Laura Argalis Thursday, June 26, 2008

A few portraits of my friend, Laura, shot today at her studio in Milwaukie. Check out her website here.

Campbell Memorial

Portland Firefighter of the Year Tony Snook rings a bell June 26 as the roll is called at the 97th Campbell Memorial Ceremony, which honors firefighters killed in action.Recent research led to the addition of four names to the roll in 2008, bringing the total to 36 who died between 1881 and 1977.

The annual Campbell Memorial Ceremony is named for Chief David Campbell, who was killed when a burning building collapsed June 26, 1911. Every year, Portland firefighters gather at Portland Firefighters Park to honor him and other local firefighters killed in action.

The park sits on a small wedge of land on West Burnside between 18th and 19th streets. The monument was built in the 1920s.

Dignitaries on hand for this year's ceremony included new City Commissioner Nick Fish and Police Chief Rosie Sizer, as well as descendants of some of the firefighters on the roll.

[right] Peter Linsky, President of the David Campbell Memorial, addresses the audience June 26. [below] A couple dozen uniformed firefighters were on hand for the ceremony, along with a handful of police officers and other participants.

Hayden rocks Portland Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Canadian rocker Hayden played to a small but enthusiastic crowd tonight at the Aladdin Theater in Portland. A couple of hundred Hayden fans showed up to see him and opening act Haley Bonar.

It was a fun show to see—with only a couple hundred die-hards to play to, Hayden was able to interact pretty intimately with the audience (although I've heard that he's usually that way), and I like that: it makes each show a unique experience that you can't get by throwing the CD in your player.

These are a couple of bonus pictures. You can see full coverage on Northwest CanCon.

Interview with Jeremy Fisher Friday, June 20, 2008

The highlight of my day was definitely the interview I did with Jeremy Fisher before his show at the Roseland here in Portland. You might not recognize his name, but you may well have seen his home-made video for "Cigarette" which "went viral," as they say, on YouTube about 18 months ago, I think. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's very well done, and the song is catchy too. And it's up over 2.1 million hits now.

Jeremy was really cool, down-to-earth, and easy to talk to, and so were his band mates. The rest of the people at the Roseland were also very helpful.

Here is the portrait I made of Jeremy in one of the hallways at the theater. I went down to the theater earlier in the day to scout it out. I saw this hallway through the Burnside St. windows, and figured it would be a good place to shoot. The only problem was the constricted space—lots of headroom, but the hallway is only about four feet wide. I shot it with a pair of speedlights in a simple cross-lit configuration. I was lying on the floor to maximize the number of photos in the background, but I had to avoid the ugly fluorescent lights on the ceiling. You can just see the reflection of one of them in the top right corner.

Links to the interviews are posted on NW CanCon. There's about 20 minutes of material there, split into two parts for your convenience!

It's me! Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I spent a few minutes messing around with my speedlights this evening, in the only space in my apartment big enough for anything. Well, I guess I could have used my bedroom, but that would have required even more cleaning up.

My tripod is in the car, so I put the camera on my bass amp, pointed slightly upwards by a small box. The main light (camera left) was sitting on top of my CD rack; the fill (camera right) was on top of my TV. I only have three PocketWizards, one short of what I'd need to fire two lights and a remote camera, so I triggered the camera with a PocketWizard and used the CLS infrared system to fire the lights. I set off the whole thing with a PW that I triggered with my toe!

I made a whole bunch of images, but this one is probably best reflection of me right now: tired. I'm going to bed.

Hot News!

My other blog, Northwest CanCon, took a major step forward today, booking an interview with Jeremy Fisher.

Sometimes sounding like Bob Dylan with singing lessons, other times like Paul Simon circa 1975, the Vancouver-based singer/songwriter was nominated for both New Artist of the Year and Adult Alternative Album of the Year at the 2008 Junos. I'll be speaking with him Thursday, when he's in town for a show at the Roseland.

If you're in town, check out the show. If not (or even if you are), be sure to tune in to this space for the interview.

Goofing around in Corvallis

Sean Hoffman poses June 15 in a coffee shop in Corvallis, Ore.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was on the road last weekend. After Friday's shoots in Coos Bay, I drove back to Eugene for the night.

Saturday was a pretty straightforward day of graduations at the University of Oregon. Apart from some last-minute changes to the specific ceremonies I was to shoot, it was no big deal.

After the last ceremony of the day wrapped up around 6, we headed back to the hotel. A group of four of us headed across the road to get a bite to eat, then were to put in another hour or two's worth of work scanning address cards and downloading the day's pictures. I figured we'd be done with that by about 10 or so, leaving plenty of time to go out for a beer. But that wasn't to be.

Upon returning to the hotel after dinner, Michael, our fearless leader, reported problems with the scanner and internet connection. There was no way that we would be able to get all the pictures done and still be able to function for Sunday's graduation at Oregon State. He made the executive decision to overnight most of the work to the office in California. The only problem: there was no UPS, FedEx option in Eugene on Saturday night, nor either of the air freight companies we deal with. The quickest way to get the stuff to LA was to put it on a flight Sunday morning in Portland.

I got the honor of getting it there. After completing as much work as we could by midnight and packaging everything else up, I went to bed. I got up at 3, put the stuff in the car, and drove straight to PDX. (It's really quiet on the freeways at 4 a.m. on a Sunday.) I delivered the two boxes to the Southwest freight counter at 5:30, then drove home. I managed to get another two hours or so of sleep, got up, showered, and drove back down to Corvallis where the rest of the crew were getting ready for the Northwest Region's largest graduation ceremony of the year.

Squirrel's Tavern in Corvallis, Ore., is quiet on a Sunday evening.

The ceremony at OSU is really something else. Rather than have departmental ceremonies like the U of Oregon, OSU has one ceremony for the entire class in Reser Stadium. I'd guess there were at least 10,000 family and friends in the stands—it's really something to be down on the field with that many people cheering.

Anyhow, the 2100 graduates assemble in a park a few blocks away from the stadium, then all march in together. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and 75 degrees with a little breeze. But the ceremony is long. They only read the names of the Ph.D. candidates, and the bachelors walk through four separate lines, but there are a lot of them.

You know what the most impressive thing is, though? Unlike most schools, where the students just receive an empty folder as they walk across the stage, all of the OSU graduates receive a folder with their actual name in it! Unbelievable. I can't imagine the logistics of arranging that, but they do it every year.

This is what happens when a photographer (Sean) points a camera at two other photographers (Matthew and Margie).

Anyhow, after we wrapped up everything there, pretty much everybody was ready for a break. Most of us went to a pizza place near the campus for a bite to eat and a beer. With no commitments for Monday morning, Margie Pettit, Sean Hoffman and I stayed a little later.

Elkton, Oregon Monday, June 16, 2008

Not much time to post right now, but it's been a while.

Last Friday I drove down to Coos Bay, about four hours from Portland on the southern Oregon coast, to shoot a graduation at Southwestern Oregon Community College. For the first time in far too long, it was a nice, warm, sunny day. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to enjoy it.

The fastest route to Coos Bay passes through Eugene to Curtin, where you take OR-38 across the Coast Range to Reedsport, then another 30 miles south to Coos Bay.

I stopped for fuel (auto and human) in Elkton, about 25 miles off I-5 on OR-38. I bought the gas first, and asked the attendant where the best place in town was to eat. I was looking for something quick and not too expensive. "Well that narrows it down to Arlene's," he said, one block away from the gas station.

"You can eat in a booth or at the bar," he added, "but I wouldn't eat at the bar if I was you. The bartender's the ugliest SOB you've ever seen, more chins than China."

I said I'd be sure to tell him you said that. It's probably your brother, I joked.

"No, my brother-in-law. It probably wouldn't go over too well." I decided to sit in a booth and not say anything. Turns out that the girl at the bar was a cute blonde teeny-bopper, so it probably wasn't the same person. I ordered a hot roast beef sandwich. It was fast—on my table in less than 10 minutes—and edible but not particularly good. I took a couple of photos of the main drag, and headed out of town.

MacLeay Park Sunday, June 08, 2008

Ben and Jeremy hike along a trail in Portland's MacLeay Park June 7, 2008.

Late yesterday afternoon, my buddy Ben called me up and said he and Jeremy were going for a hike in Forest Park, did I want to come? I wasn't really up to anything, so I said sure.

It was a cool, grey day, but not raining. Ben picked me and Jeremy up, and drove us about a mile to a trail head for the Lower MacLeay trail at about 29th and Upshur Street.

(MacLeay Park is one section of the 5,100-acre Forest Park in Northwest Portland.)

In spite of its proximity to my apartment, I'd never been to that part of the park. As you hike along Balch Creek you can hardly even tell you're in the city.

The creek is named for Danford Balch, the original settler in the area. Balch, who would become the first person in Portland to be tried and hanged (for the murder of his son-in-law), acquired the 640 acre spread through a Donation Land Claim in 1850. His story reads like something out of Shakespeare—read it here.

The Stone House sits along the Lower MacLeay trail about three-quarters of a mile up Balch Creek. It is often, incorrectly, thought to be the remnants of the Balch family homestead. In fact, it was a public restroom built in the Great Depression but eventually abandoned due to excessive vandalism.

Shortly after we passed the Stone House the trail started climbing steeply. Suddenly we came to a small clearing right next to Cornell Rd., with a trail map and a parking lot. Since we had plenty of energy and daylight left, we decided to press on toward Pittock Mansion.

We crossed the road and found the continuation of the trail, which climbed even more steeply than before. We kept following the trail until it suddenly dumped us out on NW MacLeay Blvd.: way up in the West Hills, but not where we'd expected to be. We must have missed an intersection at some point. Oh well. We headed back down another loop that took us back to Cornell Rd., then back down to Balch Creek and the car.

Balch Creek is one of two year-round streams in Forest Park. It has a native population of trout.

When you wish upon a star ... Thursday, June 05, 2008

Make-A-Wish recipient Owen (left), stares in wonder as a squadron of Stormtroopers gets out of a MAX train June 3 at Pioneer Courthouse Square. The characters, from the 501st Legion, Cloud City Garrison, were on hand to help the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oregon send Owen off on his wish trip to Disney World's Star Wars weekend.





Wearing parts of his new Stormtrooper costume, Owen fights Darth Vader.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oregon kicked off their "Destination Joy" campaign Tuesday morning with a gathering in Pioneer Courthouse Square. The highlight of the event was the presentation of a new Stormtrooper costume to Owen, 6, who was diagnosed with cancer last year. Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and several Stormtroopers were on hand to make the surprise presentation to Owen.

Several media outlets were there for the celebration, including KATU, who broadcast parts of it live on AM Northwest (including a little bit of me at work in the background).

Starlight Parade Sunday, June 01, 2008

Royal Rosarians like Careen Langslet (right) are the "official greeters and ambassadors of goodwill for the City of Portland." One of their annual duties is to marshal the Starlight Parade, which wound through downtown Portland last Saturday night.


[above] Even recycling was cause to dance as the annual Rose Festival kicked off May 31 with the Starlight Parade. Portland Recycles' entry was one of dozens of floats, bands and other groups that marched in the nighttime parade. [below] The parade drew people of all ages to downtown Portland on Saturday night.

Last year I stumbled across the tail end of the Starlight Parade as I walked home from another event. The annual nighttime parade has roots back to 1907, and is one of the most popular events in Portland's annual Rose Festival.

This year, I found the time to check out the event for myself. It was alright, but not as good as I'd anticipated. Maybe my expectations were too high. There were a lot of entries (approaching 100, I think), including some very good bands, but I was expecting more of a light show—you know, use the darkness of the night for some kind of creative light show. There were a few attempts in that direction, but nothing really spectacular that I saw. (To be fair, I did shoot a lot of the parade from the corner of SW Broadway and Salmon, where KGW8 had the whole block lit up for their TV coverage and I could get the Arlene Schnitzer's marquee in the background. The light helped my pictures, but may have diminished the impact of any light shows the entries had. But I didn't see anything that made me say "Wow, that would look really cool if it were darker.")

[left] Even Honest Abe made an appearance May 31 at the Starlight Parade. [below] Probably the coolest thing I saw at the parade was Portland Fire & Rescue, who would set up a 20-foot ladder in the middle of the street and have one of their own do a swan dive off the top into the crash pad below, just like you see in the old-time movies. Lieutenant Inspector Louisa Jones, seen at the top of the ladder here, says they only let the smaller people do it--otherwise "it's too hard on the people below."

What was cooler, that I hadn't expected to see, was the Starlight Run. The 5-km race celebrated its 30th anniversary this year by looking back to the 1970s for the costume contest. Yes, you read that right—before the starting gun goes off, the runners' outfits are judged. I caught them at the corner of W Burnside and Broadway, about halfway through the race. As you can see, some of the runners are more serious than others.

NW CanCon Monday, May 26, 2008

Announcing: NW CanCon, the ultimate resource for Canadian Music in the Pacific Northwest.

I just wanted to let you know about a new project I've been working on for a couple of weeks, called NW CanCon. It's technically a blog, but it will play more like a website. Maybe someday I'll give it its own domain, but for now it's hosted over on Wordpress for two reasons: mostly so I can try it out, and also because they make it easy to do web pages.

Anyhow, the main point of the site is to keep tabs on upcoming concerts and appearances by Canadian bands and musicians in Oregon and Washington. Hopefully we'll be able to put some photos and interviews up there too. As a side benefit, I've compiled a list of all the current Canadian acts I can come up with, including links to their official websites. I have a list of defunct acts as well, which will be up there eventually.

If you know of an upcoming show in the area, or a band that I haven't listed please let me know.

California Sunday, May 25, 2008

Rush hour traffic builds May 22 on I-80 heading toward the Bay Bridge May 22 in San Francisco.

Friday morning began with another 4:40 a.m. alarm to get me out to the airport in time for a 7:20 flight. Postponing a shower, I dressed in the dark to avoid waking my roommate.

I realized, as I returned my rental car, that I'd forgotten to fill the tank. D'oh! Not much to do about that now. I headed up to catch a shuttle to the airport.

Just as the bus appeared, I realized that I'd left my suit hanging in the closet at the hotel. Damn. I need that. So I went into the rental hut, and asked whether I might be able to get my car back. Too late, I'd have to rent another. So I tried to call the hotel. The directory that Avis had had the wrong number, so they called 411. That put me through to a fax machine. Geez.

So at 5:30 a.m. I called up my manager (who had probably had about 2 hours sleep, but was also due for an early morning flight). He gave me a number for the hotel. I called them, they put me through to my roommate, who was kind enough to bring my suit down to the front desk. They put it on the next shuttle to the airport, where I picked it up. That crisis averted, I went through security and got on a plane to Oakland.

In Oakland, I got a call from another photographer, Jim, who had been on the same flight. Since it was only about 10 and we didn't have to be at the shoot until 4:30, we decided to check into the hotel (in San Francisco), have some lunch, and then get back to Berkeley before the traffic got bad. We collected our vehicles and drove across the bay to a cute hotel with Japanese decor on Sutter Street.

Driving across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Oakland.

After plugging in my battery chargers, I met up with Jim who knew a great Thai restaurant right next to the hotel. Back at the hotel we took an hour or so to shower and get changed then headed back across the Bay Bridge for our shoot in Berkeley.

Having left San Francisco early to beat traffic, we had a couple of hours to kill in Berkeley. After doing a bit of Goodwill hunting, Jim and I stopped at a small coffee shop near the university. As we enjoyed cool drinks in the sun, I got a phone call—no change to today's shoot, but they needed me at San Jose State in the morning, instead of San Francisco State—still in the Bay Area, but about 50 miles south.

Hanging out May 22 at a coffee shop in Berkeley, Calif.

The Berkeley shoot was at the Greek Theatre. I wish I had a picture of it: it's a really cool amphitheater with these huge columns behind the stage, and about 20 feet up they had a bunch of colored flags. Down in the green room there were posters from some really amazing concerts that it's hosted, like the Beastie Boys and Wilco, and dozens more I can't remember. I kind of wish I lived closer.

Anyway, after the shoot, we headed back to the San Francisco hotel, I changed, packed up my stuff, looked up directions, and drove to another hotel in San Jose. I got there about 10 and checked in, then went looking for something to eat. The hotel restaurant was closed, so they recommended a restaurant about two blocks away—a bit expensive, but at nearly 11 p.m. I wasn't going to argue.

Saturday morning I got to sleep in until 6 before checking out and traveling in convoy to San Jose State University (I still don't know where it is). That job was big, but not as insane as I'd been led to believe. Then, after a quick group stop at Wendy's, we all rushed off to San Francisco State for their main ceremony. We got there just in time for the ceremony, but had plenty of time to get ready as the 3500 or so graduates processed into the stadium. The graduates probably won't remember it, but the band was great, the honorary degrees included Isabel Allende, and the keynote speech was delivered by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The ceremony was long—about four hours—and after some gear/car swapping, it was straight to the airport for me for the last flight home.

[left] A traveler sleeps at San Francisco International Airport May 22. He looks like I felt.

The grad season is only half over, but (barring some last-minute change, which wouldn't surprise me now) the rest are within driving distance of Portland. It will be nice to be back on my home turf.

A couple of days in Phoenix

My grandparents, Ken and Magda Davey, walk hand-in-hand May 21 across a parking lot in Phoenix, Ariz.

After last week's trip to the east coast, I had about 36 hours at home to get caught up and prepare for the next tour. This one promised to be a lot easier, if only because it was out west: shorter, direct flights, all in the same time zone.

Better yet, I got to leave a day early to visit my uncle and cousins in Phoenix, and my grandparents from Toronto who happened to be there visiting them.

My Tuesday afternoon flight to the Grand Canyon state was only a few minutes late. My checked bags arrived promptly, I picked up my rental car, and found light traffic on the Phoenix freeways, even though I arrived at the peak of rush hour.

I spent Tuesday evening and Wednesday with my family, not really doing anything in particular, just catching up. We were happy to stay indoors as it was well over 100°F there. Wednesday evening I went out on Mill Ave. in Tempe with my cousins, giving them an evening away from their daughters. That was fun, especially since I only get to see them once a year or so.

[right] An angelic Lila Schwier sleeps on her mother Audrey's lap. [below] Later, Lila was less of an angel.

Thursday it was back to work again. Rain had moved into the desert, and the temperature had dropped by 30°. I was supposed to be at the Maricopa County Events Center in Sun City West—northwest of Phoenix, a full 50 miles from my uncle's place in Mesa—at 12:30 to shoot two high school ceremonies. That morning I got a call that one of the other shooters, Ken, had missed his flight from Los Angeles, and could I pick him up at the airport at 11:30? No problem. Oh, and by the way, instead of shooting two ceremonies back-to-back in Sun City West, we need you to go to a different ceremony after the first grad. We'll have directions for you there. OK.

We got to the Events Center right on time, and that ceremony went pretty smoothly, at least for me. The second ceremony turned out to be in Casa Grande, southeast of Phoenix, 75 miles away. We had two hours, but knowing that we would have to drive through rush hour traffic, we figured it would be best to get in the neighborhood first, then find something to eat.

It turns out that Casa Grande, or at least the part we were in, is one of those instant bedroom communities that bloom in the desert like wildflowers after a rainfall. As we drove into town, there were helpful direction-finding signs at every intersection, each identifying eight to 10 residential developments being built. We didn't have much time, and without seeing any indication of a retail area, we settled for a gas station convenience store. Ken bought a burrito, I settled for a Coke.

[right] Only in Phoenix can this be considered "A Traditional Irish Pub and Restaurant."

Back at the school, the ceremony that had been planned for the football stadium was hastily being transferred indoors due to the steady rain. Chairs for the grads filled the gymnasium floor, the band was packed into a small space at the back of the gym, and there were some risers for the choir beside the 8-by-16 temporary stage. The gym's grandstands only fit about a third of the expected crowd. A closed-circuit TV system set up in the school's lobby area for the disgruntled remainder of the students' relatives.

Ken and I started getting set up, struggling to figure out how to photograph a two-line ceremony on the crowded, microscopic stage without getting the way of the grads or the video cameras broadcasting the ceremony to those outside the gym. Meanwhile, the other two photographers for the ceremony—who had the job bag with the event details, flash cards, and other things we needed—had missed the exit by about 20 miles. They arrived at the ceremony about 15 minutes before it began, and we scrambled to get them set up for their shots.

I don't know whether it was the weather, the crowded gymnasium, or just the school itself, but it was easily the loudest, most raucous graduation ceremony I've seen to date. There were at least a dozen beach balls and other inflatables bouncing around the sea of mortarboards, and there were tremendous cheers at every possible applause point.

Under normal circumstances, the 8 p.m. ceremony would have wrapped up around 10 but, mercifully, the fire marshal decided that there were too many people in the building, so the administration dispensed with all of the remaining speeches and went straight to the presentation of diplomas.

We were back to the hotel a bit before 11. We delivered our job bag to the war room, had some pizza and went to bed.

[left] Audrey and Julia read Letters Home May 21 in Phoenix.

Connecticut Wednesday, May 21, 2008

This is about all I saw of Connecticut this time around: I-84 near Middlebury.

One of the consequences of this whirlwind tour of the country is that I don't really get to see any of it. After dinner in New York on Saturday, I drove an hour and a half through a maze of freeways en route to Danbury, Conn.

Near the western edge of the state, Danbury is a small city that you've heard of but can't remember why. It turns out that, among other things, Danbury is the headquarters for a number of well-known companies: Scholastic Publishing, Praxair, and Ethan Allen Interiors.

Farooq Kathwari, president of Ethan Allen, was the honorary doctorate recipient at Western Connecticut State University's graduation last Sunday, which is what brought me to town.

For this particular event, the challenges thrown my way had nothing to do with travel, it was the event itself.

It should have been pretty straightforward: about 750 graduates in a single-line ceremony with two of us on hand to shoot pictures of them as they received their diplomas and a portrait just afterwards.

The night before the ceremony I checked the details and discovered that the ceremony would be held at WCSU's west campus, not the main campus as I had originally thought. This was actually more convenient for me as it was closer to the hotel.

I arrived at the event site at 8:30 a.m., the requisite two hours before the shoot was supposed to start, only to find that my paperwork was wrong, the ceremony would start at 10, not 10:30. No problem, we still had plenty of time. My partner wasn't there yet, but the hotel manager had indicated that she checked in, so I wasn't worried. I wondered if she might be headed to the other campus, but I didn't have her phone number so I just started getting ready for the ceremony.

I tried to get hold of the university's contact person, but she didn't answer her phone. I left a message, and talked to the alternate contact who was right at hand. He gave me the details of the ceremony--which direction the grads would be walking, where the presenter would stand, etc., and, as we were now within an hour of the ceremony I started preparing my partner's shot as well.

The clock continued to tick, and there was still no sign of my partner, so I started making phone calls. I looked at the job sheet for the ceremony: the regional manager's name was there, but no phone number. I looked in my kit for the company directory: it was missing. I looked at the other paperwork for some numbers: nothing. So I called the emergency 1-800 number listed on the job sheet ... no answer. I called the alternate emergency number ... no answer, not even an opportunity to leave a voice mail.

Hmmm... I have a ceremony coming up in about 30 minutes, and I'm the only one here. Realizing that it was about 6:30 a.m. on the west coast, I tried to call the Pacific Northwest regional manager--no answer. I called the only other name I had in my phone: a mid-west regional manager who had saved my butt the previous weekend when the airline lost my luggage. He didn't answer, so I left a message.

A couple minutes later, he called back, said he was shooting a race, and he'd be able to get me a phone number in a few minutes. With about 20 minutes to spare, I got another number I could call. With that number, I finally got hold of someone who knew what was going on.

It turns out that my partner for the event was sick. She'd called the regional manager and the university contact, but neither of those had bothered to pass that information along to me. An hour before the ceremony's start time the RM had dispatched one of the shooters another event to cover my shoot, but he was coming from somewhere in Massachusetts, 1.5 hours away.

The procession began, and Greg wasn't there. The provost's welcome, national anthem, president's congratulations, student speaker, honorary doctorate, and keynote speech all came and went without any sign of him. The grads started marching across the stage, and he still wasn't there.

I guess Greg arrived about 10 minutes after the grads started walking across the stage, and he jumped right in and started shooting. The university's coordinator cycled the ones he missed back into line, so he got everybody, although the order was completely messed up. I feel sorry for whoever it is back in Iowa that will have to sort them out. I won't bore you with details of the other technical issues that plagued the event.

Waterbury, Conn., locals hang out at Boru's Bar & Grill May 18. "What's the camera for?" they asked. "Taking pictures."

After the ceremony, Greg and I headed to Hartford for our flights home. Greg--who is also from Portland--had less than three hours to make the 1.5 hour drive, return his rental, check in, get through security and onto the plane. Lunch was out of the question, so we parted ways.

I, on the other hand, had a later flight and my empty stomach wouldn't be ignored. Halfway from Danbury to Hartford, I pulled off the highway in Waterbury to find a bite to eat.

Eschewing the fast food joints at the freeway exit, I drove towards the downtown area. It was pretty quiet at 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, but Boru's Bar & Grill was open. I was a bit out of place in my suit and tie, but I sat down at the bar anyway, as the half-dozen locals started throwing beer coasters at each other. I don't think there was any particular occasion, but they were pretty boisterous.

The menu described the hamburger as "so good it will change your life," so I ordered one of those and a coke. I'm not sure it was that good, but it was the best I've had in a while. Maybe if I'd ordered the cheeseburger.

Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) is a major hub for Northwest Airlines. I don't know when they started painting their fleet with the "nwa" logo, but that always meant something different to me.

After lunch I headed off to Bradley Airport for my return flight to Portland (via Minneapolis). Sure enough, there was Greg waiting at my gate. He'd missed his flight and spent the rest of the time trying to rearrange another way home.

We got back to Portland around 11:30 PDT and I went straight home to bed.

Saturday in New York Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Shawn Lynch signs up to borrow a Canon Powershot G9 May 17 at the New York Photo Festival in Brooklyn.

It's Tuesday afternoon and guess where I am--that's right, back at the airport. One of the things that makes PDX the TSA's 2007 Airport of the Year is the free wi-fi, which I'm taking full advantage of right now. Stories from this trip will come later. For now we'll backtrack to last weekend.

Saturday morning's shoot was at the Prudential Center, aka "The Rock," home of the New Jersey Devils, in downtown Newark. My colleague "Jack," with his 25 years of experience, was surprisingly dependent on me to set up the shots. The job was long, but uneventful.

I only had two jobs in the New York area on the weekend, so with the travel hassle it was marginally worthwhile. But what tipped the balance for me was the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the city. I'd only been to New York once before, for just an afternoon on a school trip when I was about 13, so all I know about New York is what I've seen in movies and on television.

As soon as my trip was confirmed I got hold of my buddy Shawn Lynch, who recently moved to NY from Boston. He said that he would be spending the day at the New York Photo Festival, so I jumped online and bought a day pass.

[right] The Manhattan Bridge looms large over the Empire State Building in this photo from the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn.

The Photo Festival is a huge, five-day gathering of photographers from all over the world, with seminars, panels, and gallery displays in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn. (Dumbo, which stands for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass" is an area of a few square blocks between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges right across the East River from Manhattan. It reminds me a lot of Portland's Pearl District--old brick warehouses renovated into art galleries and tony restaurants.) Most of the photography at the festival seemed to be fashion and fine art, but the Dumbo area is home to the VII photo agency, one of the foremost photojournalism and documentary photography agencies in the world.

After we met up Saturday, Shawn borrowed a Powershot G9 from the Canon booth at the festival, and we wandered around the neighborhood taking pictures of whatever inspired us. (I used my DSLR.) Here are a few of my favorites.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, so there were plenty of people in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
















[left] Shawn models for me in front of Tattfoo Tan's mural "NMS—Nature Matching System"





[right] A chef prepares sushi at the Miso Restaurant in Dumbo. [below right] In New York, it seems, people have to be told the obvious. One of the things I remember from my first trip to New York was a sign above a fire hydrant that said "This is not drinking water." This sign: "Pesticide application. Do not enter."

They're calling me to board the plane now ... gotta go.

More airports, more planes Monday, May 19, 2008

After shooting golf Monday and Tuesday last week, Wednesday was a welcome day back in the office—buying some groceries, charging batteries, answering emails, making phone calls.

Thursday was supposed to be basically a day off. All I had to do was take a case of camera gear to the FedEx outlet around the corner from my place. I had visions of taking a bike ride, doing some shopping, and maybe doing some housework. I slept in a bit, did laundry, and arranged some personal travel (Yay! more airplanes!) in the morning. The call with the address for the camera case finally came around noon. Just as I was about to walk over to Kinko's, I got another call—the powers that be decided it was more important to ship the case to California instead, so I had to drive to the airport to ship it "next flight guaranteed."

After getting that taken care of, I spent the rest of the afternoon arranging this week's travel and packing. So much for a day off.

Early Friday morning it was back to the airport for a flight to Newark.

This weekend's trip had its own challenges, but the travel itself was reasonably sane. I flew out to Newark via Minneapolis on Friday. Both of those legs are only about 2.5 hours in the air, and they were only about 1.5 hours late on the back end. My hotel was right at the airport, so that was convenient, and I got there at an entirely reasonable 8:30 p.m. I went down to the hotel restaurant and had a huge plate of chicken Parmesan on linguine, and went back to my hotel room.

For these overnight trips, EPG sets us up two to a room, and so you never know who you're going to be rooming with. Actually, I have the name of the person, but I haven't been sharing a room with anyone I've ever met before. For my night in Newark I was sharing a room with ... let's call him Jack.

Jack is from Seattle. He appears to be in his mid- to late-30s, but he said he's been shooting grads for 25 years, so who knows.

When I got back up to my room after dinner on Friday night, Jack was just moving in. We introduced ourselves as we consumed every outlet in the room with our various battery chargers and ironed our well-traveled shirts.

Jack—who had been on the road continuously for more than a week—raved on about this girl that he'd been on a self-imposed 6-week timeout with, but who was now asking when he would be back and then there was this girl he visited up in Toronto last week and how he wasn't properly expressing his emotions and this and that and whatever.

As I booted up my computer to check my email before bed, Jack warned me that he snores loudly, and also mentioned that he likes to go to sleep with one of those ambient sounds things playing. Tonight's track had a subliminal inspirational message, he said. Figuring that it could only be better than the sound of the air conditioner and that I was tired enough to sleep through anything, I said it wouldn't be a problem.

Jack turned on the sound, which began with crickets chirping, and then added another track of some electronic tumbling sound with deep strings behind it. Two chords in a descending major second, which then repeated. At that moment—about two hours after he had checked in—Jack realized that he'd left his car parked in the hotel entrance and went to move it.

He wasn't back for nearly an hour. When he came back into the room, he was again raving about his girl, who had called him "at just the right time" with, apparently, just the right news. So he went on about that for a while.

Meanwhile, the "sound" has been playing the whole time. Two chords in a descending major second, over and over and over again. I left it playing while he was gone, in an attempt to acclimate to it.

We turned out the lights around 11:30 to the sound of tumbling electrons in a descending major second.

An hour and a half later, Jack was fast asleep and I was not. Thankfully, I heard it fade into the distance as the track ended.

Just as I was slipping into a badly-needed sleep, the crickets came back. The track was on repeat. Damn.

Half an hour later, as the music box continued its eternal descending major seconds, I decided that politeness be damned: Jack was snoring and I wasn't going to get any sleep if that sound kept playing. So I got up and turned the infernal thing off.

Fifteen minutes later, Jack snored himself awake, got up, and turned the #@^% thing back on! I rolled over and buried my head in the pillows.

I guess I fell asleep somewhere around 2:30. The alarm went off at 5:40 with the inspirational sound still playing. I don't know if there was a subliminal message in that tape, but I didn't feel particularly inspired.

I shaved and showered and came out of the bathroom to hear the alarm going off again. "I keep hitting the snooze button so it keeps me on time," said a well-refreshed Jack, who had gone to the trouble of writing out the morning's schedule.

I turned on the TV to get caught up on the news while I dressed.

"Do you mind if we don't watch news?" asked Jack. "I don't want to see anything bad."

Well OK then. I turned the TV off.