As you might expect, photojournalists shoot a lot of frames on every assignment.
This is not the secret to good photography, its simply part of the process. We try to photograph a variety of situations in variety of ways to produce enough to choose from.

Sometimes, though, you do end up with many good photos. In these two editing examples, we boiled the choices down to two photos of a retiring teacher for the lead image and two photos of school-oriented goodbyes for a secondary image. Which ones would you choose?

In the end, we decided to use just one - the photo of Linda Tromsness getting group-hugged by students outside of their bus. We liked the sweetness of the moment and the clean composition.

Doesn't make us right. Its a subjective process.

Neither of these photos made the cut. We decided to just use one image so we could
play it a little larger. Generally, every time you add a photo to a page layout it reduces the size of other existing images.

I had some time to kill before assignments. And what a perfect opportunity that was to shoot some spring scenics in Tacoma's Wright Park. Enjoy!

class="image_block">

There's been a fair amount of discussion about some photos I made Wednesday, April 16, of Russell Investments employees
carrying out their possessions after layoffs were announced. It was apparent to me that these folks were uncomfortable or
unhappy that I was taking pictures. So was I. But, I also knew I was standing on a public sidewalk and I had a legal right to work there. I felt it was particulary important to show readers the human face of local people affected by the recession. This was the first time The News Tribune was able to document with photos the terrible cost of lost jobs by one of our most dominant employeers.
I feel it was important and necessary to do so. Asking permission was out of the question because understandably the employees didn't want to converse. Would I have wanted myself or friends to be photographed carrying cardboard boxes out of their employer's offices? Probably not. But I would have understood the need to do so. In some sense, these employees were wronged
by forces out of their control. I feel we need to share their pain.

Neither of these T.E.A. Party photos are particularly notable, but they demonstrate the challenge of capturing
subject matter as it exists into something meaningful. Ironically, Sandra O'Reilly brought her Portugese Water Dog "Auggie" to the Tacoma staging point for the Olympia Rally. For those aren't aware, this is the same breed the Obamas chose to be the new White House Dog. The "No Bo" sticker is O'Reilly's humorous dig. But I found the sticker hard to read in a photo and Auggie, being a willful canine, didn't hang around long for pictures. The teabagged hat made a nice supplemental image, but again, I didn't feel it quite had enough visual interest for broader display.

Staff photographer Drew Perine made this audio slideshow to go along with Jeff Mayor's piece on model builders.

My assignment today was to provide a CLO (photo with caption only, no story) for the next day's South Sound cover. Its always a tough assignment midday when the weather's bad. I found a farm scenic in Gig Harbor and got lucky visiting a Lakewood Senior Center where some spirited girls were playing canasta.

Here's the caption info: Feisty Colleen Smith, left, cracks up Dawn Carl with her one complaint about the Tuesday canasta game at the Lakewood Senior Activity Center: All the players are women. "Where are the guys?" Smith said. "We're looking for some old men to play cards. Every time we ask them they run away," Thursday, March 5, 2009. (Drew Perine/The News Tribune)

And here's the other caption:
Its still blanket weather for this horse grazing along Ray Nash Drive In Gig Harbor, but the greening pasture suggests spring can't be too far off, Thursday, March 5, 2009.

Which photo would you choose to publish? Typically, photojournalists favor people-oriented photos while the public fancies scenics.

Cruising for a weather photo I noticed these brawny dudes playing intramural tackle football at Mount Tahoma High. I appreciated the fact that having fun was more important than vanity. Any good lineman needs to carry some extra ballast to be effective. You just don't usually see them without their shirts. From left: Storm Koester, 17; Devin Abdon, 17; Michael Simpkins, 18; and Joshua Roberts, 18, Monday, February 23, 2009.

Drew Perine/The News Tribune

A brief break in the cloud cover allows Monday’s setting sun to bathe Anderson Island ferry traffic in golden light off the shore of Steilacoom. But as poet Robert Frost famously wrote, “nothing gold can stay.”

Walking through the W.W. Seymour Botanical Observatory has become a Tiffany experience with the jewels of Dale Chihuly's glass career on display. After dark is when the exhibit really shines, or perhaps glows, with spotlit intensity. There will be three evening public viewings till 8 p.m. of "Chihuly at Seymour 100" on Dec. 18, Jan. 15 and Feb. 19 in conjunction with the third Thursday Art Walk. Daily viewings are from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, excluding holidays, through February. A $5 donation is suggested. The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of Wright Park's Victorian-styled conservatory at 316 S. G St. in Tacoma. Explore The News Tribune's After Dark – Chihuly at Seymour photo gallery here.

I often get asked questions about photography at prep football games so I thought I would share a two-frame sequence for a discussion topic.
These photos are of Curtis High receiver Stan Langlow in last Friday's game against Puyallup using my Canon 1D and a 300mm 2.8 lens. The first image was made with direct flash mounted on top of my camera body via the hot shoe. The flash didn't recycle quickly enough to fire in the second image so you can easily see the difference between fill flash and ambient (aka natural) light. I also brightened this frame in Photoshop otherwise it would have been too dark to publish.
Proper exposure at Curtis High stadium was 200th of a second at f2.8 at 1600 ASA. I expose manually and use the rear panel LCD to confirm my results. Shooting at that low shutter speed without flash means you will get movement in the photo and a lot of dark shadows under helmets. Most people prefer full illumination in their photos while most photojournalists do not. We'll use ambient light over flash any time we can.
Direct flash at football games produces a lot of nasty reflections and the classic "red eye" effect if the subject's looking straight at the camera. The only way around this is to have a flash off camera which has to be fired using a radio transmitter. This works for Sports Illustrated but its not practical for me or you at a high school game.
These are choices pros make all the time. I've softened my aesthetic stance at prep football because often there's just not enough
ambient light to properly expose the action. Any questions?