Another story I did for the Indy this week was posted to dane101.com through our content-sharing partnership.
Check it out: Recall petitioners allowed to stay in Reedsburg Rec Center - for now
11.23.2011
City of Reedsburg allows Recall Walker petitioners to use Rec Center
This isn't specifically photog-related, but an article I wrote for this week's Reedsburg Independent has been shared with dane101.com through our new content sharing partnership.
Check it out: City of Reedsburg allows Recall Walker petitioners to use Rec Center.
Pretty cool.
Check it out: City of Reedsburg allows Recall Walker petitioners to use Rec Center.
Pretty cool.
11.02.2011
Rules of the Gallery
Taken just outside the Wisconsin Assembly Gallery, September 2011.
Sign reads: Rules of the Assembly Gallery, In accordance with Assembly Rule 26 the following are Not Allowed in the Gallery: eating, drinking, smoking, loud talking, mobile phones, laptops, video cameras, photography, newspapers, wearing of hats, signs, posters, placards, leaning over the railings, sitting in aisles or on the floors, standing in aisles, outbursts (cheering, jeering stomping). Contact the Assembly Sergeant at Arms concerning Gallery policies.
I'm a sucker for photos of signs. So when we visited the Wisconsin State Capitol in September, I spent some time trying to get a photo of the sign above with the background in the mix. I thought the sign was funny as it forbid the "Wearing of Hats" - not so much the rule itself but how it was worded. With the light streaming in from the stained glass ceiling in the Assembly itself, it was pretty difficult to set up and capture the shot the way I was envisioning. But I managed to get my settings right and stand still enough to capture the above shot.
There was a big hubbaloo on Twitter last night about something going on in the Assembly. I'm a little ashamed to admit that despite being a reporter, living less than a mile from the Capitol, and being currently betrothed to someone very interested in state politics, I am usually pretty ignorant as to what goes on up there. I catch snippets from Twitter and one in particular from dane101 last night stuck in my head: "Staskunas talking about signs with Assembly rules, Speaker says, "Actually a number of them have been stolen."
No matter how you feel about the current situation in the State of Wisconsin, stealing is just not nice. Even if you disagree with them, taking the sign isn't going to make the rules go away. But I'm sure it's a case of the actions of only a few reflecting on the many.
Sign reads: Rules of the Assembly Gallery, In accordance with Assembly Rule 26 the following are Not Allowed in the Gallery: eating, drinking, smoking, loud talking, mobile phones, laptops, video cameras, photography, newspapers, wearing of hats, signs, posters, placards, leaning over the railings, sitting in aisles or on the floors, standing in aisles, outbursts (cheering, jeering stomping). Contact the Assembly Sergeant at Arms concerning Gallery policies.
I'm a sucker for photos of signs. So when we visited the Wisconsin State Capitol in September, I spent some time trying to get a photo of the sign above with the background in the mix. I thought the sign was funny as it forbid the "Wearing of Hats" - not so much the rule itself but how it was worded. With the light streaming in from the stained glass ceiling in the Assembly itself, it was pretty difficult to set up and capture the shot the way I was envisioning. But I managed to get my settings right and stand still enough to capture the above shot.
There was a big hubbaloo on Twitter last night about something going on in the Assembly. I'm a little ashamed to admit that despite being a reporter, living less than a mile from the Capitol, and being currently betrothed to someone very interested in state politics, I am usually pretty ignorant as to what goes on up there. I catch snippets from Twitter and one in particular from dane101 last night stuck in my head: "Staskunas talking about signs with Assembly rules, Speaker says, "Actually a number of them have been stolen."
No matter how you feel about the current situation in the State of Wisconsin, stealing is just not nice. Even if you disagree with them, taking the sign isn't going to make the rules go away. But I'm sure it's a case of the actions of only a few reflecting on the many.
10.14.2011
I Do Two
I recently undertook round two of our Wedding Invite Photo Shoot. Although round one was pretty successful, trying again has been on my to-do list for awhile. I'm still not sure exactly how these images will work into the final product of our save-the-dates and wedding invites, but they're nice to have around just in case. I'm definitely excited about the possibilities.
It took me so long to get around to round two because I was so happy with what I conceived for round one that I was unsure if I could come up with any new ideas. The process of round two seemed to go better than the first. The first time I relied heavily on my iPhone and Hipstamatic app to produce cool images. This time around it was all me. I set the camera to manual focus and took a lot of time getting things positioned to exactly where I wanted them to be. Those are the good things that happened.
I thought the shoot was a success until I uploaded the photos and saw what I came up with on the big screen. The lighting seemed wrong. I didn't diffuse any of the lights pointed at the set because, to my eye, it looked soft. But the hard copy proved otherwise. The light was harsh and all of the wood tones in the props had orangey glow. Maybe I should have reduced the number of lights. Maybe I should have turned off all the overhead lights in the room to control the ambient light bouncing off surfaces. Maybe I should have diffused the light. I don't know. Additionally, John's ring was so shiny that it was difficult to find photos without my reflection, something I hadn't contemplated when shooting. I also could have used a tripod, something I don't currently own. Trial and error.
I'm happy with the images that I eventually got but - a lot of the originals were unusable. And the ones that survived required more editing than I'm comfortable with. Live and learn, I guess. I'll have to do more research, keep trying to figure out that dang lighting.
View the full set on my Flickr. Additional photos from the shoot after the jump.
It took me so long to get around to round two because I was so happy with what I conceived for round one that I was unsure if I could come up with any new ideas. The process of round two seemed to go better than the first. The first time I relied heavily on my iPhone and Hipstamatic app to produce cool images. This time around it was all me. I set the camera to manual focus and took a lot of time getting things positioned to exactly where I wanted them to be. Those are the good things that happened.
I thought the shoot was a success until I uploaded the photos and saw what I came up with on the big screen. The lighting seemed wrong. I didn't diffuse any of the lights pointed at the set because, to my eye, it looked soft. But the hard copy proved otherwise. The light was harsh and all of the wood tones in the props had orangey glow. Maybe I should have reduced the number of lights. Maybe I should have turned off all the overhead lights in the room to control the ambient light bouncing off surfaces. Maybe I should have diffused the light. I don't know. Additionally, John's ring was so shiny that it was difficult to find photos without my reflection, something I hadn't contemplated when shooting. I also could have used a tripod, something I don't currently own. Trial and error.
I'm happy with the images that I eventually got but - a lot of the originals were unusable. And the ones that survived required more editing than I'm comfortable with. Live and learn, I guess. I'll have to do more research, keep trying to figure out that dang lighting.
View the full set on my Flickr. Additional photos from the shoot after the jump.
9.15.2011
View of the Forevertron
And now for something completely different.
John's parents visited for a few days recently. Mary said to treat the both of them like tourists, as they hadn't spent any significant amount of time in the area since the 1970s. I appreciated the opportunity to share our home with them, our geographies, and the off-the-beaten-path Wisconsin that I love so much.
I'm not sure what Richard and Mary were expecting as we trekked from Madison to the Forevertron, just outside Sauk City. I had shown them Tom Every's biography and website, explained the Forevertron as the world's largest scrap metal sculpture, but how do you really adequately describe something so vast and intricate, beautiful and strange?
I can't remember how old I was the first time my family and I visited the Art Park, trespassing our way onto the property through the junkyard behind Delaney's Surplus. I was young enough that Delaney's seemed to stretch on forever, junk piled upon junk. We reached the back of the lot where a well-traveled footpath was cut through the brush, Secret Garden-esque. On the other side of the tall weeds loomed the Forevertron, unexpected but expected, like all of Delaney's junk had gotten sick of laying around and assembled itself in a way that sort of made sense. Despite being several stories tall, the Forevertron was completely hidden from the highway; we must have gone past it a hundred times and never knew it was there. We didn't know anything about "art" or "sculpture." But even as a child I had visions of a madman starting in one corner of his property and working his way toward the other, physically manifesting the heroes and monsters and creatures in his mind until they all were quiet. Isn't that what art is, anyway?
Thankfully the park was open the Friday we visited, as the man himself was there, Tom Every and his wife Eleanor. I was too intimidated to talk to him; having wondered about him for most of my life, I was paralyzed by inadequacy. But John's dad Richard had a long conversation with Every, who was pleased that he wasn't an engineer or social worker from Madison.
I ambled around purposelessly with my camera, not intending to take pictures of anything but knowing that I would kick myself if I saw something and didn't have any equipment. I took pictures at the Art Park last year, and The Camera Company Photographers group has been there at least once. I was skeptical that there was anything in the park that I hadn't seen or that I could see in a new way. But if there's anything I'm learning lately it's that photography is counterintuitive to my whole nature in that planning only gets you so far. There's a point where my conscious mind turns off, loses interest, stops trying. But that's when my subconscious mind takes over, quietly taking notes and making lists and once in awhile making me stop when it sees something particularly interesting. I've learned that it's better to have my camera around when that happens. Click.
The rusted out car was parked in overgrown weeds in the northeast corner of the park, seemingly forgotten. I crouched down next to it to get a better look at the inside and realized that I had a perfectly framed view of the Forevertron through the dingy driver's side window. The perspective reminded me of another photo I saw a few months ago (that I can't find despite all my Googling) in which the photographer was crouched behind a car, taking photos through the window of soldiers passing by. It had the same foreground in which one could see the interior of the car and the steering wheel, and the sense of the photographer's cowering position created so much tension that I couldn't take my eyes away from it. I tried to recreate that pose in the photo above. I'm not sure if I succeeded in this particular photo - I would have done better if not for the noon light shadowing the inside of the car and blowing out the background. But the car's state of neglect and the outline of the Forevertron through the window give the photo an apocalyptic feel. I'm pleased with the result, and maybe I'll try the same shot again sometime in better lighting.
More photos from Dr. Evermor's are on my Flickr.
John's parents visited for a few days recently. Mary said to treat the both of them like tourists, as they hadn't spent any significant amount of time in the area since the 1970s. I appreciated the opportunity to share our home with them, our geographies, and the off-the-beaten-path Wisconsin that I love so much.
I'm not sure what Richard and Mary were expecting as we trekked from Madison to the Forevertron, just outside Sauk City. I had shown them Tom Every's biography and website, explained the Forevertron as the world's largest scrap metal sculpture, but how do you really adequately describe something so vast and intricate, beautiful and strange?
I can't remember how old I was the first time my family and I visited the Art Park, trespassing our way onto the property through the junkyard behind Delaney's Surplus. I was young enough that Delaney's seemed to stretch on forever, junk piled upon junk. We reached the back of the lot where a well-traveled footpath was cut through the brush, Secret Garden-esque. On the other side of the tall weeds loomed the Forevertron, unexpected but expected, like all of Delaney's junk had gotten sick of laying around and assembled itself in a way that sort of made sense. Despite being several stories tall, the Forevertron was completely hidden from the highway; we must have gone past it a hundred times and never knew it was there. We didn't know anything about "art" or "sculpture." But even as a child I had visions of a madman starting in one corner of his property and working his way toward the other, physically manifesting the heroes and monsters and creatures in his mind until they all were quiet. Isn't that what art is, anyway?
Thankfully the park was open the Friday we visited, as the man himself was there, Tom Every and his wife Eleanor. I was too intimidated to talk to him; having wondered about him for most of my life, I was paralyzed by inadequacy. But John's dad Richard had a long conversation with Every, who was pleased that he wasn't an engineer or social worker from Madison.
I ambled around purposelessly with my camera, not intending to take pictures of anything but knowing that I would kick myself if I saw something and didn't have any equipment. I took pictures at the Art Park last year, and The Camera Company Photographers group has been there at least once. I was skeptical that there was anything in the park that I hadn't seen or that I could see in a new way. But if there's anything I'm learning lately it's that photography is counterintuitive to my whole nature in that planning only gets you so far. There's a point where my conscious mind turns off, loses interest, stops trying. But that's when my subconscious mind takes over, quietly taking notes and making lists and once in awhile making me stop when it sees something particularly interesting. I've learned that it's better to have my camera around when that happens. Click.
The rusted out car was parked in overgrown weeds in the northeast corner of the park, seemingly forgotten. I crouched down next to it to get a better look at the inside and realized that I had a perfectly framed view of the Forevertron through the dingy driver's side window. The perspective reminded me of another photo I saw a few months ago (that I can't find despite all my Googling) in which the photographer was crouched behind a car, taking photos through the window of soldiers passing by. It had the same foreground in which one could see the interior of the car and the steering wheel, and the sense of the photographer's cowering position created so much tension that I couldn't take my eyes away from it. I tried to recreate that pose in the photo above. I'm not sure if I succeeded in this particular photo - I would have done better if not for the noon light shadowing the inside of the car and blowing out the background. But the car's state of neglect and the outline of the Forevertron through the window give the photo an apocalyptic feel. I'm pleased with the result, and maybe I'll try the same shot again sometime in better lighting.
More photos from Dr. Evermor's are on my Flickr.
8.10.2011
Thoughts from a Plane Crash
At the scene of an accident, it's not a good sign when the frenetic pace slows, firefighters begin lifting off their helmets, paramedics draw farther away. The plane, bent in wrong directions like a broken bone, was laying where it had crumpled and came to rest against the side of a storage shed.
I was standing in tall grass between Jeff and a rusted out washing machine when a fireman approached us. "It just dropped out of the sky," he said with a combination of astonishment and exhaustion.
His voice dropped off. "They've passed," he said.
We don't respond to accident calls often. I don't know how to succinctly explain it - other papers like to publish accident photos from time to time, and it always gives me a bad taste in my mouth. It's just not nice.
The plane crash was different. There was no debating whether or not we were going to respond, no looking up addresses while questioning if it was worth our time to drive out there. A plane crash. I sprang up, haphazardly predicting what I needed to bring to the scene like gathering possessions to rescue from my burning home. Jeff was already out the door. Nate the intern trailed behind.
We drove like maniacs across town, and it seemed like everyone with a police scanner was headed in the same direction. I called my dad. "They're trapped," he said, relaying what he heard on the scanner. "They've started CPR."
We parked behind the VFW Hall and a man in a station wagon was telling a guy with a baby stroller that he had seen the whole thing. "Go talk to him!" I yelled to Nate, struggling to keep up with Jeff.
I felt blindly pulled like a magnet toward the accident scene, ignoring fences and driveways. Jeff led us the long way along the road, scolding me for trespassing. "That's private property," he yelled behind him.
As we approached the scene, a sheriff with a white handlebar mustache and brown uniform was pulling police tape across our path. My stomach dropped.
The sheriff looked up and saw us. "Did you get a good picture yet, Jeff?" he asked, lifting the police tape so we could go under. "I know you won't get in the way."
As we approached the scene, the reporter part of my brain started to take over, filing away facts and details, making lists. The red barn and red fire truck standing stark against that clear blue summer sky, calm and still. The plane, looking fake like a movie prop, wrong in the scene before us. Firemen swarming everywhere. The jaws of life.
Jeff, with a surprising knowledge of airplanes, relayed technical details to me as we stood several yards away. "That's an ultralight," he said of the plane in front of us. "You're more secure in a Ferris Wheel." We stood back, trying to decipher what was going on in the scene before us, trying to make sense of all the people and objects that had converged in this ordinary trucking yard. The only thing that was obvious, the thing that later played through my head over and over, was the moment when all of the emergency people gave up, slowed down, and stepped back.
Back at the office, my adrenaline still pumping, I flew into reporter overdrive. I got on the phone and called every person I could think of who would have information, an ultimately useless task as the tragedy was still new. No one knew anything, least of all me, and I had no idea what to do next.
I didn't go to journalism school, but I don't think there's standard procedure for handling a tragedy. I put off writing the front page article until a few days later, forcing myself to talk to those involved, forcing myself to go over the events one more time. As a reporter, I have always felt that my responsibility has been to make things make sense, and more than my grief over the event itself, more than my disbelief, more than the images playing over and over in my head, I think what bothers me more than anything right now is an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. I can't make this make sense. I can give you the facts. I can describe what happened at the scene. I can provide photos. I can find things out. But I can't make them make sense. I just can't.
Additional photos from the scene are linked from my Flickr earlier in this blog. A full write-up of the story will be available in this week's Reedsburg Independent, on newsstands Wednesday and in subscriber mailboxes on Thursday.
I was standing in tall grass between Jeff and a rusted out washing machine when a fireman approached us. "It just dropped out of the sky," he said with a combination of astonishment and exhaustion.
His voice dropped off. "They've passed," he said.
We don't respond to accident calls often. I don't know how to succinctly explain it - other papers like to publish accident photos from time to time, and it always gives me a bad taste in my mouth. It's just not nice.
The plane crash was different. There was no debating whether or not we were going to respond, no looking up addresses while questioning if it was worth our time to drive out there. A plane crash. I sprang up, haphazardly predicting what I needed to bring to the scene like gathering possessions to rescue from my burning home. Jeff was already out the door. Nate the intern trailed behind.
We drove like maniacs across town, and it seemed like everyone with a police scanner was headed in the same direction. I called my dad. "They're trapped," he said, relaying what he heard on the scanner. "They've started CPR."
We parked behind the VFW Hall and a man in a station wagon was telling a guy with a baby stroller that he had seen the whole thing. "Go talk to him!" I yelled to Nate, struggling to keep up with Jeff.
I felt blindly pulled like a magnet toward the accident scene, ignoring fences and driveways. Jeff led us the long way along the road, scolding me for trespassing. "That's private property," he yelled behind him.
As we approached the scene, a sheriff with a white handlebar mustache and brown uniform was pulling police tape across our path. My stomach dropped.
The sheriff looked up and saw us. "Did you get a good picture yet, Jeff?" he asked, lifting the police tape so we could go under. "I know you won't get in the way."
As we approached the scene, the reporter part of my brain started to take over, filing away facts and details, making lists. The red barn and red fire truck standing stark against that clear blue summer sky, calm and still. The plane, looking fake like a movie prop, wrong in the scene before us. Firemen swarming everywhere. The jaws of life.
Jeff, with a surprising knowledge of airplanes, relayed technical details to me as we stood several yards away. "That's an ultralight," he said of the plane in front of us. "You're more secure in a Ferris Wheel." We stood back, trying to decipher what was going on in the scene before us, trying to make sense of all the people and objects that had converged in this ordinary trucking yard. The only thing that was obvious, the thing that later played through my head over and over, was the moment when all of the emergency people gave up, slowed down, and stepped back.
Back at the office, my adrenaline still pumping, I flew into reporter overdrive. I got on the phone and called every person I could think of who would have information, an ultimately useless task as the tragedy was still new. No one knew anything, least of all me, and I had no idea what to do next.
I didn't go to journalism school, but I don't think there's standard procedure for handling a tragedy. I put off writing the front page article until a few days later, forcing myself to talk to those involved, forcing myself to go over the events one more time. As a reporter, I have always felt that my responsibility has been to make things make sense, and more than my grief over the event itself, more than my disbelief, more than the images playing over and over in my head, I think what bothers me more than anything right now is an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. I can't make this make sense. I can give you the facts. I can describe what happened at the scene. I can provide photos. I can find things out. But I can't make them make sense. I just can't.
Additional photos from the scene are linked from my Flickr earlier in this blog. A full write-up of the story will be available in this week's Reedsburg Independent, on newsstands Wednesday and in subscriber mailboxes on Thursday.
7.22.2011
Caz
Sunday was the start of an extreme heat wave here in Wisconsin, and John and I ventured from Madison to Cazenovia to catch the annual Caz Celebration parade. It was about an hour and a half drive north that took us through Reedsburg; as John commented, "There's no road that goes straight there." We followed 12 then 33 then 58 from LaValle to Caz, which has to be one of the prettiest roads around, through the bluffs of the driftless area in central Wisconsin.
Caz is a very small town with a very big spirit. Despite the heat, Sunday's parade was no different. With temperatures stretching into the 90s, I was afraid that the parade would be cancelled, but the people of Caz, and John and I, soldiered on. But I've never seen so much candy thrown in a parade and so few kids willing to run for it.
We parked in a field by the American Legion, trooped up to the main street running through town, past the gorgeous Lee Lake (picturesque doesn't even begin to cover it). We met some nice older ladies willing to share a shady bench with us ("As long as you understand that any M&Ms thrown this way are mine," one sternly told us) and the parade commenced.
Working for the paper, my role now is more documenting the parade than chasing after candy, and you never know what kind of images you're going to wind up with. It's impossible to set up something you know will look good. You can anticipate what you think might be in the parade, and there are a few default shots you know you can count on just in case something goes wrong. I generally have no game plan, and that's both exhilarating and terrifying. What if I don't get a good shot? What if I've spent all this time and I wind up with nothing? I guess you could have those anxieties about any photo you take, but I feel like with parades (and similar events) the stakes are higher - it takes nearly the whole day and there are no do-overs. And with my job, I know a photo from the day will go into the paper that week. Better make it a good one.
Pretty much the only variable you can control is where you stand, and I typically run up and down the street the whole time. I get anxious and have trouble staying in one place, but most of all I want to make sure that I'm not in anyone's way. On Sunday, I lost myself and forgot about everything except taking photos, which was nice to be immersed and focused, but not so nice if you are running back and forth in the middle of an intersection in 90+ degree heat with your back to the sun. The parade lasted about a half hour or 45 minutes, and at the end, I was beat.
At one point, I did snap out of it long enough to realize that someone had thrown a bag of M&Ms at my feet. I promptly delivered it to John's benchmate, who was tickled pink. "Life is good!" she exclaimed, and I agreed.
Wisconsin parades are pretty much the only parades I've ever known, except for the ones I've seen on TV, and I still get excited for them. How many parades feature all of the fire trucks and tractors in town? The Caz parade wasn't as long as the Butterfest parade, but they are still the same kind of deal - floats, people walking, tractors and vehicles, candy and Super Soakers. It's an amazing thing that from a city as big as Reedsburg to a village as small as Caz, the parade serves as a showcase to the many groups and businesses that call that town home and the community coming together to recognize them. It was a celebration in the true sense of the word.
In the photo above, I was trying to get a creative photo of the Caz firetrucks; we typically don't put the parade firetrucks in the paper because it's hard to get something other than an angle shot of the whole truck. And while I knew I took a close-up photo of the driver, I didn't realize how perfectly the shot was set up until later. The photo above captures that day exactly - you've got the fire truck at the right with the gold "Cazenovia Fire Department" lettering, driver with a handlebar mustache and pink fuzzy dice in the window. Behind him you can see an Old Style sign from one of the many bars that line the main street of Caz. As your eye travels to the left, I love the bright flags popping out against that hot blue sky, the tractors continuing the parade into the distance. Far off in the distance you can see one of the gorgeous bluffs I was talking about earlier. I would love to take credit for this image, but I think in this case, it was just pure luck.
Caz is a very small town with a very big spirit. Despite the heat, Sunday's parade was no different. With temperatures stretching into the 90s, I was afraid that the parade would be cancelled, but the people of Caz, and John and I, soldiered on. But I've never seen so much candy thrown in a parade and so few kids willing to run for it.
We parked in a field by the American Legion, trooped up to the main street running through town, past the gorgeous Lee Lake (picturesque doesn't even begin to cover it). We met some nice older ladies willing to share a shady bench with us ("As long as you understand that any M&Ms thrown this way are mine," one sternly told us) and the parade commenced.
Working for the paper, my role now is more documenting the parade than chasing after candy, and you never know what kind of images you're going to wind up with. It's impossible to set up something you know will look good. You can anticipate what you think might be in the parade, and there are a few default shots you know you can count on just in case something goes wrong. I generally have no game plan, and that's both exhilarating and terrifying. What if I don't get a good shot? What if I've spent all this time and I wind up with nothing? I guess you could have those anxieties about any photo you take, but I feel like with parades (and similar events) the stakes are higher - it takes nearly the whole day and there are no do-overs. And with my job, I know a photo from the day will go into the paper that week. Better make it a good one.
Pretty much the only variable you can control is where you stand, and I typically run up and down the street the whole time. I get anxious and have trouble staying in one place, but most of all I want to make sure that I'm not in anyone's way. On Sunday, I lost myself and forgot about everything except taking photos, which was nice to be immersed and focused, but not so nice if you are running back and forth in the middle of an intersection in 90+ degree heat with your back to the sun. The parade lasted about a half hour or 45 minutes, and at the end, I was beat.
At one point, I did snap out of it long enough to realize that someone had thrown a bag of M&Ms at my feet. I promptly delivered it to John's benchmate, who was tickled pink. "Life is good!" she exclaimed, and I agreed.
Wisconsin parades are pretty much the only parades I've ever known, except for the ones I've seen on TV, and I still get excited for them. How many parades feature all of the fire trucks and tractors in town? The Caz parade wasn't as long as the Butterfest parade, but they are still the same kind of deal - floats, people walking, tractors and vehicles, candy and Super Soakers. It's an amazing thing that from a city as big as Reedsburg to a village as small as Caz, the parade serves as a showcase to the many groups and businesses that call that town home and the community coming together to recognize them. It was a celebration in the true sense of the word.
In the photo above, I was trying to get a creative photo of the Caz firetrucks; we typically don't put the parade firetrucks in the paper because it's hard to get something other than an angle shot of the whole truck. And while I knew I took a close-up photo of the driver, I didn't realize how perfectly the shot was set up until later. The photo above captures that day exactly - you've got the fire truck at the right with the gold "Cazenovia Fire Department" lettering, driver with a handlebar mustache and pink fuzzy dice in the window. Behind him you can see an Old Style sign from one of the many bars that line the main street of Caz. As your eye travels to the left, I love the bright flags popping out against that hot blue sky, the tractors continuing the parade into the distance. Far off in the distance you can see one of the gorgeous bluffs I was talking about earlier. I would love to take credit for this image, but I think in this case, it was just pure luck.
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