Insta-Yosemite

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he images below are all shot with my iPhone 5 and edited with the Snapseed app. It was part of a project I've been wanting to do to engage readers with what we do at The Fresno bee through online contact. I thought that we could start a photo sharing project using hashtags on Instagram. So when an assignment in Yosemite came up, I thought that would be the perfect start to the project. I decided to ask people to share images with a fall theme. I began by making a gallery of Instagram images in Yosemite and tagging them all with #fresnobeefall. We ran a front page story as well as a feature page detailing how people can get involved. We recieved several submissions from people and I'm hoping to keep a series of instagram projects like this going in the future.

SalmonFest

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]oday was a usual day for Saturday assignments at the Fresno Bee but circumstances put me in a place to make a really great shot. I like most of the images I got from the first-ever SalmonFest event at Lost Lake Park but I really love the image of the Fish and Game officer releasing a fall-run Chinook salmon on the San Joaquin as people crowd the bank to watch. I happen to be equally crowded and on the verge of falling into the river on the other side of a small boat launch. I took a spot on the far corner and slowly felt more and more people moving in to try to get a close look at the fish release. I decided to do a "Hail Mary" and hold my camera really high over my head to get the higher viewpoint and highlight the Fish and Game officer against the backlit water. I was really happy to see it all come together. Nice to get that once in a while.

Osegueda Family Portraits

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t was my pleasure to photograph my good friends Mike and Tanya with their son, Jake, and dog, Bauer, at Avocado Lake. It was good to catch up with Mike, my former co-worker, and learn about his and Tanya's coming family addition next year. Jake kept me on my toes but I think we were able to make a few good photos of the little guy. He'll make a great big brother. Can't wait to see their family grow!

Bee Critic Donald Munro

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] candid shot of my friend Donald Munro, the Fresno Bee arts reporter and theater critic as we wait to do a shoot at the Dan Pessano Theater in north Fresno.

Grilled Peaches

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t's always a happy day when I get to do a food shoot at the Sierra Nut House. On this day I went straight back to the kitchen where chef Adrianna Oropeza was grilling peaches for a dessert which included this yummy almond paste and blueberries. I quickly grabbed my shots as my saliva glands were going into overdrive and I had to have a taste! Be on the lookout for the article on The Fresno Bee food page.

Local Cyclist

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ack Maddux is probably one of the best cyclists in the Fresno area today. And he's 16. We did an outdoors story in the Bee about the young up-and-comer and his next move to join the U.S. Junior National Team and race in Europe. I had to make a quick portrait of Jack and dragged out my Alien Bee lights and a battery to a spot in Woodward Park. Maybe someday we'll be seeing more of Jack as he pursues his dream of riding in the Tour de France.  To read more about Jack, check out the story in the Bee.

Good Company Players

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ool projects don't come around too often so when they do, I get pretty excited. I was asked to help with the photography for The Fresno Bee's first-ever e-book to be written about Fresno's Good Company Players, who have been performing shows in Fresno for 40 years. I jumped at the chance to be involved, one: because it's our first e-book, and how cool is that? and two: I finally get to do a bit of photojournalism on one of my favorite subjects - live theater. So reporter Donald Munro and myself followed co-founder Dan Pessano around for a couple of days doing stills and video. Donald actually followed Pessano and many of the other people involved in the program a lot longer than I did - after all, he had to write a book. But I was happy to see what it was like to be behind the scenes before a performance of "Fiddler on the Roof" and that was pretty cool. A lot of what I did involved video, galleries of past shows and other online components. For more on that, see the section about it on the Bee's website. This blog shows mainly the documentary work I did plus an image I made for the book cover.

RC Commercial

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]C Commercial is a full-service real estate brokerage firm in Fresno. They represent landlords, tenants and investors in the sale and leasing of multifamily, land, retail, office and industrial properties. I photographed a few of the properties they've done business with as well as a "team" portrait and headshots of the two-member team for their new website. This is all being done by the guys who did my website and branding, Ignition Labs. A good choice!

City-County All-Stars

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]hot the annual City-County All-Star football game a couple of weeks ago. It's alway a fun football game to shoot because there's still quite a bit of sunlight during the first half, unlike prep football games during the regular season. For some reason though, this one attracts TONS of other photographers. I know Horn Photo sponsors it and I think they have a few guys out there but it's just funny to watch all these guys with cameras shooting an event they don't usually shoot. Anyway, I felt pretty good because I felt I had the shot of the game when I captured Edison's Khari McGee hurdling another player along the opposite sideline. I heard the crowd "OOOH" loudly after it happened. I was just glad no one stepped in my way and I had it pretty sharp. I saw that our reporter pretty much topped his story with that one play in the paper the next day so it was a pretty good thing I got it.

Stone Fruit

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]id a quick stone fruit shot in the studio using nectarines, peaches, plums and apricots. A couple of things I try to do with still life food shots is really work on the lighting to make it look natural. Then I locate some kind of background that works - in this case it was one side of an old pallat. After than I try to arrange what I have into something interesting. Obviously I wanted to show the stone, or pit. The nectarine worked best for this. Some of the stones didn't look too great even after cutting them as they were the cling type. Oh well. They still got used pretty well.

Holy Trinity Weather

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]icked up a cool weather shot on my way to lunch when I passed the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in downtown Fresno this week. I saw a guy working on a ladder in the doorway of the church. Now, having been in the church and looking out from inside, I knew there would be a nice silhouette to be had there with a few puffy clouds in the background. And since we had little going on news-wise and a good weather photo could definitely have a place in the paper, I stopped to take a look. The guy there was really nice, and even a little excited at the thought of being in the paper. I guess he was even more excited when he looked at the paper the next day to see that he was the lead image on the front page.

Time for Berries

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] started out Friday photographing corn for the first day of corn sales at Fresno State and ended it photographing blackberries and blueberries at Berry Lady Farms in Kingsburg. So I got my fill of food assignments for The Bee. Who can complain? The best part was getting a chance to taste a wonderful blackberry pie after photographing it. Ah, the life of a photographer.