Fractions of Seconds

Civil Discourse

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:25 -0600

Democratic candidate for 74th District seat in the Utah House of Representatives Cyril Nobel debates his incumbent opponent Dave Clark, left, during the St. George Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 on the campus of Dixie State College in St. George, Utah.
This is another image that was part of my portfolio that won first place in the 2010 Society of Professional Journalists Photographer of the Year category.

Thumbs Up

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:13 -0600

Washington County Bomb Squad team member Jason Whipple gives the thumbs up after checking the contents of an ammunition container that the bomb squad blew the lid off of and found to be empty Thursday, June 10, 2010 in Santa Clara, Utah.
Thought I should post the images that I entered into the variety of year end photo contests this year.
This image was part of my portfolio that won first place in the 2010 Society of Professional Journalists Photographer of the Year category and it also won first place in the SPJ's spot news category.

Lake Powell Gator

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:46 -0600

Since my column disappears from the Spectrum's website after a pretty short time, I thought I'd start adding them to my blog....this is my April 1, 2011 column.
Since I began writing this column about Lake Powell a few years ago, I’ve kept a pretty close eye on the National Park Service’s press releases regarding Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
Most of the time, they’re pretty much run of the mill. They’re interesting but not too out of the ordinary. News about a fire at Wahweap Marina, a quagga-infested vessel stopped from entering the water, information about water levels in the Castle Rock Cut.
Just a few days ago, however, I spotted something from the Park Service that really stood out.
Apparently, a pair of fishermen spotted a mound of sticks and mud that appeared to them to be the remains of an alligator nest while they were up in Rock Creek Bay earlier this month.
Park rangers responded to the area and confirmed that the site did appear to have been the nesting site of an American alligator.
That was about all it had to say other than a short list of alligator facts that I’m sure were meant to convey the unlikelihood of alligators living at Lake Powell — let alone attacking recreational users of the lake — and to reassure the boating public and mention rangers where investigating the area and searching for the animal that had built the nest.
The press release was issued on March 14 and it wasn’t until almost a week later that I happened to spot it on the park’s website. They hadn’t said anything else about the alligator nest.
While it wouldn’t be unprecedented to find alligators in the waters of Southern Utah — a ninefoot long alligator was removed from the Pakoon Springs Pond on BLM land in the Arizona Strip in 2005 and a three-foot long alligator was removed from Grandpa’s Pond in Hurricane in 2008 — I was a bit skeptical.
How would two fishermen from Page know what an alligator nest looks like? And not only did there have to be one alligator but if there’s a nest, it takes two to tango, so that would mean there where at least two mature adult alligators living in Rock Creek Canyon? I decided I’d call the public information officer at Glen Canyon to find out the latest news.
The PIO confirmed that they had, indeed, found the two alligators and that they had been spotted on several occasions in the past two weeks by rangers who were patrolling the area by boat.
The park service had contacted Norm Fowler, president of the Arizona Herpetological Association who runs a state-approved alligator sanctuary in Glendale regarding removal of the animals.
When I spoke to him, the Glen Canyon PIO said Fowler was in the process of attempting to capture the animals this week to re-locate them to his Arizona sanctuary and, thankfully, as I was writing this column Thursday morning, Fowler called and confirmed that he had indeed managed to capture a seven-foot long female alligator, a six-foot long male alligator along with six juvenile alligators ranging in size from eight to 11 inches in Rock Creek Canyon.
“We used snares baited with chicken and rabbit meat to entrap the animals and secured them by wrapping a towel over the animals’ eyes, holding up two of it’s legs so it can’t roll and then duct taping their mouths shut,” said Fowler, who also participated in the removal of the alligator at Pakoon Springs.
“They’re just coming out of hibernation this time of year, and they must’ve been pretty darn hungry, because they both went right for the bait we set out.”
While I was relieved to hear that the adult alligators had been captured, I wondered about the offspring that must’ve emerged from the nest the animals had built so I asked Fowler about the likelihood that there were perhaps now baby alligators swimming in the waters of Lake Powell.
“Typically alligators lay about 40 to 50 eggs each year. They hatch in late summer and are about six to eight inches long. They generally suffer about a 50 percent mortality rate their first year of life because they’re preyed upon by raccoons, wading birds and fish. Only about 10 to 20 percent of the animals will make it to adulthood,” said Fowler.
“I doubt more than one or two of the little guys will make it and they certainly wouldn’t be a danger to the public for several years even if they did. The Park Service has decided to step up patrols in the area and will maintain a watch for any alligators that might remain in the area.”
It was at that point in our conversation that Fowler began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“When your readers get to the end of this story in the newspaper, remind them to check the date on the masthead. April Fools,” he said.
This column is fictional. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is completely coincidental. No animals were harmed in the writing of the column or in the production of the completely faked images that accompany it. The Spectrum’s Multimedia Editor, Jud Burkett writes a monthly column on Lake Powell. Email him at jburkett@thespectrum.com.

Creative Minds

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:03 -0600

So I haven't blogged in forever. Over a year?
Can that be?
Here's a recent frame I really liked. It's from a new kids museum kind of thing in town.
The kid's sending the ping-pong balls through the pvc pipe with the hair dryer and they loop around and back out into his face....

Marigold

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:25 -0600

It's Parade of Homes time again!
Twenty-five really nice, brand-new homes, most decorated with furniture bought at Boulevard Home Furnishings.
The paper does a write up on a half-dozen during the week of the parade.
They all kinda blend together after awhile but I really dug the interior decorating at #18, La Famiglia a Casa.
It was very much not Boulevard.
I wish more of the homes I shoot for the magazine for the "At Home With" features were decorated like this one. It makes it so much easier to get interesting shots of a house when the decor is interesting.
So thanks to Fringe Design and Krisen Brooksby for doing such a great job on La Famiglia a Casa!

Lazy Bones

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:18 -0600

The boys have been loving playing ice hockey.
I don't think I've ever seen Ethan working harder and with more intensity than he does at hockey practice. He gets off the ice and peels of his gear and he's literally soaked with sweat.
Max, on the other hand, gives a good effort for about 15 minutes and then we start to struggle with Mr. Lazybones.
He lays on the ice, just like this and waits for somebody to come pick him up because he's in the way of the other kids who are still playing.
It's cute, but it would be nice if we could get a little more effort out of him before he gets to the laying on the ice flat on his back stage.
But, the important thing is that they're having fun and so far it seems like they are. Even if it does show off the lazy streak my youngest has running through him.

Playing Along

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:03 -0600

This is Matt.
I spent a little while over at his house photographing him and playing hide and seek with him.
He had to have a little help from him mom getting around because he's got cerebral palsey but we had a blast running in circles around the couch.
This shot is him laughing after I'd "found" him on one of our trips around the couch.

All Nightmare Long

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:37 -0600

Another shot from the homeless series...
This is from the St. George Soup Kitchen's Christmas lunch at Grace Episcopal Church.
It was a bit of a nightmare to shoot this.
To start with, there were these floor to ceiling glass doors all along the south wall of the area where people were eating so there was sunlight streaming in through the window combined with the shadows that were about six stops darker than the sunlight.
The human eye does a much better job of adjusting to contrasting levels of light than does a camera. So while most people wouldn't notice the great deal of contrasting light present in the room, anybody with a camera would once they started trying to take pictures. You can either expose for the sunlight and the shadows will go totally dark, or you can expose for the shadows and the areas lit by the sun will be blown out.
On top of that they used these bright green table clothes so the sunlight reflecting off the green was bouncing up onto the faces of everybody sitting at the table.
You can see the green on grandpa's cap and shirt and in grandmother's hair.
I don't know how I managed to come away from this event with a picture, but I did get a few.
I just wish the girl were looking at the doll instead of kind of off to the side...

Cold as Ice

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:52 -0600

Six or seven years ago the advertising director at the paper brought me a hockey puck he'd gotten at a chamber of commerce luncheon.
The puck had a logo on it for the Dixie Igloo.
Mike England had talked at the chamber luncheon about his plans to build an ice rink in St. George and given everybody there a puck.
I was darn excited to hear about the project, couldn't wait to be able to play hockey again.
Without a rink here in town or for that matter any closer than Las Vegas, I just don't get the chance to play except for the two or three times a year when I make it up to Salt Lake to visit the in-laws.
Well, the pucks and the website were about the only thing that got done on the Dixie Igloo project until this winter.
They just haven;t been able to find the right place to put their permanent facility.
But this year they're doing a sort of feasability study by building a temporary rink inside a tent in a parking lot in downtown St. George.
They were supposed to have it up and running by the middle of November but one set back after another has meant that they're just now starting to lay down the ice.
But they are indeed laying down the ice.
And in fact, my fantastically cool brother-in-law who works for the E-Center hooked Mike up with nets to play hockey once said ice is finally frozen.
THANKS SHAUN!
I can't wait.

Homeless Joe

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:04 -0600

We're working on a series of stories that'll run over the Christmas holiday looking at the problem of homelessness in southern Utah.
Only problem with this series of stories is that we really don't really have a whole lot of the typical homeless type folks here in southern Utah.
I went driving around with a reporter looking for the homeless on Friday, we found one guy sitting on a piece of cardboard behind Staples.
His name was Bob, he didn't want me taking his picture and he didn't want to give us his last name.
I loved his hands though and he was writing on his piece of cardboard to "get some things straight in his head." So I asked him if I could just take a picture of his hands.
He was o.k. with that.
Still didn't get his last name though so the only place this picture will get published is probably right here on my blog.
I've still got a couple more chances to go hang with the homeless before the story runs next week. Hope I get something better.
I really wish we hadn't had this whole five day series sprung on us just last week so we could really spend some time on it and get to know some of these folks and get them comfortable with us and get them to let us really photograph them.