Steam rises from a Wheeler huddle during the fourth quarter against Andrean during sectional play at Andrean High School in Merrillville, Ind., Friday, October 21, 2011.
With the fall theater and concert season ramping up (and lighting design work taking a front seat for the next month or so), my photography work on the sidelines of high school football games came to a close this evening for the 2011 season
Pilot Gerry Flaugher of Poplar Grove, Ill., flies a Ford Tri-Motor over Valparaiso, Ind., during a demonstration flight originating from the Porter County Regional Airport in Valparaiso, Ind., Monday, October 3, 2011. The aircraft, built in 1929, is one of seven left in the world that is still able to fly.
Whenever I have a photo assignment that involves flying, there’s a common theme that runs through every FBO I walk into. Everyone is always smiling and in a good mood! For those not obsessed with aviation lingo, an FBO at an airport is a “fixed base operator”
A cast-iron rosette surrounds a light fixture in the ceiling of the auditorium at Roosevelt Career and Technical Academy in Gary, Ind., Wednesday, September 14, 2011. The auditorium, constructed with the school in 1923, remains largely unchanged from its original design and decor.
There’s a dangerous recipe for distraction for me as a photographer, one that will almost certainly result in me hanging around a location for way longer than I should. Give me a straightforward, visually uninteresting event (say, people speaking before an audience into a microphone). Add in a historic venue with interesting architecture, and before long, I’ll often be found crawling around on the floor or climbing to the highest reaches of the room for interesting angles to excite my visual senses. Of course, this is after I’ve made those “safe and clean” photos of what I was actually assigned to shoot in the first place. This happened to me tonight while on assignment at the Roosevelt Career and Technical Academy in Gary, Indiana. The auditorium and the surrounding hallway in the school, built in 1923, provided a few artsy-escapes from the microphone meeting masters.
A U.S. Air Force F-15 Strike Eagle performs during the Gary South Shore Air Show held at Marquette Beach in Gary, Ind., Friday, July 15, 2011. The show featured a variety of solo and group aviation acts.
As I sat strapped into the rear seat of the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team’s Fokker C31 aircraft on the ramp at the Gary Chicago Airport last weekend, I tried to count back in my mind on all the times I’ve flown with the group in the past five years. It had to have been my twenty-something-th flight, but I’ve lost track. Though the number of flights may have escaped me, having a front-row seat to document some of the most skilled men and women in our armed forces, up close and personal, is a privilege I’m not lost on. Having the soldiers greet me by my first name as I entered the plane was another reminder of just how many times I’ve taken to the skies with them on their airborne adventures.