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It Beats Working For a LivingBy Mike Morones
Sep. 6, 2009 6:17 pm
I wrote a travel story about a recent trip to Key West and included a few pictures. As I wanted to get away from 'work' I only brought my iPhone and my wife brought our point-n-shoot. I used to like shooting with a Holga which is a cheap plastic camera that produced some pretty neat photos. I replicated the Holga look on my KW photos using an application called Camera Bag and the 'Helga' effect. It was kind of nice not lugging an SLR around particularly since it is difficult to handle a camera, a cold beer and a grouper sandwich all at the same time.
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1252275424
Tags: travel, holga, iphone, key west
Sep. 6, 2009 5:30 pm
UPDATE, 9/21: The Lens blog on the New York Times site had a well-written analysis of the aftermath of the release of the photo of Lance Corporal Bernard. Read it here.
Some of you may have read my opinion on this blog about whether or not a photo of a wounded Marine should be published or not. If you had seen Sunday's paper, you would no doubt be aware that The Free Lance-Star like many other newspapers across the country opted NOT to publish the photo by AP photographer Julie Jacobson. Apparently my post preempted ( and disagreed with) a planned column by our editor and generated a few comments on this blog as well as to the publisher. -Mike
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1252272638
Aug. 19, 2009 8:06 am
Last night I was sent to cover a meeting of the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors as they held a public hearing and vote on whether or not to join the Virginia Railway Express. It started at 6:30 and my deadline was 10pm. I figured that was plenty of time. I wasn’t expecting to make a particularly great picture but the decision to join has been argued back and forth for nearly two decades. A fair number of people turned out to support and oppose the county joining. Arguments included everything from opposition to a new 2% gas tax, to the morality of joining or not joining, that supporting VRE is just another example of socialism, that it would improve the quality of life, that it would bring revenue to the county and somebody even floated the idea that VRE is unconstitutional. The public comment portion wrapped right around 9pm and I was excited – plenty of time to get the vote in and beat my deadline. I’d be home in no time.
I should have started out by saying that I do not regularly cover local government meetings and I now have a new respect for my colleagues on those beats. After the public comment had ended, the supervisors started talking. And talking. And then another one would talk – no wonder this process has been going on for years. 9:30 rolled around, still talking. 9:45, more talk. 9:50, now I’m getting nervous. 9:55, and I am trying my best to employ a jedi mind trick on the chairman, “This is the time to vote. Vote now. Do it!” Alas, it didn’t work. 9:58, I’m sending text messages to the office saying the vote will happen any minute if only these guys will stop listening to themselves talk. The crowd was kind of keyed up and I wanted a reaction picture so I held off on sending anything. A couple of minutes after 10, they vote to join VRE but with the provision that the date be moved to February 2010, after any new supervisors take their seats, essentially opening the door to another vote and the possibility of NOT joining. Read reporter Dan Telvock’s story here. The reaction picture I was hoping for didn’t happen and the pictures I moved could have been sent a hour earlier. So, 4 hours and 3 mediocre pictures later I stood in the parking lot, transmitted pictures and contemplated punching myself in the face.
(cross posted at my other blog Fading the Line)
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1250683580
Tags: morones, VRE, spotsylvania, news
June 10, 2009 10:45 am
I spent yesterday morning out at a farm in Fauquier County taking pictures of Marines from Quantico re-enacting part of the battle of Belleau Wood. The battle, as of 1918, was the most devasting engagement Marines were involved in since their inception. The re-enactment was for a short film being produced for the Marine Corps Museum. I shot this with my iPhone using the Camera Bag app's Helga setting then applying the TiltShift app. I'll post the actual pictures a little later, though the more and more I play with the iPhone's camera, the more I like it. Though now I want the iPhone 3Gs and its new video-enabled camera....
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1244645102
Tags: marines, iphone, news, morones
June 8, 2009 10:59 am
Due to rain all of Friday's events were cancelled and things got pushed to Saturday, meaning that if any local teams won, the writers and I would have to stick around till Sunday. I don't root for or against teams so I was in a difficult spot - everybody loses and I get to leave Radford early; they win and I don't have to take pictures of crying teenage girls. I can't say Radford had a lot going for it unless you wanted to engage in binge drinking or getting a tattoo. Friday was spent trying to track down local teams being rained in. Unfortunately nothing really panned out so I ended up watching reruns of Whale Wars on Animal Planet. I like whales and all but watching angry hippies with questionable seafaring skills blundering around the high seas kind of made me angry. Maybe it is because my dad was a merchant mariner for thirty years as was his father. Probably didn't help that the sun came out midway through the day and though softball was a wash, soccer could at least have been played! Anyway, in the end the rain delays worked out in my favor since originally all three games were scheduled at the same time meaning that at most I would have been able to cover the first couple innings of Orange softball and the second half of Courtland soccer. It turned out that I covered the first 2 innings of Essex softball, the second half of Courtland soccer and Orange softball in its entirety. Turns out Essex probably had the most exciting game of the three and I'm disappointed I missed the closing innings. Instead I caught a lackluster second half of Courtland soccer. I hate to say it but they seemed kind of sluggish out there and not surprisingly, as the final two minutes ticked off the clock with the Cougars trailing 2-0, senior Kara Blosser saw fit to cap her high school career with one the most egregious displays of poor sportsmanship I have seen in a long while. Her blatant tackle earned her a yellow card and did nothing to help her team. Somehow I didn't feel particularly sympathetic when I saw her crying on the sidelines afterwards.
With Essex and Courtland out of the competition, it fell on Orange softball to keep the region's sports hopes alive. Sadly they fell to Broad Run 2-0 but Orange's pitcher, a sophomore, is pretty impressive. I think it is safe to say the Hornets will probably do pretty well over the next couple of years. Before the game, the Hornets honored their graduating seniors. Sporting their caps and gowns over their orange socks and cleats, the graduates marched under a phalanx of raised bats and collected their diplomas.
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1244473158
Tags: sports, Radford, softball, soccer, essex, courtland, orange, morones, free lance-star
Spring Sports championships at Radford - AA tennis June 4, 2009 5:33 pm
The rain held off this morning as James Monroe's Caleb Rapkins advanced from the semifinals to face Salem's Patrick O"keefe for the state AA singles tennis title. Rapkins lost to O'Keefe 6-1, 6-0. Tomorrow's forecast isn't looking so good but I packed raingear for me and my cameras. I wouldn't mind shooting soccer in the rain but I guess any bad weather will likey put a stop to softball. I shot mostly with a 400mm lens and a 70-200mm zoom lens. I also used teleconverteers to give me a little more reach, plus such long focal lengths help obliterate the distracting backgrounds common at tennis courts. Pardon the lackluster toning job on the photos. I've been messing around with the color settings on my cameras and I am finding that bright colors like Caleb's shirt really look crazy on the 'vivid' setting but in the standard setting everything looks kind of blah. maybe before tomorrow's games I'll do a quick test... check back mañana!
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1244151209
Tags: sports, radford, james monroe, tennis, morones, rapkins
May 12, 2009 5:33 am
Mary Petro, owner of Farm 2 Family Direct, a delivery service for locally-produced food. (Mike Morones/The Free Lance-Star) I shot this last week for the Deal in the paper's business section. Every week we have a profile on a local business owner. For a while we got an endless stream of cube dwellers which resulted in an endless stream of man-and-his-computer pictures. Lately there has been an opportunity to meet some interesting people doing interesting things. In my conversation with Mary, she reminded me that there is TON of locally-produced food. Everything from fruits and veggies to meat and dairy products. I think i should make an effort to check that out a little more often... The tech information: Nikon D300, ISO200, 17mm, f4.5, 1/2000 sec. I used the pop-up flash to trigger a small softbox i was holding off to the left. Gotta love Nikon's flash systems! I'll make an effort to post the tech stuff for the three people out there that care...
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1242120819
Tags: morones, free lance-star, mary petro, portrait, deal
Spotsylvania Courthouse battlefield gets a new monument May 1, 2009 10:59 am
A few weeks ago I was assigned to cover the installation of a new monument at the Spotsylvania Courthouse battlefield. The pictures were OK - guys with a crane, big slabs of granite - but they weren't very interesting. Unless, I suppose, you are really into the All joking aside, I find the history of the war interesting and in fact photographed a great-great-grandson of U.S. Grant the other day. When you move here, it is tough not to be even marginally interested as the places you read about in history books - Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Manassas - are all here or at least very close by. I admit to not fully 'getting' the whole reenactor thing but far be it from me to judge another man's hobby. Granted it includes camping out and firing cannon so it can't be all bad! But I digress... The installation pictures were lackluster so I decided to return as the sun began to set so I could shoot a nice still life of the monument. Turns out the Park Service has nothing to do with the purchasing and installing of monuments; it is done by private groups. The Park provides guidelines towards what is appropriate and ensures the information on the monument is correct. Anyway, the sun was getting a bit orange but I wanted a little more dramatic picture so I set a flash off to the left to illuminate the flag as well as add a bit of dimension to the monument. I set another to the right with a warming gel on it to add to the sun's effect. Finally I set the white balance on my camera to 'shade' as that has a warmer tone to it as well. In the end, the flash to the right added very little to the image aside from a little fill on the bottom right corner. As soon as I get to the office, I'll add another photo showing the set-up and what it looked like from another angle. I must say that after spending an hour puttering around shooting a relatively easy picture was the most fun I had in a while. I guess it had to do with the problem-solving nature of the image and I didn't have to deal with anybody who was self-concious in front of the camera. Plus it was one of the first really nice days and I was on a serene battlefield that at one time was the site of some of the most horrific fighting of the war. It even gave this Yankee reason to pause and reflect on why people continue to remember the war.
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1241189973
Tags: civil war, spotsylvania courthouse, bloody angle, south carolina, confederate
May 1, 2009 10:52 am
I was shooting a baseball game at Courtland High School the other day. It had been a while so I was feeling a bit rusty. It was slated to get started at 7:30 but Courtland's field is situated in such a way that if there is no cloud cover the sun shine directly into the batter, catcher and ump's faces. So we had a sun delay to wait for the sun to go down sufficiently. I shot this photo in the first inning when there was still a bit of sunset left. I love the way the D3 handles color. My only gripe with the picture is that I should have given it a bit more depth to help define the shape of the batter in the top right more.
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1241189565
Tags: baseball, courtland, sun delay, morones
Extra photos from Courtland's championship win over Salem Mar. 15, 2009 1:33 pm
Here are a few of my favorites from yesterday's game. I also posted another one here in the Back Focus blog...
I travelled down to Richmond last night to cover the Courtland Cougars take on Salem in the Group AA Division 4 state basketball championship game at VCU. Normally you can count on these games for great action and great reaction as teams rise or fall. Last night was a little different in that the Cougars pretty much had things wrapped up midway through the second quarter. So, I got some decent action but reaction was a little skimpy. The Courtland-Salem contest was the nightcap game, slated to begin at 9PM. Due to earlier delays tip-off didn't happen till 9:45 giving me an hour to shoot, edit and transmit for the paper's first deadline. So, in that sense, having such a lopsided victory worked out in that it was unlikely that any surprises were going to happen in the second half that would change the storyline of the game and force us to switch out pictures at the last second. Typically I'd sit on the baseline and shoot from there but I figured at the half I could move around and decided to shoot from the stands and try and get a clean photo of Josh Hairston dunking. I got a few shots I was happy with but in the end, the reaction was fairly muted due to the huge disparity in scores. Following the game, I moved a few more pictures for the paper plus a handful more for an online slideshow.I suppose I could gripe about the late hours and pressure but I ran into my buddy Kyle from the Roanoke Times who told me he had shot something like 17 games over the course of the last few days. He looked pretty burned out on basketball!
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1237138396
Tags: morones, free lance-star, basketball, courtland, salem, sports, vcu
Daily Grind - Admiral Roughead Speech Mar. 4, 2009 8:53 pm
Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations addresses the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce's Military Affairs Council at the University of Mary Washington Jepson Alumni Executive Center on March 4, 2009. Roughead announced the Navy is opening the Navy Air and Missile Defense Command at Dahlgren. (Mike Morones/The Free Lance-Star)
These sorts of assignments are never particularly photogenic. I guess the idea is to get a picture of what the speaker looks like and little else. The Jepson Center has terrible lighting and since there was no TV lighting, it was dark, muddy and ugly. That is usually the benefit of having the TV folks around - their lighting schemes usually have a little depth to them. In the end, though, all you have is a guy at a podium and you have to take what you can get. I suppose you could try and get all arty with it, but that would be little more than an exercise in ego. Anyway, here's the contact sheet of my selects. I wouldn't bore you with the whole raw take!
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1236217993
Mar. 3, 2009 8:22 pm
Matthew Rose, 3, plays with his older brother Justin in the snow on March 2, 2009. Matthew is this year's beneficiary of the annual Oyster Roast held at White Oak Equipment and sponsored by Freindship Baptist Church to help cover medical expenses associated with treating a tumor discovered on his liver and kidney. Matthew finished taking chemotherapy treatments in December and now is trying to get back to being a typical three-year-old. (Mike Morones/The Free Lance-Star) Keeping up with this little guy was tough, especially since it was his first snowfall. He couldn't decide whether to help his mom shovel, build a snowman, play with his siblings or throw snowballs at the photographer guy trying to take his picture.
Perma-link: http://www.fredericksburg.com/blogs/view?blogger_id=27&p=1236129739
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Mike Morones is a staff photographer at The Free Lance-Star.
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