The 25th Post

I guess the 25th post is a milestone, considering that after my third or fourth post several months back, I wasn't sure if I would continue blogging. But here I am, 25 posts in.
Yesterday I was sent to Putnam County to work on a story about a proposed 2,000 acre development called Mariposa.
I like working on stories like this because I'm free to make any picture I want. Basically, if it looks cool to me or shows what life is like in town, it's fair game.

Shaggin' Balls

The last two days have been rather uneventful. Tuesday afternoon, however, I got the chance to hang out on top of the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville.

One of the Lifestyle reporters was at a minor-league Suns game last weekend and wondered how the fly balls are recovered from the roof. It's quite simple: team employees climb on top of the stadium after every home stand and collect the balls. This week they tallied 131 balls and a leftover t-shirt from the ACC Tournament. (It was shot from a cannon.)
He's going to write a story about people who have to occasionally work at significant heights to do their jobs. Sign me up for the next assignment.

Pastor Dan

Back in March, Pastor Dan's church was destroyed by arson. Church members began the long process of clean-up and rebuilding a week ago. I stopped by earlier several days back to take some shots of Pastor Dan in the church.

This moment happened during a portrait shoot, when he leaned down to take a break from posing. The vertical was what I pictured going in, and the horizontal was the hidden gem that came near the end.

With The Birds

A few weeks ago Vincent Laforet had an aerial sports photography project published by The New York Times, which inspired me to try it. Unlike Laforet, I used a normal telephoto instead of a tilt/shift lens.

My 10 favorite images can be viewed on my SportsShooter member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/jbake.

Eddie

Today I was accepted to Barnstorm XX, also known as The Eddie Adams Workshop 2007. To view all the winners, click here: http://www.eddieadamsworkshop.com/alumni/2007. I should add thatUF student Kristin Nichols and alum Andrea Morales will be attending as well.

I'm really excited that I was accepted. There are so many talented shooters who will be attending. But that's not the most humbling part. To think that Stephanie Sinclair, Melissa Lyttle, Vincent Laforet, Amy Vitale and many notable others are Barnstorm Alumni is amazing.

Already I have questions ... What team will I be on? What flight will I take? What will my assignment be? Who will I meet? How many new friends will I make?

Stay tuned.

Dive Locker

I'm working on a story for this weekend about real-life Johnny Depps. That is to say, a story about archaeologists and treasure hunters. Meet Chuck, one of the good guys. He's an underwater archaeologist in St. Augustine.

Miss New Berlin

I saw the Miss New Berlin last night when I was driving home from the beach. She was moored in the salt marsh, and she was begging for me to take her picture. My longest lens was a 200 mm, and the misses was about 1/4 mile away. So I returned today. With a 600mm.

I'm a Canon shooter, but at the T-U, everything is Nikon. On Wednesday, while shooting Jaguars off-season practice, I went through four partially charged Nikon batteries in one D1X. Surely, with a charged battery, I could shoot the Miss New Berlin.

Twenty shots into the self-assignment, the battery died. That's Nikon for you. But I can't complain too much, because I'm really happy with the pictures.

50 Cents

I took a drive north of Jacksonville last night, searching for landscape shots. I roamed around Huguenot Memorial Park for about an hour as the tide rolled in. It's been a while since I shot any scenics.
The folks back in Gainesville would say the art school called, but I enjoyed making pictures without any people in them. That doesn't happen very often.
The best part was, park admission was only 50 cents!

It's Hot

If you've been reading my blog from the beginning, you know I'm not used to the cold. And while I enjoy warm weather, I don't like when the mercury tops 90. That's not a good thing when you live in Florida ... and it's summertime.

After photographing the congressman on his tour, I headed north on A1A to look for beach-goers beating the heat. I thought Hannah, a 5-month-old yellow lab, represented the dog days of summer quite nicely.

Monday, Monday

Congressman Mica came to town today. In South Ponte Vedra Beach, backyards are eroding into the sea.

Residents wanted to know, could the politician help?

He brought along the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and several members of the media for a look-see. The congressman will try to be of assistance.

Catching Up

I was going to post several times last week. It didn't happen. So here are a few pictures from my first five days in Jacksonville.

Last Monday was a slow day. Aside from filling out paperwork and going on a ride along, not much happened. Thankfully, I was very busy the rest of the week.

My favorite assignment was a boxing match on Friday night. The light was horrible; 3200 ASA, f/2.8, 1/500. Luckily there were some stage lights on one side of the ring. I had fun, but didn't think the sport would be so hard to photograph.

Rolling The Dice

Today was my second day at the Florida Times-Union, and it was my first day on the street. I shot two assignments in St. Augustine. The first was at a skate park for a story on boarders who raise money to help their city or county build them a park. I hung out for about an hour and a half and got some cool snaps. This shot didn't make the final edit, because the editors felt it wasn't the best way to illustrate the story, but I think it's a good sports shot.

What do you think? Do you like the horizontal or vertical better? Drop me a line ... jarrett.baker[at]gmail.com.
The second assignment of the day was at the St. Augustine airport, where a terminal is being constructed for the new low-cost airline Skybus. The building is made out of tubular steel and tensioned fabric, so it's kinda like a miniature old O'Dome. It's just not the same in there now; in the old days, whenever a person would walk into the O'Connell Center at UF, they were hit with a rush of air. (The roof was supported by air pressure)

There was a conveniently-placed lift near the site, so a man named Ryan took me up to get a better view.