Hazardous Duty

Monday afternoon was a day filled with crashes and spin-outs as area residents had to re-acquaint themselves with how to drive on slippery roads.
Gosh, but we have short memories.
And I'm always amazed at how some folks believe that four-wheel-drive trumps a little common sense and caution.
The calls starting come in over the scanner about mid-afternoon when the first wave of workers and students headed home after light snow fell most of the day.
I headed out to one such incident just north of Mankato on Highway 169 where, according to reports, a car skidded across the median into the opposite lane, struck another vehicle, then rolled.
The driver suffered minor injuries but it certainly could have been a lot worse.
I had pulled beyond the crash and off the shoulder as far as I could, grabbed my camera and shot a few quick photographs before the accident was totally cleared.
But as I was shooting, even in spite of the slippery conditions and a couple of squad cars with flashing lights, traffic still flew by me way too fast for the conditions.
And way too close, as far as I was concerned.
Police officers will tell you that one of their biggest fears is getting creamed at an incident scene by passing traffic.
I can understand why.
At 60 mph, a car is moving at 88 feet per second. It might not seem that fast for an impatient driver behind the wheel.
But for someone along the shoulder of the road, having all that steel flying by just a few feet away is truly frightening.
All it would have taken was someone to lose control on the slippery road. The federally mandated safety vest I am required to wear at crash scenes would be of little value.
Perhaps it comes with age but I am far more cautious when I'm photographing such events, paying very close attention to passing traffic.
An old adage veteran photographers use to invoke about car crashes was that they would drive 90 mph to get there and then only 30 mph to get back to the office after being frightened by the sobering realities of what they had photographed.
Speeding to news events long since became history for this shooter.
Whatever is happening will wait until I get there at the leisurely pace of the speed limit or existing road conditions.
But all the impatient drivers out there need not worry.
I'll be in the right hand lane.

Farewell Kodak

It recently was announced that Eastman Kodak is filing for bankruptcy.

What that means exactly for the future of the company remains to be seen but I couldn't help but regard the news with some sadness.

In the course of shooting photographs over the last 45 years, I've burned through thousands of rolls of good old Kodak film in the familiar yellow box.

Indeed, during the summer of 1973, while working as a summer intern at the Dubuque Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa, I made of point of just tossing every box, data sheet and film cassette over my shoulder and into the backseat of my full-sized Ford, just to see how many rolls I would end up shooting over the summer. I don't recall the exact number of rolls but when my 10-week internship ended, the backseat was level to the windows with them.

What is so remarkable is that for all of the rolls of Kodak film I have shot over the years, I can recall only two rolls that were defective. Those two rolls had in inexplicable fog along the bottom edge of the three-foot long strip of film. Naturally, the photos on those particular rolls were ruined so I wasn't at all happy at the time about what I still believe was a Kodak goof-up.

But two rolls out of thousands over four decades...that's still a pretty remarkable example of quality control. And I know longtime photographers who have never had a defective roll of Kodak film over their entire careers.

The makers of, say, televisions, computers or automobiles could only wish for such a record.
In the end, for all of its great products and quality control, Kodak was probably too big to make the adjustment to digital quickly, and admittedly, perhaps a bit too complacent about its standing in the photographic community.

By the time it saw the handwriting on the darkroom wall, it was too late. I shot my last rolls of film of any brand in 2001, the time the Free Press took delivery of Nikon digital cameras.

While I sometimes miss the craftsmanship of the old chemical processes, the magic of a print appearing on a blank sheet of paper, I wouldn't trade it for the efficiency of digital imaging. Given the state of newspaper resources where we're all doing much more with less, we couldn't possibly get done what we need to if we had to burn up a portion of our day in the darkroom.

Nevertheless, I hope the American icon that Kodak has been over the last century survives in some fashion.

Especially since I just bought one of their printers!

Not my usual cup of tea

Typically at a basketball game I shoot pictures similar to the one I took of Mankato East's Brett Olson a couple of weeks ago at left. Tight, close in to the action, clean (at least blurred out) background. That's more my style: Get the viewer into the action and make him or her part of the game. Give them a view they may not be able to see from their seat.


I took a different approach when editing my photos from the Austin vs. Mankato East matchup Tuesday night. I decided to go with the picture at right, which shows (from a distance) East's Brandon Kowalski taking a long range three point shot. The significance of the photo is in the background. East is down by three as the clock winds down. Kowalski hits the shot to tie the game as the buzzer sounds. The crowd goes crazy. The team goes crazy. Kowalski goes crazy.


I had plenty of pictures like the one at left, even one of Kowalski hitting a three pointer earlier in the game, that would have worked just fine and would have fit my formula for a good sports photo better than this one. But in this case I felt the scoreboard added to the picture, showing East down three (I do wish I could've gotten the clock in the frame too, but that was all I had). The storytelling aspects of this particular picture made it worth publishing over the others.

Too lifelike?

Now I'm as much of a technology freak as the next photographer. I can be convicted of my share of spot coloring, vignetting, sepia toning, etc. a photo. But I found this use of technology very interesting. Photographer (perhaps artist would be a better term?) Sanna Dullaway, as this blog entry says, "re-imagines photos from the past in vibrant, realistic hues."

Essentially, she has taken famous photos from the past (like the famous Times Square kiss photo from the end of World War II by Alfred Eisenstaedt here) and colored them in a realistic manner. They kind of remind me of the old hand coloring techniques used in that era before digital photography became so popular. They are beautiful, artistic and well done.


But (you knew it was coming, didn't you?), does the technique cheapen the photo? Sure, Alfred Eisenstaedt probably saw the scene as it appears at right. But history remembers the scene in black and white. So is it strange to see a historic photo like this in color, as it was originally witnessed? Or does the photo become less historic because of Dullaway adding a level of non-truth to the picture (if it truly isn't truth she's adding. I'm making an assumption she wasn't there and doesn't know whether lady in the background has on a blue dress or a yellow one, for example).


Don't get me wrong, it's intriguing to think of what Albert Einstein or Samuel Clements looked like in color. But I wonder if these iconic photos lose their icon status when made more "real."

The latest in photographer fashion

A model wears a creation by Nicola Formichetti, and Sebastien Teigne for Thierry Mugler fashion house's Men's fall-winter 2012-2013 collection, presented in Paris, Wednesday. AP photo


This one's from the "you've gotta be kidding me" department. Now, finding unusual fashion show photos on the Associated Press wire is not groundbreaking news, but I had to share this one just for it's absurdity.

I've been around for my fair share of photographer fashion faux pas. I wore the safari vest for years. I still have the waaaay oversized belt pack with add-on pouches. I have carried the camera bag that makes me look like I've packed everything I own inside it. This one beats them all.

The caption didn't name the outfit, though. Any ideas? Photographer's corset? RoboPhotog?

They could have at least put a bigger camera on it than an all plastic EOS Rebel. I mean, this thing could support a 400/2.8

Thanks to copy editor Josie Belina for pointing it out to me!