Coming into a New Day
I covered the Redskins/Rams game at FedEx Field on Sunday. It was an ugly game; the ‘fans’ started booing their own team fairly early on and there were a bunch of empty seats but the light was ok, particularly if you were working from the St. Louis sideline. Not to mention it was a little less crowded there as well.
Here’s one of my favorites but click on the image to see a slideshow from the day.
Just a quick and dirty portrait for the sports section. This was taken for the Sidelines feature in the sports section. As is too often the case, I had no idea about the the athlete’s name, school or sport just that Sports informed me that ‘a sidelines is coming in.’ So, in absence of any real information, I decided to switch up the location. I usually shoot these things in the studio but decided to go outside. So when Kristen, a volleyball player showed up, I grabbed a 35mm lens and a flash and we went outside. Pretty simple, really. Kristen is in shade, light on the left. I do wish I had centered her in the frame though. It’s a so-so picture – it serves a purpose of illustrating what Kristen looks like but little else. On the upside, she did explain what a librero is in volleyball. So I got that going for me..
“America is not at war. The Marine Corps is at war; America is at the mall.”
A couple weeks ago I wrote about whether is was appropriate to publish a photo of Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard being tended by two comrades after he was wounded in Afghanistan. He later died from his wounds. I posted my thoughts and a link to the photo on my blog on the website of my employer. Within a few days I got a stern chat from the editor and managing editor and was told to take down the post. I guess it had to do with the fact that my opinion differed from the paper’s position on the photo and I posted before the editor had a chance to run a column about the issue in the paper three – 1, 2, 3 – days after the AP story about Lance Cpl. Bernard ran. I posted my thoughts the day before the AP story was published though I did not discuss the editors’ decision nor did I say what the paper decided to do. I provided a link, which I was informed was equal to putting the picture on the newspaper’s site. I disagreed with that point but whatever, it isn’t my newspaper so I removed the post.
The New York Times’ Lens blog addresses the aftermath of the release of the photo far more eloquently than I could hope to so check it out here. The quote I opened up with was from a photo by Getty’s John Moore that leads off the column.
