Sacred Heart Church Multicultural Festival

 

Z'Braylen Gibson, 2, right, peeks at volunteer Stephanie Ganter from the entrance to a bounce house on Saturday during the annual Sacred Heart Church Multicultural Festival on the church grounds in Nacogdoches, Texas

Serendipity
1. An aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. 

2. Good fortune; Luck.

(Source: Dictionary.com)


Sometimes, good photography is serendipity. There's an old axiom in photojournalism: "F8 and be there." Simply put, it means being at the right place at the right time with camera in hand.

In other words, it's luck.

I've always believed a good photojournalist makes his or her own luck. Yeah, serendipity strikes once in a while. But finding that peak, story-telling moment transcends pure luck.

In the image above, I sat and watched Z'Braylen and Stephanie for about 10 minutes as he played in the bounce house. I had a few other images, including the one below, I thought were close. But they just didn't quite make it.

So I stuck around, waiting. Z'Braylen would climb out of the bounce house, then climb right back inside. He peaked out of the entrance flap once, then immediately rolled back with a laugh and continued playing.

Finally, the top image happened. Stephanie said something to him and he opened the flap to peek out at her. And I had my image.

As I've said before, I love small-town festivals. The annual Multicultural Festival at Sacred Heart Church in Nacogdoches is no exception. The members of the parish throw a pretty good party, with all variety of food representing a wide cultural heritage.

But food isn't the only thing going for it. The Multicultural Festival boasts games and entertainment as well.

And it's usually a wealth of good photographic opportunities. You can see more images from the opening day of the two-day event here:

Sacred Heart Multicultural Festival

Thanks for looking.

Week of the Young Child Family Fun Day

Lily Roberson, 3, leaps through the first hoop on an obstacle course during Family Fun Day on Saturday, April 21, 2012, in Festival Plaza Park in Nacogdoches, Texas. Hosted by the Stephen F. Austin Early Childhood Lab and Greater East Texas Community Action Program Head Start, the day featured games and entertainment for the community in honor of the annual Week of the Young Child, April 22-28. 


Attending local celebrations is one of the best aspects of my job as a photojournalist. So much of what I do on a daily basis revolves around bad things: Accidents, fires, arrests. Basically people involved in what arguably could be one of the worst days of their lives.

But the local celebrations, when members of the community come together for a day of fun, is just that - fun. Watching kids being kids, playing at what ever games there are to play, lets me just relax into the moment and make good images. Equally enjoyable is watching the adults - parents, grandparents, whoever - as they watch the fun going on around them, watching the kids in just pure, raw enjoyment, is just as fun.

That brings us to Lily (above). It was a typical Saturday and local educators joined with the city of Nacogdoches to kick off the annual Week of the Young Child celebration. I can't say it any better than this, so directly from the website http://www.naeyc.org/woyc is this description of the event nation-wide:


"The Week of the Young Child™ is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The purpose ... is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs."

Not a bad plan, eh? A lot of people spend a lot of time and effort complaining about the state of education in this country. I'm not going to debate that here. Yeah, there are problems with education. There are bad teachers, just like there are bad journalists, bad cops, bad politicians, bad bankers, bad (insert profession of your choice here).

But there are also amazing, dedicated, selfless, unbelievable teachers and schools in this country, places where the passion for teaching, for sharing knowledge, for seeing the light of understanding in a student's eye, are paramount. I firmly believe they are the rule, rather than the exception.


A little bit more about the photo: I arrived at the event, fresh on the heels of the San Jacinto Day recognition with the Daughters of the Texas Revolution at Oakgrove Cemetery in Nacogdoches, the final resting place of several signers of the Declaration of Texas Independence. As I made my way onto the Festival Plaza grounds, I did my normal look-around to see what was going on.


I arrived near the start of the event, so the crowd wasn't huge. But it was obvious there was a mess of fun being had at the different stations set up around the Plaza. A local fishing guide had his boat parked on one end of the plaza with kids climbing all over. At the other end, the Plaza stage rang with the high, piping voices of youngsters singing a variety of songs.

And, right in the middle, were a series of games, including the obstacle course Lily is running in the image that prompted this post. I figured this would probably make some cute images, so I got myself positioned at the finish line end of the course. There were actually two identical courses set up side-by-side.

Kids weren't just lining up to run the course, but it was a pretty steady crowd. I decided either a child climbing out of the flexible tunnel, just visible behind Lily in the image, or the hoop rings would make the best image. A couple of kids made their way through the course before it was Lily's turn, but I didn't have a clear shot of their faces. No joy there.

Then, Lily started her run. I fired off a few frames as quickly as I could. I'd like to say I knew I had the image as soon as I shot it, but I can't. That happens, but not often. It wasn't until I got back to the office later and was sorting through my image files when this photo jumped out.

Initially shot in the horizontal, I made the call to crop the image to a vertical to focus attention on Lily and frame her better within the hoops. Ideally, I would have shot from just a little bit more to the left, but it was the intensity on her face and her hard-charging stance which sold me on the photo as my leader for the event coverage.

This shot didn't make the front page, but it did run large on an inside color page along with a second shot from event. And this image and more are available on the newspaper website, www.dailysentinel.com.

Azaleas1

Azaleas1, a photo by Andrew Brosig Photography on Flickr.

For this post, lets go with another macro, this time an azalea blossom in the Ruby Mize Azalea Garden at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches.

If you've never been, the Mize Gardens is definitely worth the trip. While the azaleas, for the most part, are done for another year, the gardens offer an amazing opportunity for a brief commune with nature. True, this is a very sculptured garden, with a full-time staff who makes sure everything looks beautiful. And they do a good job of it, too.

But, once you enter the gardens, you can almost forget you're just a few yards from a busy street skirting the east side of a large college campus.

A little about the image: This is another example of my love of off-camera flash. This particular blossom was photographed using one strobe on a stand, out of frame on the left. Even though it appears to be shot at night, it was made during the full light of day. Selective exposure threw the background to black while letting the strobe work as the primary light source for the workings of the flower.

This type of photography lets me clear my mind, refocus my thoughts and get on with the day-to-day grind of photojournalism. A number of people comment, sometimes daily, on how glamorous and exciting being a photojournalist must be. And, sometimes, it is.

I've seen and done some amazing things, from riding a coal train into the largest mine in Wyoming's Powder River Basin to touring a uranium mine in the northwest Nebraska Panhandle. I've photographed presidents and actors, the famous and the infamous.

But the images that mean the most to me often are of the people down the street, doing what they do on a daily basis. Those are the folks that really make the world go around.

When I was working in Kansas, one of the ladies at the paper believed (rightly so) that everybody had a story. We worked on numerous assignments together with what you'd probably call "average" people, finding that one individual event or talent that made them unique.

One such, a story I did on my own, came from an average guy who came into my office to pay his newspaper bill. Turned out he was a paratrooper in World War II with one of the units which jumped into France on D-Day. Now, he builds elaborate doll houses and gives them to girls in his church and around the community.

It's that kind of thing and those types of people which keeps me loving the job I do. And it's what drives me to look beyond the surface, to explore and delve deeper into the stories and images in the world around me.

Back in the saddle again

OK, so it's been a long time since I updated my photo blog. I have no excuses.

I mean, I've been thinking about it for a very long time. I guess I just got busy with other stuff, the full-time j-o-b, etc. I'm going to try to keep this more up to date from now on. I know I've said that before, but this time I really mean in (I hope).

Since it's spring in Texas, here's the obligatory image of bluebonnets. the state flower of Texas. I know, just about every photographer (or guy/gal with camera) shoots bluebonnets in the spring. This is actually from last year's crop, shot for a photo spread for the paper I entitled "Spring In Miniature."

This particular patch of bluebonnets is in the cemetery at the historic Old North Church, one of the earliest churches in Nacogdoches County, located north of Nacogdoches on Highway 59. I shot this on a somewhat overcast day, using a pair of off-camera strobes either side of the flowers to punch up the color and give a bit of separation from the background.

I've always enjoyed nature photography. If I had my dream job, all I'd do is travel around, following the seasons, shooting nature and macro photographs. Unfortunately, I've gotten used to eating regularly, so I do the full-time gig with the newspaper.

But I still like to keep my hand in with my macro photography. There's something satisfying about taking a look at something we see every day in a way most people don't see it. Getting down on the ground and up close to a flower opens up a whole new world. And it's a world most people don't take the time to notice.

For most, bluebonnets (heck, any flower) is viewed as a pretty blob of color, hundreds or thousands of blobs, in the case of wildflowers. And they're usually seen out of the corner of the eye while driving down county roads or along highways, brief glimpses of red, blue, purple or yellow as they flash past at 70 mph.

But taking the time to get up close frees the mind, for me at least. Taking the time to peek beyond the normal, every day vision is refreshing. I'd advise taking the time to look at the world under our feet.

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore

Sunset Glow
Originally uploaded by Andrew Brosig Photography

That's right. I'm back in Texas.

I moved back down just over two weeks ago to start a new job with the newspaper here in Crowley, Texas, just south of Fort Worth.

This image was made Saturday, March 20, outside the baseball stadium at Crowley High School, one of two high schools in the Crowley Independent School District. I'd finished up shooting the baseball game. I had my shots, was losing the light, and was headed back to the truck and, eventually, some much-needed Chinese food.

As I neared my ride, I saw a group of three people, headed down the path, directly toward the setting sun. I put one camera in the truck and headed back to shoot that image. But, of course, as soon as I got set up, they headed off the path and away from what would have otherwise been perfect position, against the setting sun.

But I still liked the image of the setting sun, so I positioned myself and made a few frames. Probably not as nice as it could have been with the people in there. But, hey, it's still a pretty shot.

I've had lots of arguments with different people over which state has the prettiest skies at different times of the day. I had one editor once who swore the sunsets in western Nebraska beat anything, anywhere else. More recently, I've had discussions over the skies in Iowa and Kansas.

I've seen sunsets in Chicago on Lake Michigan, in Europe, over the North Sea, New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean and over the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii. there is something about the masses of clouds over those vast bodies of water, glowing in the departing light.

But the bottom line, for me, is I can find amazing sunsets no matter where I am. I've seen stormy skies over the Flint Hills of Kansas and over the Badlands, east of Rapid City, South Dakota.

It's all in what you like, I guess. I just like sunsets.

Abstracts in Nature 1

I remember some of the first lessons I learned from my father about photography. While he was trying to share his hobby and his passion with me, he didn't just come out and say, 'Do this,' or, 'Don't do that,' or, 'This is wrong.'
What he did teach me is photography is about light and shadow, shape and form. It's a lesson I've tried to embrace and carry forward with me into my photography today.
Now, I don't know if I've got a specific "style" or any of those fancy buzz-words some photographers and artists like to use to describe their work. But, I do think I have a pretty good grasp of what I like, and don't like, about my work and about photography and art in general.
Take this image, for example. There wasn't a lot of forethought or planning that went in to it. I was driving back to my office today. As I've said before, I like taking alternative routes, not following the same path between points A and B. It gives me a chance to see things I might not otherwise see.
And this is a prime example of that. I'd actually stopped along a gravel road north of Girard to photograph a pipe gate in a barbed-wire fence. The pipe was painted a reddish, almost primer color which stood out nicely, I thought, against the lightly-clouded blue sky.
After I finished up shooting the gate, I was walking back to the truck when I saw this bush. Almost as an afterthought, I set the camera to wide-area focus and aperture-priority metering and dialed the exposure down a couple of clicks. Then, I just held the camera at arms length and fired off a few frames.
I didn't frame through the viewfinder. I just shot. Sometimes, I get the feeling I over-think images. And, when that happens, I'm not happy with the results about half the time. Sometimes, when I just shoot, the images turn out better than if I'd planned, prepared, sketched, etc., the image out in my mind before hand.
Sometimes, I just have to let my photography go and let the images happen. When I'm able to do that, I remember the passion I have for, and the love of, photography instilled in my all those years ago by my dad.

Frosty Morning

Every so often, you learn a life lesson that sticks with you, even years later.

I can remember the first time I really encountered the term, "Hoar Frost." I was a fresh-faced young photographer, just out of J-School, in my first job on a daily newspaper in northeast Iowa. I was out one morning and made a photograph of a horse, playing in a paddock. It had been foggy that wintry morning and, of course, frost had collected on everything.

The wire fence surrounding the paddock, the trees and bushes in the background, I mean everything. It was an amazingly beautiful scene, made no less so by the fact I was shooting black-and-white film. The image ran big on the front page of the next day's paper and, admittedly, I kind of forgot about it as I moved on to the next assignment and the one after that.

Fast forward a couple of days: I receive a letter at the newspaper from a reader. He started off, telling me he liked the image of the horse in the paddock that had ran on such-and-such a day's front page. He then went on to tell me (and I'll remember this line for the rest of my life) that, quoting the cutline I'd written, a "fine coating of frost is called 'hoar frost.'"

See, you learn something every day.



Regarding today's images, it was again a foggy morning in southeast Kansas and, of course, that long-ago reader's words came back to my mind, as they do every time I'm out photographing in similar conditions. I'd stopped at the local outlet of a Seattle-based coffee purveyor and picked up my morning brew.

After securing my cuppa, I took a closer look at these dried grasses in planters in the parking lot and decided to capture a few images. I made several, but these were my favorites, with the vehicles out of focus in the background and the narrow depth of field working with the light from the recently-risen sun to highlight the textures of the grasses, each tiny fold and stem decorated with frost.