War Widow

and the five-day old son, her husband never met.

prep basketball from above

lots of this on the winter schedule. round one.

Saturday Night Lights

Prep football playoffs, Morris, Ill.

Breathing a sigh of relief!

Images 9 and 10--the series is done. In print on Friday.

Image 8

nine and ten to follow. headed out to shoot football playoffs....

Propaganda and the photo column

A recent photo column for the paper, here is the text block:

Once upon a wartime, Uncle Sam wanted YOU (!) to join the U.S. Army. He still does, but if that doesn’t fit into your life plan, you can fire away at Osama bin Laden right here in McHenry County.

Jaison Glawe of Woodstock works the “corn cannons” at Stade’s Dairy Farm in Johnsburg. “I’ve been here from the beginning,” Glawe said of the game. “I’m a regular carny. Shooting at bin Laden, well, I dunno, I guess the makes the whole thing a little more bearable.”

The cannons essentially are tubes, that use compressed air to shoot the hardened ears of corn into the sky, across the field, and hopefully right into the target.

Hitting the giant head is harder than it looks. I watched for nearly an hour as people cycled through, firing hundreds of shots on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Of the hundreds of shots I witnessed, two made contact with the target. The prize for nailing the Captain of the Axis of Evil? An extra ear of corn.

image no. 7

more basketball portraits

six down, four to go.

I shot all five boys inside the barn, so I'm going to try and shoot the girls outside the barn. There is less stuff to climb on, so it may not work. That and the weather will need to cooperate...

basketball portraits

Three down, seven to go. When finished the paper will showcase 5 boys and 5 girls--the top ten basketball players in our coverage area. I'm lucky to have an editor who carves out time for this kind of fun. All portraits shot at a barn belonging to a family in McHenry County. I fell in love with the location one day while driving around and the family has been very accomodating. They even have a basketball hoop inside the barn!