My first weeks in Centralia, Wa

Here's some of my photos from my first few weeks at my internship.

This is the second photo I shot while I was up here. The graduation was just like any other, but these kids went nuts with the silly string and it made for a great event. I love the expression on her face. She looks so proud, so excited, and so "Mom and Dad, look at me!!" I really like this shot. Kept me motivated for the first awkward days of getting used to the town.

We feature a person cooking food every week in our Health and Food section. This was a woman who has been running an organic farm for 16 years. Her farm was beautiful and the food was killer. That's one thing I really love about the food assignments, free grub!! This is the box that people can get delivered or pick up for a monthly fee. It's packed full of all sorts of delicious organic fruits and veggies.

How awesome is an assignment that sends you out hiking in the woods for 2 hours with two old ladies? I was covered in all sorts of crap when we got back and it was totally worth it. I really enjoyed being able to hike around and explore some of what the area looks like when you're off the beaten path. This was part of a story about land trusts and the importance of environmental organizations and commercial builders reaching compromises that benefit the environment as well as the land owner. I snapped this shot while we were stopped at a bog-ish thing and the reporter was asking her some questions. This was a pause in the conversation.

More of the organic food. This is the finished product from one of the dishes that was prepared.

A shot from a photo essay I did on the senior-run farmers market here in town. A gal that I asked to photograph said she didn't want her face in the paper because she was hiding from someone yada yada yada.. so I opted for cruisin down low for some interesting pictures. I love the bright colored shoes. Just a plain little snap but I like it.

A motocross event at Burnt Ridge in Cinebar, Wash. I've got some other shots from this, but they need some serious crops, as did this. I've never shot an event like this and I still don't know what kind of gear I would want to go back with. I plan on going back to this track several times this summer til I nail this shot. I have full access to the entire track and the riders for future visits. For this, I climbed up to the top of the biggest jump and sat where the bikes were landing. I really wanted a super wide shot of a bike going over me, but I was being a little timid a first only because an internship isn't really worth getting hit with a dirt bike. But I plan on going back and revising my shooting plan to figure out what works best.

A logging truck going through Pe Ell (part of a centennial celebration package we're doing that involves re-creating historic photos; I don't have the old photo on my home comp just yet.)

The Centralia Rifle Club offers a lot of training for young cadets. These were the most diligent, respectful teens that I've ever met.

Every week we feature a healthy living photo in our Health and Food section. This is a gal checking out some ripe tomatoes at an open air produce market.

This is definitely an almost. I would have liked this guy's eye to pop more. I should have brought out the 70-200 and tried it.

I like to hang out at Fort Borst Park during my free time, and this is from one of my many afternoons hanging out there between assignments. It's a beautiful park with huge trees, lots of grass and a lake for fishing. And I'll always remember this day as the day I locked my keys in the car and then got crapped on by a bird while trying to break into my car. I'm happy to have a roommate that hangs on to my extra set of keys.

Greg Gilbertson is a criminal justice instructor at Centralia College. He recently returned from training Iraqis in the process of becoming police officers. He developed a western-style bachelors program for the Iraqi students while teaching in Baghdad. I spent more time talking with the guy than I did shooting. My portrait skills suffer terribly, and it doesn't help when the reporter has a 5 hour interview that cuts into your only window of portrait time. This is a great example of me not using lighting that I know how to use and also my lack of portrait skills.

This is another shot from the rifle club. It was pretty dark in there, so the colors on this one suffered a bit, but Adam suggested I throw it into black and white and see how it looked from there. I like the contrast and I love how black washes over most of the frame.

Just a shot from an article about a group that helps out the county animal shelter. This is the president of one such group. I could only get to her while she was working at her pet/garden store, so I brought her outside and grabbed some kittens on the way. Again, the lack of portrait skills, but I really don't like posing my subjects too much.

Another healthy living shot. I hung out at a what I didn't think was going to be such a serious basketball camp for an hour a few weeks ago. These kids were running drill after drill after drill. I tried to find something more playful, but these kids were set on nailing their shots and not messing up their pivots. I tried to find someone super concentrated on what they were doing (we all know how much most kids love to ham it up for the camera).

This is miss Maisie. She just got out of surgery not too long ago and is waiting to be adopted. This was the last part of the friends of the animal shelter package, and I needed a shot of her in recovery. I liked the yawn.. shows how bored she must be sitting in a kennel all day.