At the Greebrier...

The beauty of covering something like the Greenbrier Classic golf tournament is that sports events are generally catered. At someplace like the Greenbrier, that even involves white linen tablecloths for the breakfast buffet. Nice...

7-10-11 The Rest of the Roll

Martinsville Bulletin photographer Mike Wray waits on the bumper of a Horsepasture VFD fire engine at a drowning scene. Although he has an Olympus digital camera slung over his shoulder here, he pulled out a Leica M2 when he sighted the M3 I was carrying.

The drowning actually happened a way up a dirt drive, past an abandoned farmhouse on a large pond. The building was ruined in a particularly photogenic way, and he and I spent the time waiting for the authorities to let us up to the scene making artful pictures of it.

The fireman left to control traffic said it had burned down some time ago.

Preparations for flying by balloonists at the annual 4th of July Balloon Fest at VMI. I made a "nat pack" of it for the station, and managed to get these shots in the process.

Finally, some tambourines in a church pew in Buena Vista. I was working on a story about a local gospel music jamboree, and one group of singers met us there so we could interview them and record them singing in anticipation of that evening's concert.

7-10-11 First Batch

This is the studio at WDBJ7 in Roanoke, my day job. Just before the evening news, it shows co-anchors Hollani Davis and Chris Hurst, looking towards the cameras from within the newsroom. Obviously, this is before the show began.


While we're discussing my day job -- as a photographer for channel 7 -- here is reporter Joe Dashiell working on a story in nearby Buchanan, Virginia. We were there for the town's fair, a fundraiser for the volunteer fire department, and after a morning of filming had stopped in the local lunch place (still inside the local drugstore) for sandwiches. Joe then took advantage of the air conditioning while writing his story for that evening's newscast. We reported live from the town.


A view of the stands at the Roanoke Valley Horse Show in the Salem Civic Center. I was there to shoot the final championship in hunter-jumper, and had ensconced myself next to the official video camera on a platform at the end of the rink. The two men on seated, one above the other, on the right are riders awaiting their turns.


Below the platform where I was, on the rail, were the EMTs and other hangers on. I was never quite sure whether the fellow in plaid, for example, was competitor in another event, a stable hand, a trainer, or what. He did have the air of a man who knows and works a lot with horses, though...


As I left and looked back, I was struck by the scene of riders coming and going into the arena from the stable area that had been erected in the civic center parking lot. It was around 9 pm, and so in total darkness. I tried an exposure anyway -- maybe at 1/8th of a second? It's a little motion blurred, I fear...


A scene from Rockbridge County: Jacob's Ladder Road, just outside Lexington. In the distance is House Mountain, a local -- or rather The local landmark, visible in one way or another (from the side it's revealed to be not so much a mountain as two parallel ridges) from most all of the county.

You may be struck by the pastoral beauty of the scene. It's one of the many reasons why I choose to live in Lexington.


And finally, a scene of accidental domestic art: my kids' toys and shoes in the sunlight on our back porch.

While I set up this blog exclusively to post photos, I must admit some hesitancy. Any honest photographer will tell you that not every picture can be a great work of art. Frequently, we're lucky to get two or three nice images out of every 40 or 50. (I used to say "out of every roll of 36," but as film has become rarer and rarer, I worry that not all readers would understand.)

There are many other photo blogs that I follow. Some have a Leica theme, some a street photography theme. Some just ruminate about photography in general. I confess to not infrequently looking at the pictures and wondering: Really? This is the best he could find? And so, I envision others looking at my pictures and doing the same. Well, I guess that's fair enough.

This is what I did in July -- or at least part of what I shot in part of July. I've been shooting lately with a Leica M3 using a 50mm f/2 lens. I load the camera with Kodak BW400CN film -- great stuff, I think, that I date when I pull it out of the camera. So this was the roll I took out and processed on July 10. Thus the title of this post.

However, I haven't managed to go through all the pics yet -- there is some inevitable Photoshopping to get the contrasts right, take all the color out, and so on, to make it look just the way I want. Hence: First Batch.

Just Another Day ...

Doing a live shot by the James River in Buchanan, Virginia. I'm afraid I didn't use the Leica that day, and my main memory is of the thick clouds of gnats...

Photo by Joe Dashiell

Another Blog?

Really. It's not like I can keep up with Cat Typing. I would like to post there weekly, or even daily, but I'm lucky to crank out something monthly.

However, I think it's a good idea to start this one. Why? Well, because Cat Typing was being too many things, I think. Ironic, no? After all, I can't come up with enough to say on it, but I think it's doing too much? Well, yeah, because the point is why, not what.

I think Cat Typing is a good place to tell stories, share thoughts, generally express the ideas I have that I have to bore my long suffering wife with. (Including perhaps asides on grammar and dangled participles, which I addressed on Tumblr just a minute ago.) But I've also used it as a place to post pictures and generally "build my brand." Seriously, I don't do this just because I think the world will wither without my work -- much of which I do for me -- but so I can get more, paying work and build my reputation.

Another thing I've done partly for me, but also for "branding," is to carry a Leica with me all the time. The story I tell when people ask is true: Just before Christmas a couple of years ago, the family and I were coming out of The Palms in Lexington, only to find local character Mark Cline setting up the decorations in Hopkins Green, a small park in the center of town. I was confronted with the scene of three men wrestling an eight-foot fiberglass snowman into position: a perfect photo. No camera. Never again.

Lunch table at the Leica Historical Society of America convention in Knoxville, Ky., 2009

That's my M3 with a 28mm lens on the right.

Yeah, I shot the picture with a Nikon D200.

Sorry.

But carrying a Leica says something more. It speaks of a history of great photography, and it indicates one is a serious professional. After all, these things are not cheap or particularly easy to use. And it has worked; people often notice the old film camera around my neck and ask about it. I've had some lovely conversations with photo enthusiasts, and some nice chats with colleagues who see the camera as I intend it: a statement of a serious commitment to good photography.

Perhaps it has occurred to you by now that this means there are a lot of pictures. Not as many as you might think, but enough that it needs an outlet. I have been using Cat Typing, and I thought that was okay, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought the pictures should have their own blog. So (FINALLY, he gets to the point) I decided to create this blog -- plog? -- to deal with this output.

Stand by ...