Just Another Day at JTG

Jimmy's To-Go, Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Circa 2009. Taken on my iPhone.

My parents are wrapping up the end of another successful year today, so this post is very appropriate. This photo was one of those rare moments that makes me confident in my photographic eye for scenes, people, interesting things. I love every element of this photo: the worn-looking picnic table in the foreground, the hot dog stand in the background. And I don't know who that guy is, but he's posed just perfectly in his foundry uniform, waiting for lunch.

I love it so much that I even put it on the cover of my book, Jimmy's To-Go: The Beginning, that chronicles the first and very successful year of the Jimmy's To-Go saga.

Boom & Bust

Taken at the corner of South Webb and Main Streets, Reedsburg, Wisconsin, June 2008. Published in the Reedsburg Independent.

So far I've been revisiting a number of pictures I took in the aftermath of the flood of 2008 - several Granite Avenue pictures, and then this one, which I have always felt was one of the best I've ever taken. In the background is a mural in downtown Reedsburg celebrating its history in the hops industry. In the foreground are beer kegs and brewing equipment pulled up from the basement of the Corner Pub, which had sustained significant flood damage and much had to be replaced.

I'd only been working at the Indy for a month when the flood hit, and the aftermath taught me a lot about what it means to be a journalist, and what kind of responsibility it carries with it, and what it means to stay disconnected from a tragedy, and how to be respectful. My first day on the job at the Indy is the first time I ever held a dSLR camera, and a month later, I snapped this picture. I think it was the first time I ever saw something, did a double take, and took a picture. I didn't know what it meant to have an "eye" before this, but I think this picture demonstrates that whatever that means, I have it.

I have pride in myself now in seeing things a certain way, noticing things that someone else might notice, and having my camera on hand to capture it.