Still a fun job with a cold? Yeah...

Well, fun might not be the right word, but it certainly beats doing most other jobs while sick.

The last two days I've worked through a bit of a cold, which while certainly slowing me down, it was not nearly as bad as having to do most other jobs while under the weather.

Yesterday- the worse of the two- I had only one assignment to tackle, a tennis match, which got me out in the sun for an hour or so.

I'll tell ya, all that fresh air really helped me out. I had two pictures run today from that match, including an image of a player's shadow returning the ball (I nearly had to beg for them to squeeze it in because of space issues).

Feeling much better, but not really 100%, I was able to take on a few more assignments than the previous day. In addition to photographing a few people for an upcoming super secret project, I covered an after school YMCA program, a ground breaking and a band.

Well, despite working the evening shift, I have to get up early for a scheduled magazine portrait.

Time to find caffeine to help me wake up tomorrow.

Out with the old, in with the new

Last night I wandered over to the News-Post's old downtown building to watch the very last (nock on wood) paper to roll off the press.

Tonight, I will be heading back to our new building to document the first daily paper to come off our brand spankin' new press.

It was amazing to see our old press, which is maybe a tenth the size of our new one, crank out its last edition before we put the old thing out to pasture.

I shot video and took a few stills, as did my boss, who, like me will also be on hand tonight as we complete our move to 351 Ballenger Center Drive.

The News-Post will be hosting our first public tour next Thursday, so people will get to see our new facilities, including a press that when you're on the top looking down... Well, lets just say it's not for those afraid of heights.

What? No Saint Patrick's Day assignment?

A year ago today I was being paid to stand around inside an Irish bar being chatted up by semi-drunk (understatement) patrons wanting to have me take pictures of them wearing green glasses.

For this year's incarnation of St. Patty's, I spent the day photographing the News-Post's giant new sign being installed, a portrait at the courthouse, a German bakery contestant and the proprietor of a store which sells items, most of which I could not show in the photograph.

That last assignment, scheduled to print Tuesday, was certainly a difficult one, because all the items in the store could be found offensive to some of our readers and thus could not be visible. To get around this obstacle, I had to shoot this guy's portrait from across the store with a long lens and a wide open aperture, which allowed me to put everything but my subject out of focus.

While none of my assignments today took me anywhere near pints of the green brew, I was however, challenged to make eye catching images that will hopefully help draw a few more people through an interesting read.

New toy arrived today

As was expected, my new Nikon D300 arrived today, giving me a gorgeous new camera to play with. I started my day at a dimly lit five in the morning, needing to be in Brunswick by six for an early morning book signing.

After returning to the office around nine, I had to wait patiently until the UPS guy showed up mid-day to get my hands on my new camera.

This photo, the second consecutive I've posted of Kit was shot with my new D300 at 1/25th of a second and 3200 ISO, which looks amazing considering the afore mentioned settings.

I replaced the standard batteries with eight AA's which let me crank up the burst rate to somewhere in the neighborhood of seven frames per second, which, simply put is awesome.

It took me just a few minutes to fall in love with this camera, which I'll discuss in more detail once I've had more time to play with all the features.

P.S. Keep a lookout for my blog on the News-Post's website, which will go live soon and will go by the same name as the blog you are currently reading. So henceforth, I'll refer to this blog as the home edition.

Newsflash! Cats love the camera

With the awe factor an inevitability, photographing cats is just an outright delight.

I snapped this photo of our newest addition, named Kit (or, Kit-Kat) yesterday before heading to my mother-in-law's birthday get-together.

I find it impossible to not photograph my cats while I'm holding a camera. It's kind of like a reflex, I suppose, which I'm sure will also hold true when my child is born.

Come to think of it, it's not even only my cats I love photographing. I've had to go to the animal shelter for an assignment several times, which resulted in my returning with probably more than a hundred pictures of adorable kitties.

Photos from the animal shelter are usually pretty sad, like the pair of eye's staring through the steel bars, or a paw reaching toward the lens. It's images like those that I almost always find someone in my office has printed and pinned on their desk.

But not all images from the shelter are sad; if I recall correctly, the afore mentioned assignment at the shelter was for a story about adopting pets during the holidays, so I followed a young couple around who were interviewing for a dog.

The woman was pregnant, and I guess the dog would make a nice addition to the growing household. They wound up going home with the dog, but not before i got a picture of the man bending down for a hug with his new friend.

One of these days I'd like to spend some time photographing all aspect of the shelter (good and otherwise) for a picture story.

Until then I guess I'll remain content with all those "awe factor" pictures I take of my cats.