A cut above the rest

"Chef Wil Kocol, of Cary, poses for a portrait at the Northwest Herald studio in Crystal Lake, Friday, Jan. 23, 2009. Kocol is one of 16 chefs competing in the fifth season of Fox's Hell's Kitchen which premiers Thursday, Jan. 29 at 8 p.m."

Here is a quick update from a portrait I shot last week in the studio. It didn't run until today so I had to wait to post it.

It seems as though we (photojournalists) shoot a lot of portraits of chefs for restaurant reviews and such. Most of the time it's a very cliche photo of them sitting at the table or a bar with a tasty looking dish and a glass of wine. I was glad I had free reign with this one and immediately had the idea in mind when Valerie asked me if I wanted to shoot it.

Wil was great to work with and didn't think twice when I told him I wanted to tape two of his knives to light stands. It's a fairly straightforward set up with three lights. Two gridded lights on either side of him and from slightly behind and a large softbox camera right to give the specular highlights to the knives. The softbox also provided a little bit of fill on his face.

I left a little bit of extra room on the right for the designers to play with since it was a centerpiece for our Sidetracks (entertainment) section. The photo ran 6 columns on the front of the section which doesn't happen very often here so I was pleased with their decision to run it that big.

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

A cut above the rest

Ski Jumping...in Illinois?

"Norge team member A.J. Brown, left, speeds down the K70 hill during the 104th Annual Norge Ski Jump Tournament in Fox River Grove, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009. Brown placed third in the J1 division with a combined score of 228.4."

Trust me, I'm just as surprised as you are. I thought the staff was a little confused when they were telling me about this the other day. I mean, I'm from the mountains so it was a little difficult for me to take them seriously when they said I would be shooting ski jumping today.

Little be known to me Norge is the oldest ski club in the country having been started way back in 1905. You can clearly see the top of the hill above the trees from a few miles away. Who knew that that there was such thing as skiing at sea level.

The cold weather, 9 degrees with a 8 MPH WNW wind to be exact, made covering the event a challenge for both me and my camera batteries. I only got about 90 minutes of shooting in before all my 1D batteries died even though I charged them the night before. I tried my best to keep them warm but even that was a task. Luckily I'm familiar with cold weather and I held up ok. 

The paper covers two to three events there each year including summertime competitions so trying to come up with something different was a real challenge. I browsed through other staffers' work from the events in years past to make sure that I didn't duplicate the same looking stuff. I always strive to be different than other shooters so I really had to think this one through before I started hammering away on the shutter. Sure, I shot the same mundane stuff to be safe but then I tried some different things. I knew that I wanted something that didn't involve a competitor flying through the air as I've seen that more than I care to mention.

I worked the above image for a few moments before the layers disappeared. I was shooting into harsh backlight most of the time so I converted this one to black and white to bring more focus to the image itself instead of the (lack of) color in the sky. I sure wish I had a nice deep blue sky to work with like Chicago Tribune staffer Scott Strazzante had back at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino seen at the bottom of the page here. That image is probably my favorite image of the sport that I have seen. 

Sporting News photographer Jay Drowns suggested that I find an established photographer whose work I admired in the Chicago area to help guide me along during my time here in the windy (read: utterly freezing) city. I contacted Scott and despite his busy schedule at the Tribune and at home he has agreed to help me out. Scott's stuff is top notch and from what I hear a really personable guy as well so I'm really looking forward to getting the chance to meet and work with him.

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

Cruising the halls

"Junior Jamie Kohl, 16, walks the halls on her way to class at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009." Photo by Justin Edmonds, Northwest Herald

Today was the first day I've been in a high school classroom since I graduated four and a half years ago. I had an assignment to shoot a presentation from a member of the Green Business Task Force speaking with some upperclassmen in an environmental science class about ways how businesses are going green. It was basically the proverbial talking head in a room of uninterested teenagers. I made it interesting though and was pretty pleased with my take, as was the editor-in-chief when he saw my stuff this afternoon. It's always nice to get some kudos when you turn nothing into something.

On my way out I noticed this great shaft of light coming into the hallway. The small repeating windows in the background really helped make the photo. It was begging to be shot so I sat for a few minutes during the passing period until I got something that I liked. The security guard (who checked me in by the way), office staff and dean all harassed me about being there but luckily I made my photo and got her name before I left.

For a random find I'll take it.

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

A day for history

"Shop owner Anthony Orlandino kills some time between customers as the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, plays on a television set in the background at Anthony's Barbershop in Algonquin, Ill., Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009." Photo by Justin Edmonds, Northwest Herald

Today was a day which I will always remember where I was and what I was doing when the 44th President of the United States was inducted into office. Many people will remember this day but as a photographer I feel as though it will be even more vivid in my mind. Having somewhat of a photographic memory means that any picture I take is engrained in my mind with a bit of "metadata" if you will. I can usually recall specifics about a certain day just by looking at a photograph that I took.

That statement is ever more true today because it was a day that will be marked in history forever. Despite any disagreement that you may have with President Obama's policy you can not take away the historic significance of his election. 

Our nation has come a long way since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech in August of 1963. Today that was even more evident.

I wanted to make a historically significant photo today but also draw in the local McHenry County audience. With the help of a few members from the paper I decided to go make a picture at a common man's place and there is no better place than the local barbershop. Mr. Orlandino welcomed me in and provided me with unlimited access during the hour or so that I was there. He did have a few customers during the beginning of the ceremony but the TV was so far from his char that it was difficult to make a photo that stood out among others that I took. I didn't realize the significance of my photo until just now. A white man watching a black man become the next President of our great country is something that I'm sure my parents never thought would ever happen in their lifetime.

Today was a historic day and I'm glad that I was able to be a part of it. 

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

Online privacy blues

"Facebook user of three years Annemarie Kinney, 18, of Johnsburg, says that online privacy is important to her and blocks her profile from view from people whom she hasn't given approval." Photo illustration by Justin Edmonds, Northwest Herald

Just wanted to post another image from my first week at the Northwest Herald. This image earned me my second A1 in a row in only my first week. I had 9 A1 centerpieces at The Gazette. Most of the time it's luck when you get A1 because of all the variables involved and this was no different because anyone could have shot this assignment but I just so happened to get it. The story discusses what people should do to retain their privacy in online social networking sites suck as facebook, myspace, ect. 

I haven't done too many illustrations so it's always a learning process but I was pleased with this one considering what I had to work with. I tried a few different things with a pair of sunglasses but this is what we ended up going with for the main art. I used a digital projector to get the logo/color on her face. 

The weather has finally warmed up a but....if you consider 23 degrees a warm front. I hope to make it down to the city for sushi with a friend from college tomorrow so hopefully I'll have something interesting to post within the next day or two. 

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

Iced Chi

"Adela Yimenez braves the sub-zero degree temperatures on her way to work in downtown Woodstock, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009." Photo by Justin Edmonds, Northwest Herald

As if the constant snow and icy roads weren't enough to deal with mother nature had to go and throw sub-zero temperatures into the mix. In case you were wondering the -14 degree reading behind Ms. Jimenez is the actual air temperature and doesn't include the wind chill.

Ever since arriving in northwest suburbs of Chicago to start my second internship the weather has been less than ideal. Hey, I'm not complaining and I can't say that I'm not used to the snow. Denver and the surrounding area gets its fair share of snow each year. Denver does however get more days of sunshine than both Florida and Hawaii so all that snow is usually gone within a few days. Here in Chicago the snow is here to stay until who knows when.

With that being said everything else is great. My place couldn't be better. I live with two really nice, clean and respectful guys in a house full of electronics. I call it the residential Best Buy because we have everything any bachelor could want to entertain his self. Its close to work which is also really great.

The photo staff has welcomed me with open arms and have really tried their best to help me get adjusted to the new system. It's a little weird going to a smaller paper (100K circ vs. 35k) because all of a sudden I have a lot more responsibility. We don't currently have a full-time editor yet so everyone has to pick up the slack. I edit my own take entirely, help schedule and choose my assignments, and tone/file images from the wire. It has been a little different but I'm sure I'll get used to it in the coming weeks.

In the mean time I'm just glad that I'm back to making pictures again. The daily grind is something that I really enjoy and the unknown is always interesting.

The weather, however, isn't so interesting. I didn't last more than 15 minutes outside looking for a weather feature this morning while waiting for my assignment. I wasn't thrilled about shooting a sign but sometimes its a necessary evil and does what its supposed to do, convey the frigid temperatures to our readers.

So far Chicago has been great despite the less than desirable weather. Thankfully a warm front is on the way and it should reach 26 by Saturday. Woohooooo!

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

Frozen Chi

Frozen Chi

The Gazette...a look back

"The Gazette photo staff (sans Christian and Kirk) appear to be content after enjoying some classic big burgers at Conway's Red Top in Colorado Springs, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009."

I had a wonderful four months at The Gazette and I wanted to take a second and talk about my experience before moving on to things here in Chicago. This could be a long one so bare with me.

I owe a lot to The Gazette on so many levels and without all of their advice, patience, assistance and understanding there is no way that I would be where I am today. For my first internship The Gazette was, for me, the ideal place to begin my career. I was extremely lucky to land an internship at a paper where most of the interns have had at least one or two internships under their belt. Not only was it my first but I also came from a marketing background. I am completely self taught with regards to shooting, editing, captioning, toning, ect. Mark Reis took a risk by hiring me but in the end I think that everything worked out just fine.

I'm sure that an outsider can see how my shooting has changed but since I look at my images every day then it's hard for me to asses my own shooting. My portraits and sports were strong before the internship and I can say that they both improved considerably while I was there. When you shoot every day and are forced to develop new concepts and ideas for a "different" image it cant do anything but improve your work. Sports and portraits are two types of assignments that I am the most passionate about. I like the unpredictability of sports and the control and vision that you can apply in a portrait. I really worked hard during these assignments to push the envelope because I had confidence that I could get the standard image and then move on to something different.

My news/food/general assignments were definitely more difficult for me. Not having the luxury of doing many of these types of assignments during college showed in my portfolio before I started at The Gazette. With four months of daily shooting under my belt I can say that I am comfortable going to these types of assignments and getting what I need to tell the story. I still haven't quite found the right mix of storytelling information with a unique angle. Some assignments I did better than others but I know that there is still lots of room for improvement.

The most important things that I learned at The Gazette were the bits and pieces of information that I picked up from everyone on the staff. As a tribute to them I wanted to thank each of them individually. Some of the things I'll share are inside jokes so if you don't get it then you probably weren't meant to. Here we go...

Mark-

I owe you the most thanks for purely taking a chance on me. Not many would do what you did and until you came along I was just a recent marketing graduate with a passion for photography and photojournalism. I'm sure that I'll look back on the first time we met and the portfolio review and tell my grandkids how those 20 minutes were the proverbial start to my career. Thank you for reminding me when I was being "too clever" and how adding an element to an image can create unnecessary dead space.

Stuart-

I couldn't have asked for a better boss. Knowing that the powers above had trust in me to tackle some of the big assignments was really instrumental in my confidence to make solid images. As much as it may have drove me nuts, my favorite assignment had to be the Peak Performers. Letting the "intern" shoot every image for a special section really meant a lot to me and I'm grateful to have been able to practice my lighting...and organizing, scheduling, calling, calling back, calling again, and again, and again until I finally reached said coach, parent or athlete. It was one heck of a task but I appreciate the opportunity.

Kevin-

I'm sure that you had to deal with me the most because I know that my questions about my code replacement rosters, strobes, remote locations, aperture ring settings, schools, gyms, teams, light, ect had to become daunting and cumbersome at times. Without your patience I'm sure that you would have hit me over the head with a 300 by my second week, lol. You are an amazing shooter and just looking at the screen saver on your computer taught me more than you could imagine. I couldn't wait to see your stuff from any game the next day in the paper to see how impossible it was going to be to just keep up with your images night after night. You kicked my behind and that really pushed me to work even harder.  Thanks for not shooting me about the 14...at least you get a new toy now. I know that I have to make you a cord of some sort so send your requests my way. When your kids start to text you'll thank me for making you do it once in a while.

Bryan-

Thank you for being honest day in and day out with me. I could always count on you let me know what worked and what didn't in my daily take and that was really instrumental how I improved over the course of the four months. You didn't have to give up your idea for the Peak Performers but in doing so showed that you cared and wanted me to succeed. The nights that you stayed late to chat with me were always great. Thank you for fighting to get me play in the paper when you were on the desk, when I deserved it. If you start hating on my boy Tiger again me and you are going to have it out, haha.

Carol-

The thing that I'll remember the most about you was my first day. You came back from some assignment, started your edit and asked me to come over and take a look at your stuff to help you narrow it down to one or two. Little be-known to you it meant so much to me to have a "staffer" ask me what I thought on my first day. I couldn't have been more nervous and intimidated at the same time but you really put me at ease and I will always remember that so thank you!

Jerilee-

Thank you for always being there if nothing else just to listen to my problems. It always seemed like you were looking out for me and it was nice to have that motherly presence away from home. I'll always remember your out of the blue phone calls on Sunday afternoons asking me if I had shot some assignment that never got assigned to anyone and (naturally) they wanted to run A1. I appreciate you bailing me out of those so that I could really work the ones that I already had scheduled. If you ever crop to a square I'm going to find out and give you crap about it, lol. Tell Ronan that I ate every last bit of that cookie dough, frozen of course, and to call me when he is selling some more. It's so cold here in Chicago that I'm sure that it would be ok to send it in the mail.

Kirk-

Thanks for always having faith in me to succeed in the future. The nights that we spent talking on the desk about assignments, freelancing, financing gear, making a living and just enjoying life really stuck with me. Thanks for letting me use your D3 to shoot Manitou football. 12,800 ISO on a D2H, not that it can even do that, wouldn't have been a pretty sight. BBQ was great but next time the Mexican is on me.

Christian-

If I had a dime for every time I heard "photo desk this is Christian, yup, uh huh, I got 'em, alright, k thanks, buh byeeeeee" I wouldn't haven't to work any more haha. I'm really going to miss your voice on the other end of the line. One of my favorite assignments was the air show and I was really happy the next morning when I looked at the paper to see five images in there. I really worked that assignment to death and to have been rewarded with all that play was awesome so thank you.

Dave-

First of all let me apologize for being slow getting my stuff in every once in a while. Know that it was only because of my left brain perfectionism for wanting to get the best images into the system. You were always patient with me when you could have really gotten on my case so thank you. I will definitely never forget how you would casually come back to get a pepsi and just so happen to remind me to get my stuff in.

Thank you all. I will miss you all and everything that you were able to share with me in four months. As a whole, you have to be the nicest most genuine group of people I have ever met. If I could do it again I'd pack up my stuff and drive back tomorrow. Colorado is my home so hopefully I'll end up back at The Gazette down the line.

I had a chance to meet the staffers here in Crystal Lake for drinks and then breakfast and they are all wonderful. They have some BIG BIG BIG shoes to fill but I think they are up to the task. I'll never forget you all and everything that you did for me. Please keep in touch!

I start at the paper tomorrow and am anxious to get back to the daily grind that I fell in love with so much in "da springs."

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com

justin@jcedmonds.com

Hazards of the best seat in the house

"Denver Nuggets guard J.R. Smith (1) is fouled by New Orleans Hornets guard Rasual Butler (45) while trying to make an acrobatic shot in the second quarter at Pepsi Center in Denver, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009. Smith contributed 17 points in the 105-100 victory." 

JUSTIN EDMONDS, THE GAZETTE

Tonight I shot the Nuggets game as my last assignment for The Gazette. It was my first NBA game so I was looking forward to shooting the up-tempo pace that is professional basketball. I've shot the other big three (NFL, NHL and MLB) so to me it was just another basketball game, only faster.

For the first time in a while I didn't have the opportunity to shoot on strobes and it showed because I shot A TON of images. Usually I'll shoot around 250ish images on strobes and tonight I easily tripled that number. I'm still trying to make "the" image on the first frame (or two) so the only difference is that I have to spend a lot more time editing than I would like. For whatever reason tonight I decided to shoot RAW which added a whole other monster to my workflow. It doesn't take me any longer to process the images but it does take forever to ingest 4GB of RAW files at once.

Now on to the good part....the part I'm sure I'll never forget.

In the first quarter Carmello decided to do his best Nolan Ryan inpersonation and throw a rocket of an alley-oop (sp?) pass to Kenyon. He couldn't handle it and it sailed right through his hands. Now I didn't see any of this until after the fact because I had my eye up to the camera shooting the whole time. I did realize what happened when the ball hit me. Let me rephrase that...I GOT ROCKED. Even at 1/640th of a second it shook my camera violently as shown in this image.

The ball hit me square in the face and broke my pocket wizard off of the hot shoe of my camera. Thankfully it only broke the foot which is an easy fix. The Pepsi Center staff even came over to make sure I was ok. The ball was definitely coming really hard but when you're not expecting it it's even worse. Here is what my low angle remote in front of me captured just before I got hit.

The Nuggets Dancers were sitting right behind me and thanked me for blocking the shot from hitting them. The next thing out of their mouthes was "Oh my god, is your camera like broken?" Thankfully my 1D Mark II is built like a tank so it was fine but I'll be calling LPA Designs, who make the pocket wizard, to order a new shoe for my Multi Max. Actually the guys over at Pocket Wizard have been checking out my stuff and have been impressed enough to offer to feature me on their blog in the near future. So hey guys, if you're reading this do you think you could send me a new foot, pleaseeeee?

-JCE

www.jcedmonds.com