It's all about processor speed

I completed another video last night. This time on an annual girls softball tournament held in Boulder County around the Fourth of July. There are over 150 teams in the area playing from 28 states. You can read a story by Christine Reid here.

The original idea was to shoot a story about the little rituals, chants and superstitions that usually are associated with sports. I went to the 18U tournament in Boulder thinking it would be easy. Didn't happen.

Most of the teams there at the Stazio Complex in Boulder didn't do much along those lines. And since I feel like I am a first year intern again, trying to learn how to do this video gig, I basically froze up and tried to force the issue. The storyline changed to the scope of the tournament in the realm of girls softball nationally and for college coaches. What I should have done was go to the 16U brackets. Those girls, I learned from Christine, were more into the funky chants and rituals. Next year I guess.

It's been humbling to step back and learn how to be creative with video, yet make comprehensive videos that make sense. I could have ran around with a still camera and shot tons of photos, thrown together a gallery of 20-plus photos and it would have been a cake walk. I could have even gathered audio to make an audio slide show and felt a bit more comfortable to complete the project in a timely manner. Developing a storyline and backbone to hang a story on in video is still a challenge at this point. I know it will get easier. I just didn't think I was going to feel like an intern all over again. I mean, I was so confident with my still camera that, before I left the complex I found one situation to shoot. Nailed it in 15 or 20 frames and headed back to the office to begin the task of editing my video. The photo ended up being the 1A photo.

It took me a little more than three hours to shoot about 30 minutes of video to produce a 01:24 video. (Oh yeah, after a two hour detour to a Final Cut Users Group with video/web 2.0 guru Danny Holland, it took about four hours of editing and watching a processing bar creep across the screen.)

I just plan on producing more and more content so I can ditch the training wheels and upgrade to the race bike again....let me know what you think.

Sooner than usuall

While I was waiting at the Birds of Prey Foundation center in eastern Boulder County on Tuesday to shoot photos of an American bald eagle, I looked around for a while and spotted an opportunity to shoot an Emotion, as I call them. There are several more at my MySpace page and my Flickr page. This will be "White noise."

The concept is that they are purely visual photos in one of two visual styles I have developed and the emotion or thought that was in my head at the time. Adam, the eagle, was screaming in his flight cage while I was shooting this. Make sense?

Catch up time

It's been a while. How've you been?

Needless to say, I've been busy. But you've heard that before so I'll just leave it at that. This might be a bit longer than some of the other posts. I have a few things to share.

First off is an audio slide show I did on former CU quarterback John Hessler for a story about his progress.

I also worked on my second video production this week on Robb's Music in Boulder. Robb Candler is selling his business of 29 years. You can read about it and see stills from other photogs here.

I worked on those this week on top of running the Photo Dept. while my boss was on vacation. So when that happens other than being an e-mail wrangler you get to shoot quick hit assignments and breaking news.

Like University of Colorado researcher Hans Seelig who developed a chip that monitors the water stress of plants. It's always good to make use of a reporter that's just standing around. They make great light stands sometimes.

Then there's Mara Abbott. She's a local high school graduate that turned training for swimming on a bike into a possible full fledged career. She's tearing up the college ranks and finished second in a pro race in Canada. Since she's a swimmer, she's not a snobby roadie. I'm a roadie, but I'll be the first to admit there are several snobby cyclists out there. Speaking of, I sure need to get a few rides in considering I'm supposed to do the Triple Bypass in just a few weeks. It'll be grueling and torturous, maybe even evil but I still love that ride. This will be my fourth ride. Every one has been a journey of some sort. I can't wait for the 2007 edition. Alright, back to photos....

While sitting there wrangling e-mails, phone calls, reporters, editors, interns and trying to to get too distracted by my RSS feed the scanner sits right next to my computer. I usually hear most of the calls, but I was out shooting a really bad portrait. I won't even share it because I'm ashamed to put my name on it. One of those three minutes late and they don't really have the time to sit for you anyway deals. Anyway, there was a report of a "Code Black" in Boulder Creek. I get the phone call from the desk and race over there. Apparently three guys were tubing down the creek and one of them bumped into the body and they called 911. The police still haven't determined the cause of death, but he was identified. Not a fun way to try and beat the heat.

Then I was the camera in the courtroom goon again. This time for Ronald Swerlein. He's the guy in Longmont that has been accused of having enough chemicals to blow up his entire block. He says he's just making model rockets. If I keep up the pace I'm on I'll get on a first name basis with every sheriff and prisoner in Boulder County.

So that's what the last week's been like. Busy as usual. I've got a few more multimedia and videos in the works, so stay tuned......

A few more pix

I added a few more photos to the Brazil gallery. You can either look at them here in the window below or head over to Flickr and do a slideshow there that shows the captions.

I'm going to go back through and see if there are any other possible gems I overlooked this weekend, maybe.

Thanks for looking and all the responses on the Brazil photos as well as the Fishing Derby. I hope to do a couple other videos soon.