Maneater during the 2008 election cycle, I had a lot of opportunities to photograph presidential candidates, stump speeches, voter forums and voters at the polls.

Yesterday, I was discouraged from taking pictures for the Missourian; reporters were instructed to let the photography staff handle visuals and focus our energy on writing and reactions, so I did, mostly.

I was grateful that so many people I talked to were willing to talk and share their opinions. I really felt bad asking for even a couple minutes of their time as I tried to corral them towards me in an open parking lot with no shade in sight on a 96-degree day.

People really respected what I was out trying to do, and it was great to hear from candidates I covered (especially lower-tier Libertarians) that I did a good, fair, job. I was also personally humbled when Kim Shaw graciously thanked me for sticking around at her watch party for nearly three hours, when all I really needed was a brief quote that never even ran in the paper because she lost.

And yes, I did vote.
IN PRINT
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/08/03/voter-turnout-higher-anticipated-primary-election/
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/08/03/us-house-representatives-primary-winners/

SIDEBAR TO AP STORY
http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/08/03/missouri-voters-overwhelmingly-back-proposition-c/

BLOGS
http://thewatchword.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/a-close-loss-for-kim-shaw/
http://thewatchword.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/proposition-c-what-voters-are-saying/
http://thewatchword.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/riding-to-vote-fighting-the-heat/
http://thewatchword.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/election-officials-pleased-with-new-electronic-registration-system/

Fresh steamed crabs at Kahler's Seafood in Rosedale, Md.

And this is why I keep coming back to Maryland. Literally right off the boat and steamed fresh!

It’s still pretty early in the season for local crabs. Sometimes there just aren’t enough being caught in the Chesapeake Bay before Memorial Day, and local crab houses have to turn to suppliers in North Carolina and Louisiana to meet demand. The fact that we’re able to get fresh crabs from the bay this early is definitely a good sign, especially since we won’t be seeing much of anything from Louisiana at all thanks to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and its effects on seafood in the Gulf of Mexico.

Also: Photo taken with my new Canon PowerShot S90, an impressively capable and conveniently tiny point-and-shoot that more than meets my picky standards.

Missouri's Dane Opel misses an attempt at a diving catch on the wet turf at Taylor Stadium during a rainy game against Nebraska.

In the deepest realms of Peace Park on the MU campus, a fire-breathing Grad Student Monster lurks, scaring children and helpless undergrads who dare pass the brick bridge under his watchful eyes. They turn back at once; none shall pass.

Our photograph is definitely in the realm of “imaginary concept” more than anything else. It’s supposed to illustrate some evil creature (Jonathan) that scares and chases away innocent girls when they try and pass over his bridge. Someone also brought of the idea of grad students scaring away undergrads…but that could have been a joke, I’m not sure. To achieve the effect of forced perspective, Jonathan’s face was mere inches from the camera; the bridge itself was probably 30 feet away.

Technical info:

• Camera: Nikon D700 on tripod
• Lens: Nikon 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6
• Exposure: 84 seconds, f/16, ISO 200
• 2 Pocket Wizard MultiMax to remotely trigger bulb shutter
• 2 Nikon SB-600 speedlights
• 1 Nikon SB-800 speedlight
• 1 Canon EX-430 speedlight
• Various gels
• Flashlights

Technique

First, we set Jonathan near the camera to act as a “human gobo” to shield light from hitting the right side of the sensor, to eliminate any possible ghosting. The initial lighting phase involved strobing Ashley and Andie on the bridge. I popped four flashes of a strobe at full power, with no gel, to provide the main front light on the girls. I needed full power because I had to stand out of the frame when popping the flash. One flash was made by ducking under the bridge and aiming upwards. After I was finished, Dan fired several pops of another strobe gelled red on the girls for accented lighting to match the red “fire” coming out of Jonathan’s mouth.

After we were done strobing the girls, Jonathan immediately covered the lens with a piece of cardboard to block light while we repositioned for other roles. In succession, Dan held a red gelled flashlight near Jonathan’s mouth to simulate the fire, I fired a yellow gelled strobe on Jonathan’s face, Ashley used a blue-gelled flashlight to paint the water and creek, and Andie fired an ungelled strobe to illuminate the bridge and grass.

Reflection

I was skeptical of working in Peace Park, because even at night, there appeared to be a TON of light pollution both from lamps in the park and the city itself. First, I came up with an idea to eliminate light from the lamps in the park. We were all wearing coats, so using long sticks, we draped the coats over the large glass lamps closest to the bridge we were photographing. Definitely worth giving up warmth for darkness. This was incredibly helpful and cut down a lot of light. We used an aperture of f/16 to further eliminate available light. I experimented with f/22, but even with multiple flashes of light, the speedlights did not produce enough power to compensate. Additionally, because Andie and Ashley had to stand still for so long, any additional time or unnecessary strobes could have led to blurriness or ghosting. In addition to modifying the physical available light, we used the cinefoil on some of the strobe units to prevent spill, and also on the flashlight Dan used to better concentrate the beam of light behind Jonathan’s face.

There was a lot of problem solving, but we worked around them and found solutions. The biggest problem was the placement of Jonathan. At first, Jonathan was up on the bridge strobing the girls, and I was controlling the camera and masking. In earlier exposures, the bridge ended up being partly visible through his body, not exactly what we were going for. But by switching me and Jonathan, this was solved.

I would have preferred to have had a few more takes to get everything perfected, specifically I wanted to improve the light on the trees in the background and better mask the strobes from hitting the leaves as I don’t like how some are frozen and some appear blurred. As it is now, the image almost looks 3D in a way.

The view of the tent rock formations from halfway up the Canyon Trail; Jemez Mountains on the horizon.

Wind, water, and time. The three ingredients nature needed to produce the cone-shaped structures found throughout Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in Northern New Mexico. The monument, while federally owned, is located on land in the middle of the Cochiti Indian Reservation. We took a 1.5-mile trail that wove in and out of the base of tent rocks, passed through canyons, and finished with a steep, 600-foot incline to the top of a ridge.

Along the Canyon Trail.

Slot canyons are another common geological oddity at Tent Rocks. Walking through the canyons was quite an adventure. At times, the walls became so narrow that you could barely walk through facing forward without scraping shoulders on the rock walls. Further down near the ground, the gap was about the width of my shoes. It’s been said that slot canyons are incredibly dangerous, and are susceptible to quickly filling with water and flash flooding. Even if it’s not raining in the canyon itself, runoff from storms miles away can quickly find its way.

At the base of the canyon. Photo by Chris.

Hundreds of rosaries rest on shrines in and around the chapel.

While driving to Chimayo from Santa Fe on the Wednesday before Easter sunday, we noticed several people walking on the shoulder of the road, which was a major U.S. highway, and had no idea why on earth they were there. Electronic message boards instructed the “walkers” to stay to the right, so clearly the authorities didn’t mind. It was only until later that day we realized what was going on. During Holy Week, and especially on Good Friday, hundreds of people make a ritual pilgrimage by foot to Chimayo from towns and pueblos all over the state.

The adobe chapel and shrine at Chimayo, built in 1816, is considered so holy and sacred that worshipers will gather dirt from the grounds, which is believed to have miraculous healing powers. People who have made the pilgrimage have left lasting evidence of their journeys – canes, crutches and other mementos – inside the shrine.

Behind this window is a basement room with holy dirt for visitors to collect.

Holy Chiles. Only in New Mexico.

The Rio Grande Gorge, seen from NM-68.

I’ve finally stumbled across some free time, which means it’s time to blog photos from my spring break trip with Chris to New Mexico. We drove from Columbia, through Kansas and Oklahoma and crossed into New Mexico from the northeast. After stopping briefly in Cimarron and visiting Philmont, we drove through a mountain pass to Taos, then south to Santa Fe where we spent most of the rest of the week.

About seven miles outside of Taos, the Rio Grande snakes through a deep gorge that seemingly appears out of nowhere in the middle of the desert. Chris and I both had been to the gorge before, but still wanted to return. The picture above was taken from a pull off on the low road from Taos to Santa Fe. The picture below was taken from the steel truss bridge that crosses the gorge. The rails on both sides of the bridge are etched with many years worth of graffiti and carvings.

Graffiti, Rio Grande Gorge River Bridge (US-64).

We didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend in Taos itself. Other than eating lunch at the excellent Guadalajara Grill, we mostly just drove in and out of town after visiting the gorge bridge. I took a few photos out the window from the passenger’s seat as we drove past distant mountains and a deep blue sky. Of the few shots I took at 60mph, this was definitely the best composed and sharpest.

The Taos Ski Valley is back in those mountains somewhere.

As Chris explained to me, and as I saw in person, the village of Cimarron survives almost solely around the existence of the Philmont Scout Ranch and the influx of thousands of campers during the summer season. In the off-season, it’s quiet, easygoing, and almost deserted since many of the shops and restaurants are closed because of lack of patrons.

Back in the day, some crazy shit went down here.

One of the landmark attractions in Cimarron is the historic St. James Hotel. The hotel has hosted many infamous guests of the old West, including Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, and Buffalo Bill Cody. It was the scene of many shootouts, holdups, and even murders. The hotel is said to be haunted, and paranormal believers consider ghost sightings to be frequent occurrences.

Magnum Photo Agency: Access to Life

The Magnum Photo Agency provided content for a photographic and documentary video project about AIDS for The Global Fund. Magnum photographers produced stories on the effects of HIV/AIDS in nine different countries, gathering multimedia and stories from thirty different people before and after they began treatment for AIDS.

The first element of the multimedia presentation on the website is an interactive map of the world highlighting the countries where stories were produced. Each country is a button that when hovered over brings up a thumbnail and brief description of the attached story. Clicking on a country takes the user to another splash page, with a more in-depth summary and a button to play the video story directly in that frame. The country splash pages all provide a graphic link back to the main interactive map so the user can start over freely. This link is also available throughout the playing of the videos. The user has complete control of the videos, with Play/Pause buttons, volume control, a scrubbable timeline with thumbnails, and an option to enter fullscreen mode. All of these controls are intuitive and fit in seamlessly with the presentation.

The videos are all quite long, averaging between eight and 16 minutes each. That said, they remain engaging, and offer a good mix of stills and video, ambient sound with interviews and commentary.

This is a definitely a blurred line between PR/humanitarian work/documentary journalism, but because that is clearly stated in the project, I don’t have any qualms about the ethics surrounding the situation. Obviously these photographers were awarded the benefit of unfettered access, and the rich storytelling and images that result would have been hard to come across otherwise.