Its been a slow couple of weeks around here.
Thus the lack of posts.
Nothing to shoot = nothing to post.

Today I had the honor of doing a ride along with the Rapid City Police Department.
Doing a ride along can either be fruitful or frustrating.
You either get something great or nothing at all.
One can only hope some huge story breaks as your in the car with a cop.
(Bank robbery, hostage situation, huge fire, shots fired, et al.)
Or at least you get a bust of some sort.

Today was my lucky day.
After driving around downtown for a good hour with a few routine traffic stops we got a call of a man who had just been mugged.
The caller unfortunately had a couple of warrants so no matter what someone was going to jail.

(Yes I’m allowed to run the man’s face, once he has been arrested and charged with something I’m allowed to…)

I am currently working on an audio slideshow with the images.
It should be posted next week.
I’m rather excited about it.

-S

The most frustrating thing about shooting sports is the “almost” shot.

Which is very self explanitory.
You almost had it but something went wrong at the last moment or you just missed the ball in the frame.
I had two almosts tonight.

I’m a Canon shooter. The Journal is a Nikon paper.
I had been shooting with my Canon up until a couple of weeks ago when I switched over to Nikon.
If your familular at all with the Nikon and Canon you know the two systems are opposites.
You rotate clockwise on a Nikon to zoom, counter clockwise on a Canon.
Same goes with focusing.
I got excited and resorted to my canon instincts and blew the focus on this shot…
GAH! ALMOST!
Greatest shot ever? Not really but it still would’ve been pretty cool.

Had I had a 300 or 400 mm this shot would’ve been a lot cooler, had the ball been in the frame it would’ve still been good.
Everyone wants to be the star quarterback… not me.
I’ll stick to being the nerdy photographer on the sidelines getting excited about pixels and frames per second. Although much like a quarter back you have to keep an eye on your blindside for a 250lb linebacker bearing down on you.

one last one

Again the ball is in the frame and you have a stellar shot.

When you do finally get the shot it is just that much sweeter though.

I think this is the first time this image has run whole anywhere.
It got an odd cropping the day after the Rushmore Bowl and I didn’t get a chance to toss it up here until now.

-S

By Seth A. McConnell
Its often easy in this industry to meet and forget people almost instantly.
Its not something you intend to do but you met so many people and hear so many stories its hard to keep them straight sometimes and after a while you may forget all together.
There are times that you met people and you know their story and their presence will stick with you for a long time. Today was one of those days for me.

Today I met a young man named Randy Mott.

13 years old with Cystic Fibrosis.
A short, skinny, pale skinned kid with black chuck taylor all stars on.
A little punk-ish, a little skaterish.
Reminded me very much of myself in my teenage years.
He was incredibly articulate and wise for his 13 years in existance.
He was very realistic about his situation and his disease as well.
He didn’t let it get him down either.
It was amazingly refreshing.
I could only hope to be as out front about myself as he is.

You can read more about him a little bit later on this week in the story Heidi is doing about him.
Not sure of the actual publication date on it but it will be this week.

I’m hoping to do an audio slideshow on him in the next few weeks when we get back up to speed and are fully staffed again. He is going to Denver in the very near future to have a few tests run and see if he needs a lung transplant. If he can get one he said it will pretty much cure him. Hopefully he will. I do believe there will be info in the story on how you can donate money if you feel inclined to do so.

Until next time,
Seth

If you are a fan of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” you know what I mean.

This is it. I’m out of here for the proverbial life of leisure, or whatever retirement might have in store for me.

Attached is virtually the last shot of my 21 years here at the Journal, a TD reception, virtually on top of me (I was cranking my 80-200 zoom as fast as I could) from this afternoon’s lopsided homecoming victory by BHSU over Mines.

I hope you all have enjoyed seeing my photos in the pages of the RCJ as much as I have making them.
- Steve McEnroe

Well, it’s Friday afternoon, and my retirement from the Journal is just one day away. I have to go shoot two football games tonight, and the BHSU game is on my schedule tomorrow - and that’s about it. It is on to retirement, getting up when ever I want, doing what I want, and no more deadlines.

With a little luck, I won’t be a greeter at Sam’s Club three months from now. I am planning on doing a little photography, and some painting and wildfowl carving, and gardening and cooking, and maybe some fishing.

I gave the ol’ fly rod a try on an assignment earlier this week. It’s going to take a little practice before I am not hooking myself in the ear or scaring every fish within a quarter mile. But I think it might be worth the effort. The assignment was about a private fishing hole being created at a new home development along Nemo Rd. in the Black Hills. Keith Wintersteen of SDGF&P was on the site helping the developers and offered the fly rod for a few practice casts. The developers have turned an old draw into a beautiful little fishing hole. They plan on stocking it with a few trout in the near future to serve the residents at the area. The cantilevered rock in the background will make an excellet fishing platform - or a great place for the kids in the development to have a swimming hole as the pond is 10-15 feet deep.
- Steve McEnroe

I’ve been met by dogs at virtually every farm or ranch that I have ever visited, and nearly all are friendly and just checking out the new visitor, but I have never been met by the resident cat before - until today.

This afternoon I was visiting the Snyder Ranch near Piedmont for a story on the upcoming Western Junior Livestock Show with reporter Steve Miller. And the family collie and cattle dog both immediately loped out to greet me, but I was a bit amused to see four kittens streak towards me as well, from the front yard of the ranch house.

The kittens, new additions to a family menagerie of dogs, cats, peafowl and livestock, followed the Snyders and us all over the yard. They were as friendly as could be, climbing up on us, and wandering into most of my photos. One seemed to perch virtually all the time on the shoulder of middle son Daniel and another seemed intent on greeting the kid’s Angus cross bull, who outweighed him by a ration of about 1000 to 1.

I’ve attached a couple of those pix here, cause they probably won’t make the story which is about the Snyder boys’ preparations for the annual Western Junior Livestock Show.

- Steve McEnroe

By Seth A. McConnell
So i’m in the middle of trying to convince the powers that be to switch to a new slide show program called sound slides. (Ok I just found it the other night and haven’t had a full discussion with them yet… Its the weekend nobody is around besides a writer or two, a photographer and a gaggle of copy editors)
If you’ve ever used this magical little product you know how simple it really is to use and how good the end product is.

I’ve created two slide shows last night and today trying to figure the program out using only the demo version (much like a car you want to give it a test run before dropping money into something that ultimately sucks and is full of holes. I’m impressed with just the demo and I think I personally am going to invest the money into the full pro version regardless)

I’m not quite sure how to actually post them directly to a site right now (I found an online tutorial and they started talking 1’s and 0’s that went straight over my head… we have a couple of great internet tech guys here that make all of this look beautiful and functional. I don’t understand what they do but they are really good at it.)

So I’ll just drop two links here.
One is of personal work but it has audio and thats the point at this exact moment.
The other is of MWeek activities.

M Week 2007! (this one is a manual one, you have to press the button to move to the next slide, you can read all the caption info by simply clicking caption)

Unfinished Thoughts (Just some stuff I shot in about an hour just outside of Sturgis the other day.)

I’m assuming most of you have viewed the old slide shows, which do you prefer?
Is this easier or more complicated.
Do you like the manual control or just hitting play and letting it go? (I haven’t figured out how to do that yet without sound, I’m just experimenting at this point)
As a viewer is it easy to use?
Feedback is much appreciated.

Alright I’m going to stop geeking out.

-S