Where Have I Been?

With a bad ankle, I thought I would take some time to cut out tear sheets and file them away (I am way backed up in that department). I had my husband put a stack of papers on the front porch for me, and when I went out, John John Crabby Crab had pulled out two newspapers. He wondered why they had the same photos on the front pages. I explained to him that I worked for both the daily paper that covers parts of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, and their sister paper which covers my county. He was fine with that, and he really wanted some of those fresh strawberries. For the story about the 1800's festival go to either newspaper and do a search.

And look Reggie Girl! There is Stedman on the front page. He was just great. He was talking to a group of students about defining themselves. The header actually came from one of his comments. You can read the story by doing a search at either paper, and you can see the other photos I took.

I have received some nice emails from people wanting to know where I have been. First, let me say it has been a long 3 weeks. I have been out of the blogging loop for several days. Yesterday was my day to catch up. But the phone rang and I was off on an assignment. I always leave a little early in case I see a feature along the way. Bagman says a photographers most important piece of equipment are the brakes on their car. I totally agree.

I slammed on my breaks in Marion Station, about 10 minutes up the road, when I saw a photographer taking photos of a girl in a bridal grown at an old abandoned 3 story brick church. That was to be my next post.

After checking to see if I could jump in with my camera, I ran back to the car, grabbed my gear, and twisted my ankle when I stepped in a hole. I did the shoot, made my way 20 minutes up the road, and did my assignment shoeless.

With an aching ankle, and shoeless again, I went to Somers Cove Marina to shoot contestants for our upcoming Freedom Fest (just helping out in this instance - giving back to my community), to be held at the marina on July 4 (check out the Crisfield Events link on the side bar for info, and be looking for info in the Somerset Herald and Daily Times (link also on the side bar - you can get your news their, too). You can also find out who Miss Freedom Fest will be by going to either site next week (the contest is Sunday). You will also be able to see a web extra of photos of the event at the Daily Times site.

I put in a request to be off today. I was going to the beach, but my ankle did not like that idea.

Now comes the really bad news. Dell has been sending a technician to my house to fix my computer problem. It keeps shutting off (not rebooting-it just shuts off). I have new fans, a new mother board, and, as of this morning, a new power supply. Well, it shut down again. And again. And now a system error message is sitting on my screen. Being that the computer is under warranty, I demanded a new computer. They did not take kindly to that, but are sending out a bunch of new parts to be installed sometimes this week. In the meantime, they don't want me to touch the computer.

They were going to have me repair whatever got corrupted with the last shutdown, but they said if the computer shut down again while the disc was trying to make repairs, it could damage the hard drive. I have some things backed up, but there are about 400 photos in various folders on my desktop waiting to be filed or turned into blog posts, that have not been backed up.

Thanks again to everyone who emailed me. I might not be able to catch up with all the news, but I will try to be more prompt with my posts. With all our new shooters, it sure takes a long time to get to everyone, even on a good day. I do like to spend some time seeing what everyone has, and not rush through photos. Everyone puts a lot of time into what they do, and if I am going to visit, I want to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Because I did not reformat one camera last night, I was able to put the photos in the laptop and make at least one post. Until my foot gets a little better, or my computer is up and running, I won't have much for you. But I will have time to visit!

Of course, I caught Crabby reading the papers this morning, and had to shoot him.

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“Every time a newspaper dies, even a bad one, the country moves a little closer to authoritarianism; when a great one goes, like the New York Herald Tribune, history itself is denied a devoted witness.” ~ Richard Kluger (check out his books for some good reading).

Wise words from a wise man. Think about that, folks. And support your local newspapers. Yes. We have the Internet, and we have cable, and we are bombarded 27/7 with news (much of which is not news - just entertainment).

Newspapers have been their for us throughout history. From the writers, to the photojournalist, to the editors, right down to the people in the mail room and the people who deliver your papers to your door or local store, people are working tirelessly, under tight deadlines and oftentimes stressful situations to put that newspaper into your hands. I can't imagine a world without newspapers. How dull things would be.

Next time you read a newspaper -and I hope it is tomorrow - think about all that went into getting that paper out. Newspapers don't magically appear on a daily basis. Really, they don't!