A night at the pier.

It’s been a few months since I last posted a blog, but wow has the past few months been insanely busy! Just recently I was hired by a photography company that shoots the NASCAR circuit as a freelance part time photographer for them. So I have been doing a lot of traveling for them and visiting many states. I’ll soon post some blogs from them. But as of right now I’m on vacation, so the four photos I post in this blog are me getting back to my roots and just relaxing while shooting some photos. It’s nice to do that every now and then to get back to loving shooting photos. Not that I don’t love my job as a photographer, because I do. It’s never not fun, just it’s nice to not have the pressure of it being your job every so often and just shoot for kicks. Anyways, my fellow photography Clint Renegar and I are at the beach and here are a some photos I took tonight.

Warriors get the tribal boot from Saint Stephens

Thursday night I had to shoot girls soccer at Saint Stephen's High School home of the Indians. I've shot them once before this year and they left that game in a stale mate, no sooner I arrived the Indians had scored one. So I figured by that point the game was in the bag for Saint, and I was completely right. They ended up holding off the Watauga Warriors for a 3-0 win. This was one of my better nights shooting soccer as I knew a little more shots to shoot, because I had researched some photo ideas and the ball was keep on my end of the field most of the game, which was pretty great and overall produced some good shots, but I'm still learning how to shoot this sport, so look for some better shots in the future.

You can read the article on the game here.
Hickory Daily Record

Hazmat Time

So after class today I swung by the train yard in Conover to see if there was any trains to watch, but the signal was read heading towards downtown Conover so I figured the train had to be in Newton. So off I went in pursuit of a train that ended up being a track maintainer working on a crossing near the depot in Newton. So while I was in Newton I drove around and came across the Newton fire department sitting in a parking lot near the old water tower. The two water trucks were lined up next to each other spraying water at each other, so I swung back around parked and got out and watched for a minute. Then they lined up the ladder truck and put the ladder between the two trucks spraying water, and they started to spray water from the ladder/bucket truck down into the spray area as well. So by this point, I'm super curious as to what they are doing, so I grab my cameras and head on over to the fireman. I introduce myself and ask what they are doing, and they very kindly tell me that they are doing a hazmat training exercise and they are setting up a spray shower to decontaminate people or cars in case of a contamination. I ask if I can take some photos and they were fine with it, and then one of the firemen decided he would run through the spray. It was pretty neat seeing the trucks spraying the water, just how much water they put out was what got me interested. But here are the photos from the little exercise of theirs I shot.







This is when the one fireman decided to run through the water....



Then he decided to go around getting people wet by hugging them.

The Kiddie Club?

So I would say about three weeks ago for a class project in photojournalism class we had to go over to the CVCC Child Care Center to take some photos as a class of the kids for a new pamphlet they are wanting to make. It had previously rained outside the day before so we was worried the kids would all be stuck inside in turn sticking all 9 of us that went over that day together in the same room with a bunch of little toddlers running around(yea, you can see how that could cause some crazy moments). Well anyways here are the shots I got and hopefully they wil use them in the pamphlet for the daycare.

Maiden takes the win.

Well today I shot baseball for the first time....it's an okay sport and I'll leave it at that. Anyways, drove out to Bandy's high school for the big Maiden vs. Bandy's rivalry. Bandy's went into this game being undefeated while Maiden went into this with a pretty impressive record as well(I cant remember it at this exact moment). Basically the game would go with Bandy's scoring the first run then Maiden following up with 3 to take the game with a 3 to 1 win over the now not so undefeated Bandys Trojans. Softball is a tough sport to shoot seems how the pitcher does a wind up sorta rolling arm motion. Which only really looks good at the top part of the roll as any other capture of the roll sorta looks like they are bowling and not pitching. Next the runners don't lead off the base and in turn it leaves not many steal shots or diving back to be safe at the base shots. So you kinda gotta be ready for the slides and action shots for when they happen, because its about impossible to predict it. But here are the shots I got at tonights game that I liked.

The Caldwell County Railroad

On my way home from school I came to the red light in downtown Hudson, in front of the old Carl's gas station. As I was pulling up the train went through the grade crossing on the opposite side of the red light, so I instantly having my camera with me from school turn into the right light to pursue the train in a photo chase. I only caught it at one location that was decent. Then after that first location I went onto the bridge that over looks the transloading facility that they stop at, because I had never seen any photos from that particular location of viewing. I found out why, the power lines go all across the shot inturn just producing a clutered mess of a shot(im still gonna post the shot to let you see what im talking about). But this was my short adventure for the day. Later on I shot Bandy's Softball at Bandys high school in Catawba.








Then here is the shot that would be way better without those pesky power lines, just thought some of my fellow CWCY(Caldwell County Railroad) Railfans would like to see this nifty location to watch from.

MLK Winter Festival

First off, let me say this week has been very crazy. I made it through my 3rd semister of college, which means I have one more to go!! Now that was said and put out there. This post is about what I did Wednesday. I woke up early to drive to Mooresville for an all day photography job interview. Im not gonna say what company, because I dont feel I should really discuss that until its set in stone weither Im hired or not(hoping I get the job though). Anyways, I stayed there from 8am till 4:30 in the afternoon(yes, I stayed at a job interview for a long time, but it was really great, the people there are awesome, and its an awesome work enviroment, so I was glad to stay and help them out for the day; hey, it beat sitting at home). So anyways, I rushed home to Lenoir, and got to the Martin Luther King Center in Lenoir to get photos of the Winter Festival they was throwing for the neighborhood. The Lenoir News Topic had me go shoot it, because they was doing a story on it as well. I got there a few minutes after it started. It was a really nice event for the community but a photojournalist nightmare. They had it split up, to were the kids could just run around. So anytime, I took a photo of a kid, I then had to some how find the kids parents. I ended up asking a few kids where their parents were. Meet some really nice people, and got to watch a little bit of an awesome magician show. But I only got a few decent shots(I'm being honest here when I say stretching. Photographers make me mistakes, and ill admit, this was not my greatest event). I really dont like either photo that I turned in, but having something to turn in was better than having noting. But here are the two photos that the paper ran in the Thursday, December 16th issue.