Workers from Tacoma Public Works install more "palm trees" by Seattle artist Kurt Kiefer on East D street near the Tacoma Dome.

During a practice burn Tacoma Firefighters allowed me to place a remotely triggered camera in the room where newbies would attack the flames.

In the sequence of photos that resulted, you first see me testing the camera with Capt. Ray Manglona. In the scenario, burning materials would be in the little room visible at right, and the attackers would come from a doorway (not visible) to the right of the camera, then move around the room to face the burning room from the left side of the frame.

In the second and third photos the door to the outside was closing and the fire growing.

I shot frames before the attackers arrived because I didn't know where they were as they wound their way through the outer rooms toward the burning room. So I had to shoot frames every couple of seconds to hopefully get a shot of firefighters facing the flames before they would douse them.

The sixth frame here shows flames licking out of the burning room-- but no firefighters have arrived. Then the next frame shows a mist of water in the air, making everything look foggy.

Before they entered it, the firefighters apparently cooled the room where the camera is. They must have moved in front of the camera before the flames were entirely out, but I didn't catch it.

Ten seconds elapsed between the last two frames, and in the last frame they have already opened the outside door to ventilate the room after dousing the fire.

Oh well. It's a practice fire for me, too.

Photographer Peter Haley and reporter Joseph Montes worked together on a great story and slideshow that you might have missed. Check out the story here and then be sure to view the other images from the flight.

A zoom blur adds a fun effect as a teenager pops out of The Cannonball at Wild Waves at Federal Way.

When doing a zoom blur, it's important to pay attention to what is in the center of the photo. In this case, I centered the picture on the big round pipe, zooming back and keeping the pipe in the center (a tripod would've helped). As the kid dropped away from the pipe, my zooming back kept the kid in approximately the same spot in the photo, thus there isn't much blurring of the kid. Later I cropped off the top of the photo, so the pipe is no longer in the center. I used the slowest shutter speed that I could-- 1/45th (at f22 in full sunlight)-- and zoomed back when the kid appeared.

PFC Marcos Garcia(left) speaking at the "Soldier's Tribute" part during a memorial ceremony for four soldiers killed in Iraq who were honored at the Soldiers Field House at Fort Lewis. The memorial service were for Staff Sgt. Kristopher A Higdon, Staff Sgt. David C. Kuehl, PFC. Robert A. Worthington, and CPL. Mathew P. LaForest.

Family members pay respects to Staff Sgt. David C. Kuehl during a memorial ceremony at Soldiers Field House at Fort Lewis. Kuehl, a native of North Dakota, was one of four Fort Lewis soldiers killed in Iraq who were honored during the ceremony.

As part of a research project involving the Army Corps of Engineers, Luis Garcia, an intern with The Nisqually Tribe Department of Natural Resources, attempts to catch a smolting steelhead in the Nisqually River. Fishing in the river is currently closed to the public.

Four year-old Taron Ewing of Fort Lewis with his mom, Yakita Ewing, is tutored by Topia Technology founder and CEO Janine Terrano on the newest file-sharing free software that Topia is giving military families. Taron raises his arms in joy after learning that he can use the revolutionary data sharing technology, SKOOT, on USB drives to contact his father Ramon where he is deploy in Iraq.

Seattle Mariner's Felix Hernandez will be pitching tonight. What are we going to see? A dominating Felix or a Felix working back to his early season form. These 3 photos are from a recent game.

Brandy Jo Pietsch, 8, left, holds back the hair of Erica Villa, 7, as Erica signs to teacher April McGill on what else she wants painted on her face. The three, from Madrona School in Edmonds, were at Tacoma's Manitou Park for the Tacoma Sertoma Annual Picnic for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.

We have a lot of great multimedia on our web site, but sometimes it gets lost. Take a minute to visit our photos page where we have links to many audio slideshows and galleries. On the multimedia archive page, there are more galleries and videos.

If you haven't come across this audio slideshow on our site, it's a real treat. News Tribune photographer Drew Perine set up a backdrop and studio lights in three Tacoma nightclubs: Hell's Kitchen, The Loft and McCabe's. The photos were published in the GO! section, but here you can hear some of the club goers talk about their personal sense of style.

Click to photo to view the audio slideshow.