Working with nothing to work with...

I haven't had much work in the past couple weeks beyond shooting sportraits...

Some have published, and some (like the players of the year for certain sports) have not.

Something I've definitely grown accustomed to is shooting with absolutely nothing to work with but your own imagination. Generally the assignments come in with little direction, beyond, "shoot cross-country runner xxx, they'll be practicing on the track at 3pm".

And if you know anything about what a high school track looks like, it ain't much. So you have to find something else. And for a couple years, now, I've been wanting to shoot a portrait in the cornfield behind Brentsville HS. But the last couple times I had the opportunity (Spring, Summer), there is no corn. Now only if they played baseball into September/October, I could do my "Field of Dreams" idea...

But I think, ultimately it's one of my favorite recent portraits.



I don't find basketball to be so easy for a couple reasons. 1. there are usually multiple teams practicing in the gym when you need the player, 2. the gym is generally a dreadful place to shoot, and 3. the weather outside generally sucks.

However, I have been pleased to find that if you truly concentrate on working backward through the frame you can find some neutral, or colorful backgrounds, and set up a mini-studio. The pads beneath the baskets are usually the teams colors, and maybe even have a logo or something on them. A simple two light set-up usually makes for a decent shot.



In addition, when the gym is occupied by multiple teams, the divider that comes down from the rafters almost always has a leather/vinyl bottom to it that reaches up about 7 feet. perfect for an ad-lib backdrop. Voila! You have a backdrop to match the team colors. Two lights...and boom, a solid portrait.



These tips also help if you happen to have broken 1. speedlights, 2. Pocket wizards, 3. or both. Right now I'm reduced to using one Canon 430EX, one Nikon SB-800, and one PW receiver. Nice. But you get by. Certainly the portraits start to look a little similar, but until someone (ahem...) pays for my gear to get fixed, I can only do what I can... Gels are your friend...

Execution of a Sniper

On Tuesday, November 10, John Allen Muhammad, strapped to a table, silently accepted a cocktail of chemicals through his veins, and he died. I went to cover the “event”, driving 2.5 hours to the sleepy town of Jarratt, VA, with two reporters. We each recalled our own experiences of seven years ago. For three weeks, Muhammad and his 17 year-old cohort, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized the DC area, through random lethal attacks, striking out from the shadows of hillsides and parking lots.

The road to the parking lot in front of the correctional facility was guarded tightly...

We drifted down to the correctional facility unsure what to expect. The skies darkened and the night turned misty and foggy, creating an eerie mood. I walked toward the media crush, hours before the appointed execution time. Dozens of satellite trucks stationed themselves across from the prison entrance, while a makeshift podium, lonely, covered in bag-wrapped audio equipment, stood quietly, addressing the dozens of cameras in front of the shifty and impatient dozens of journalists who operated the equipment. We waited. We looked. But there was nothing to see. Nothing more than our own company. And that singular podium. Three flags fluttered in the breeze, Greensville County, Virginia, and United States, all at half-mast, honoring those who lost their lives in a similar outburst, though in a fury of bullets over the course of one day, instead of a month-long rampage. The skies continued to drip over us.

Suddenly, hope appeared in the form of an attorney. Muhammad’s stand-by attorney from Baltimore, spoke with a few reporters about his interactions with Muhammad. We were caged animals huddled around a piece of meat. What started as several, became a dozen, became a 20, became a big clusterf***. The lonely podium stood quiet before empty camera stands and tents, twenty yards away, until angry calls from photographers on the outside of the crush, prompted an “orderly” Q&A. The podium was now the center of attention. The execution was still 2 hours away but the deadline for the paper loomed larger. Safe shots in hand (first of the building, then of the attorney), I walked back to the car to send my photos into the ether.

The all-important podium...

Keeping dry is always important. Sometimes you just set up an umbrella in case you need it for later...

Satellite trucks abound...


J. Wyndal Gordon, stand-by attorney for John Allen Muhammad: "Muhammad is a dignified man...". When asked about remorse, he responded, "no, he doesn't have remorse, because he maintains his innocence...".

Protesters slowly filed into the general parking where we were. Computer in lap, I viewed, edited, and sent my photographs back to the office. The next task was to search for more photos. Technology is a wonderful thing…usually. But what it also fosters is a false sense of confidence. It is always ready to fail, and usually at the worst moment. Again, with a safe shot in hand, I tried twice to send it to the office over the course of 30 minutes, and it never worked. So as 9pm (execution time) came and went, I continued to sit in the back seat of our car, trying in vain to send one more photo. It never sent, and at 9:11pm, Amanda, our reporter, let me know that Muhammad was officially dead. His family, fortuitously parked right next to us, joined hands in prayer outside their vehicle. Protesters lit candles, tolled a bell, and said a prayer for both the victims and John Allen Muhammad.

praying for victims and perpetrators alike...


Muhammad's family holds hands and prays at 9pm, moments before he is executed...

Seven years ago, the nation’s Capital was held hostage by random acts of terror over the course of three weeks in October. We all searched for The White Van, and theorized who it might be. We zig-zagged to and from fuel pumps, and on Tuesday night, the case was finally brought to a methodical, anticlimactic end in the wetlands of southern Virginia.

The skies, once breathing a misty, dreary fog, opened up into a soaking autumn rain, and the wet, somber, quiet crowd drifted out of Jarratt, on their way back to their lives knowing they had been “there” when John Allen Muhammad was executed. For some, it was a measure of closure, for others an opportunity to protest and pray, and for still others living in the quiet, humdrum communities of these southern Virginia counties, it was an opportunity to see what all the fuss was about.

Elections and trying not to catch a cold...

Local elections can be a little hectic. Generally, the paper wants to cover as much ground as possible (a bad idea in my opinion), so the two photogs at the paper must travel from voting location to voting location, party to party, all in the hopes that we can catch 1) voters (of course!); 2) a candidate greeting voters, themselves; 3) a candidate hearing the good/bad news (hopefully before 9pm—fat chance).

campaign managers are always texting, or checking emails. always.

On the other hand we are also simultaneously trying to avoid: 1) grief from local “poll police” for taking pictures at a polling locale. These laws depend on the county. In some places they are adamant you can not take pictures inside. In Prince William County, you are absolutely allowed, and a sign outside the polling place usually tells as much. 2) grief from local party volunteers about how your paper didn’t endorse their candidate. Such a remark is usually followed up with a quip, “we won’t hold it against you, though…nyuk, nyuk, nyuk…”. Oh really, you won’t hold it against me that several individuals with little or no contact with me will endorse a particular candidate? Thanks. And finally, we are really, really trying 3) to avoid criticism from the newsroom for not getting to 3 candidate parties, separated by 30 miles, and filing remotely in 1 hour.

I'm also trying not to catch H1N1, but that doesn't necessarily make me unique...
Here are more pictures…

It's Halloween

I'm not young anymore. At least I don't feel it anymore. No more crazy parties. No more running around the city like a lunatic. In fact there was no alcohol consumed on this Halloween at all. Still trying to figure out if that's a first since my freshman year of college.


No, these days I chase down Halloween parades in Historic towns like Occoquan. Here's a sampling...

I wish I could still sit on someone's shoulders and nap...

just before I arrived back at the office...nice...

keeping the creativity from drying up...

The funny thing about being creative (or at least believing yourself to be creative) is that creativity itself comes and goes. There are times when so many ideas clog my head, I have to record them into a notebook or in a word document. Then I spend the next several weeks trying to figure out how to make it happen. The flip side, naturally, are the times when the creative juices aren’t flowing at all. The assignments draw blanks, no new projects come to mind, and I’m left with a slate of unimaginative results.

I find that either results in a feed-forward type of cycling. The more creative I feel, the more ideas I generate, the ideas I generate beget more ideas…etc. On the other hand when I’m “slumping” I press more, yielding more blanks, which draws frustration.

I go Stuart Smalley on myself and tell myself, “I’m good enough, and people like me…”, or something like it, and I go out and force myself to take a picture, then another, and then I begin to feel better, and I realize the process of taking pictures is therapeutic in itself, even when the results aren’t great.

I’ve recently been “slumping”, but last weekend I had a completely free day. No assignments on a Saturday. Finally I could get back to checking in on some personal projects I’ve had on the back burner for weeks. I have been taking pictures of an interesting father/daughter antique shop in the west end of the county. The biggest issue is that it’s about an hour away from the office, so making it out to Bristow, VA can sometimes be impossible.

So I swung by, equipped with my gear, and laptop with photos from the last session of images a couple months back. Unfortunately, only the father was home, so instead of taking more portraits, I sat down with him and showed him what I had already worked on. His son was there to see as well, and we enjoyed a conversation over the next half hour looking at a dozen or so images.

And there it was…again. I hadn’t taken a picture at all, and yet I felt validated and realized that I was pointed in the right direction. These people enjoyed looking at my work, and appreciated my efforts. Sometimes keeping up with established relationships, however small, pay dividends. I know it will be easier to get back out there, and make more pictures, but as it was, it was just nice to show some work to people that really wanted to see it.

State of the Union...

It’s the first week of October. For me this has become my de-facto State of the John Boal Photography Union address. The Eddie Adams workshop starts this week. Without me… again.
So there it is. I’m Oh for three. You can apply 3 times and that’s it. It's supposed to be for young and/or developing photojournalists. Although I think there is a caveat. I think you can apply as many times as you want as a student and then only 3 times as a pro. I can’t remember if applied as a student the first time or not. Maybe it’s irrelevant. I’m starting to get used to being rejected—current FT employment notwithstanding.

I think it’s a good thing to self-evaluate periodically. Hopefully during these moments I can look back at the past year, or several months and see progress. The first couple years of doing this, I was so concerned with seeing better pictures for my portfolio. Now, I’ve found I’m less concerned with having better pictures than making sure that I have an emerging vision on how I see what’s around me. I find that the good pictures tend to take care of themselves this way. I’ve stopped being concerned with how to win contests and get into workshops. Finding a personal voice in my photographs is more important to me now.

Something I’ve always held important is how we come to find pictures; that is, the ideas behind them. I believe it’s important to create images that mean something. In 30 years hopefully I can look at an image and see it’s value, even when perhaps the composition or the lighting may not have been ideal. Many times the value of an image lies in it’s ability to reflect history at that moment.

A year or two ago when the election campaigns were heating up, I emailed a well-established photographer friend of mine to ask the best way to go about getting to Iowa and New Hampshire…etc. And he simply said I’m better off covering what’s in my backyard. Save your money, find what’s in front of you and shoot that. And I did. It was the best thing I could have done. And so far, it’s been the best work I’ve done.

Committing to a decision usually will yield far better results than when you’re second guessing yourself. When I decided I wasn’t going anywhere I couldn’t drive to and take time off to go cover, my photographs became better.

So in the short run, maybe my photographs weren’t so compelling to judges of portfolios to various workshops. But I learned my backyard is just as often more compelling than what can be found thousands of miles away. And if everyone is so eager to find something somewhere else, then perhaps what I’m shooting here becomes more interesting because of it’s exclusion by the rest.

Money is drying up across the board in print media. To me it only makes sense to spend my time finding stories closer to home. The process has taught me that it’s a mutually rewarding experience. People like to feel that they are interesting. And as a photographer, I’ve found that I’m less reliant on some sensational event carry my photographs and instead I’m forced to make them compelling by knowing their stories and conveying that visually. Anyway, who is going to pay for me to travel to far away places? National Geographic hasn’t called yet.

Hawaii

Here are some photos from our trip to Hawaii...not much to comment on other than the Big Island is beautiful, and I can't wait to go back...

sunset from the lounge at the Keahou Beach Resort Hotel...nice to enjoy Mai Tais while watching this...

sunset from the Onizuka Visitors Center at 9200ft on Mauna Kea...

even the bathrooms in Hawaii can be nice...here a shaft of light poked through a window at the Hilo airport before our helicopter ride...

what I thought was a "spared" home is actually an observation station for scientists...(thanks to the wife for the correction)

Akaka Falls, 420 feet...

in the forests around Akaka Falls Orchids seemed to drop from the sky...

the lovely Alicia Boal...

one of the views from our suite at Keauhou Beach Resort...

On our way south after the wedding we stopped at Pu'uhonua Honaunau (The Place of Refuge)...here, Charlie talked to us about the old Hawaiian and Polynesian ways of life...very interesting...

this guy checked us out as we enjoyed some Ono sandwiches at The Coffee Shack...

the closest I was able to get to a Green Turtle...this time at a beach at Pu'uhonua Honaunau...

on the southern part of the Big Island is the volcano and the lava flows...here is the lava entering the ocean as seen from the viewing area 1/2mi. away...

lava flows as seen from above...

incredible amount of ferns in the rainforests surrounding the craters and volcanoes at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park...

hiking the Kilauea Iki trail around the inactive Kilauea Iki crater...in Nov. of 1959 this was a lake of molten lava below...