Friday at Hawkeye Downs

I spent last Friday out at Hawkeye Downs covering the Miller 100 race. Photographers are at a bit of a disadvantage when covering a single long race out there.. once the race starts, you're stuck in whatever position you've chosen. The view may be better from inside the track, but there's no tunnel under the track, so you're stuck there once the race starts. (Above: post-race rehydration by the winner, Steve Carlson)


I opted for covering the race from outside the track, so I could have *some* diversity to the images in the slideshow I put together.




From before the race, a fan shows her collection of autographs..

Where is summer?

Oops, unintentionally took a bit of a break. Well. I'm back.

Took this for a Neighborhoods story on NW/Time Check, on a rare warm day. Where did our summer go, and can we have it back please?

'It always rains for Fun Days'

.. or, so said a fellow journalist as I prepared to cover the North Liberty Fun Days parade. I had already been to the carnival, which was understandably quiet due to the late afternoon rain showers that started up about 30 minutes before the festival's start.


Typically "cute kid photos" aren't what I look for when I go into an event. (Yes, everyone loves cute kid photos, but, it can get boring after awhile, and we do strive for diversity of images in the paper -- too many kids/puppies/flags, for instance, and it starts to look stale.) But this was event FOR the kids. And when I saw the parade route lined with umbrellas, I pretty much knew what my shot would be. Kid, somewhat restrained by umbrella, trying to take in all the action. Et voila.

Gert and Geneva Tower

Photos of relatives, including 33 great grandchildren, fill the wall of Gert Steele's Geneva Tower apartment in downtown Cedar Rapids on Thursday, May 28, 2009. Steele has lived in same unit in the building for almost 31 years and, at 97, is the oldest resident of the building. "This place saved my life," Steele said of the support she received after her husband passed away shortly after they moved into the building.

Dave Rasdal and I spent a couple hours at Geneva Tower a few weeks ago for this week's Ramblin' column. The tower, whose residents are a mix of elderly, disabled, full market price and section 8 housing, was evacuated last June as floodwaters rose in downtown Cedar Rapids, and, after months of renovation, is now at nearly full occupancy again. Gert in particular was such a delight to talk to. She brought a sack of pancake flour with her when she and her husband moved to CR during the Great Depression, just so they would have something to eat -- her generation's Ramen Noodle equivalent, I suppose. As we were leaving, she made a remark that Nile Kinnick was one of the cutest quarterbacks to ever play at Iowa -- can't find the notebook for the exact quote, and wasn't recording audio, unfortunately.

Deb Dufresne, far right, laughs with other Geneva Tower residents James Marugg, far left, Julie Fishel, center, and Katie Howrey, back to camera, on Thursday, May 28, 2009, during a coffee meeting in the building's dining area in Cedar Rapids. Residents gather three times a week for coffee, and this week was Dufresne's birthday, so another resident brought her a birthday cake.

Here / there

"Tour the Linn County Sheriff's Office before rebuilding starts" is not the most exciting photo assignment. But it's a challenge. Light is scarce (thus the grain), but I can usually count on TV photographers popping some light in there so I don't have to use a flash. Sheriff Gardner milled about this spot just long enough that I was able to get a decent, somewhat sharp, frame. The demolition line you see on the drywall is about 11 ft above ground level.



Tomorrow I head to New York for a very brief visit with good friends. Here's Alyssa in Central Park a couple years ago...

mmm beef

Shot this while working on a story on BBQ dry rubs for the food page. That's about 60 pounds of quality brisket. Yum! (I'll link to the story when it's up.)

I've been blogging over at reFocus (the gazette staff photo blog) with my recent work for the paper, and am figuring out how to transition this blog to outtakes and personal work, and less writing (generally, more pictures, less words). I'll try to post links to reFocus from this blog when there's something new up over there, so I can stop double posting my blogs both there and here. Most recently, I've written about covering Postville one year after the immigration raid.

Sunny Mt Vernon

I went on a little adventure with friends to Mount Vernon last weekend for Chalk the Walk. After brunch and looking at the chalking, we wandered over to the Cornell campus and relaxed by the pond, munch kettle corn and sipping Italian sodas and getting just a little sunburned.

Attn, bargain hunters

I photographed the Coralville city-wide garage sale this weekend for the paper.. Almost left with a $5 rice cooker, but someone beat me to it. Loved this frilly ballerina costume, probably once so cherished, now hanging on a wire on sale for $5. The former owner has a new sibling on the way this week, and her mom was making room for the baby.