Monday, March 12, 2007

Six assignments that haven't made it to my blog this week because I've been too lazy.

Well, I realized the the internets just move too fast and I can't keep up with them, so I'll probably be making weekly posts rather than posting after every assignment.
Friday night: I covered the Utes' gymnastics meet against 1st-ranked Florida Gators. Can anyone else figure out why Florida and Ohio State have #1 everything? It must be really exciting to shoot sports for their college papers.

The Utes, er, Red Rocks, performed well in the first three events and led going into the floor event. In between the beam and this event, the fans in the stadium were just going nuts. There was a group of nine guys from the swim team who painted "UTAH-UTES" on their chests because they owed the gymnastics team a favor. I feld bad for the guy with the "-" painted on his chest because he was unnecessary.



Yeah, this shot was actually taken just before the Red Rocks' beam routine but I ended up liking it better than the closer shots I took because it is given context with the gymnast warming up on the beam.



Originally, I assumed this guy was with the rest of the shirtless group who were going nuts before the last event. After I heard the story about the other nine being from the swim team, I realized he probably either lost a bet or just thought he deserved some attention. Nipple piercings - ouch. I could tell the fans around him were laughing but at the same time awkwardly trying to pretend like he wasn't there.

Twenty minutes and a couple of mistakes later, the Red Rocks fell behind the Gators for a disappointing loss in what could have been a big upset. The gymnasts all lined up after the meet to thank the fans for coming and showing support.



Here's something I observed after making this post: The more I shoot sport events, the more I realize that my favorite photos from them usually aren't action shots.


Friday morning: Winners of the ASUU primaries were announced. Each party and its supporters crammed onto the Union patio to celebrate if they won or bottle up their frustration if they lost. Here were my favorite shots:


Especially during campaigning, politicans really do a great job of acting too nice to try to gain your vote. I loved this shot of Rick Pehrson before the announcements crossing his fingers because I think it really sums up the way Rick truly felt at the moment. It also takes a look into how he felt about the campaign overall, not really being sure whether he'd make it past the primaries. His party made it into the final elections with 40 more votes than the More 4 U party.
The FUSE party was the first to be announced as finalists. They won overall by a large margin.


Joe Coccimiglio, presidential candidate for the More 4 U party congratulates Rick Pehrson after the announcements.

This is my favorite shot of Cameron Beech with the Activate Party. Out on the patio, he had been wearing sunglasses and really kept a smile on his face while congratulating the winning groups. When activity on the patio was winding down, I headed back into the Chrony to upload photos, but found that a crowd was gathering around the ASUU windows because they had posted the actual tallies from the voting. I hadn't put my camera away yet and decided to take a few more photos of everybody waiting their turn to look at the papers on the window. The Activate party placed last with notably less votes than any other party and I noticed Cameron without his sunglasses looking a bit more disappointed after having seen the tallies.

Remember how I said there were going to be six assignments in this post? Well, I lied. I realized I didn't have enough to say about the other assignments. But maybe I'll throw in a couple of photos from them anyway.




ASUU election grievance hearings. The More 4 U Party (Orange) was found guilty of breaking red book ten times out of the 14 grievances filed against them.

Ha, I bet you thought this was moving, huh? It's actually just from a press/publicity photo shoot of Pioneer Theatre Company's Lost In Yonkers.



Beta Theta Phi volunteer day at the Boys and Girls Club in Rose Park.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

What I can't figure out about blogging.

Why is it that the space we are given to work with on these blog pages is like 6-7" horizontal? If you have page items on the right side, those take up 2" alone, so really I'm trying to add images with wraparound text in a space of no more than 4-5 inches. I didn't buy 19" LCD monitors to use only a small fraction of that size with a bunch of wasted black space on the sides. There's no point to post any wide angle images either because all of the detail is lost when "Large" means 2" x 4".

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Saturday Night Slaughter


Apparently, this is a large image.

Saturday afternoon I met with Tyler and Cody at the Chronicle to drive to The Marriott Center in Provo and cover the BYU vs. Utah rivalry game. The Utes won the tip-off and got off to a quick 6-2 lead that would disapper even faster. The Utes' early adrenaline vanished by the half and their faces displayed only lost hope throughout the second. Unfortunately, the face for lost hope happens to be exactly the same as the face for waiting in line at the DMV. Meanwhile, at the other end of the court, Cougar excitement was building as players watched the clock count down the minutes until they were inevitably awarded the MWC trophy and the Utes walked away with their tails between their legs. It was really difficult to keep myself from walking over to the other end of the court and taking the better photos that will undoubtedly line the front pages of state dailies tomorrow morning. But when the Jazz travel to the big games out of state and lose, those papers don't recap the game by running the other teams' celebrations either. Ute fans and students who read The Chronicle don't want to dwell in the fact that their team lost. All this left me wondering: is it more important to report equally on an event like a state-wide paper would when covering two Utah teams, or to cover the part of the story that applies to our audience? Tonight I tried to place myself somewhere in-between and as a result missed a lot of good moments.

Friday, March 2, 2007

New Blahg

I'm joining the rest and starting a blog on which I can record experiences and share my ideas. Many will be from times I have working at The Daily Utah Chronicle, but some will also be from living The Daily Utah Life. Hopefully I can make it interesting enough to entertain at least the people I know, so they are like "lol i sorta liked dat. dis guy, he cool. mebbe once in a while i'ma b like 'click' and go 2 his blog and b like 'click' again. lol, onomatopoeia."