TCR returns

As promised, here's Diana Nollen's story and my slideshow of the rebuilding of Theatre Cedar Rapids. I'd been hopping over to the theatre whenever there was something going on for the past few weeks, and it's been really cool seeing it all come together. Fellow Gazetter Cliff Jette photographed the theatre before renovations began, so you can also see those photos in the slideshow. There's also a slideshow of photos from the theatre's 80-year history.

Hoarders

I photographed Jill, a local woman who was recently on the A&E show 'Hoarders,' last week during a session with Susan, a professional organizer. The show came through and helped Jill (on the left in the photo below) get rid of a lot of the stuff that had accumulated over 20 years of living in the house, but now she needs to learn and fine-tune her organizational skills so the clutter doesn't return.



See the video that I shot/produced, and read the story over here. Below, a before-and-after of the bedroom.

TCR teaser

This accidental frame (from a portrait shoot today) is all you get to see for now of the newly rebuilt Theatre Cedar Rapids home in the historic Iowa Theatre, until the story runs on Sunday. So come back then for more.

The old courthouse

The old federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids has been fully rebuilt after the flood, but sits empty. Yesterday some city officials took a quick (really quick for me, in terms of walking and shooting) tour of the building to discuss relocating city offices there.

Cedar Rapids city engineer David Elgin (left) points out part of a mural that has been exposed on the wall of a courtroom to councilman Kris Gulick.

Cedar Rapids city manager Jim Prosser (left) talks with new mayor Ron Corbett in an office area in the old Federal Courthouse on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010, in Cedar Rapids. The council is looking into the possibility of moving city government offices into the old courthouse.

City offices were located in Veterans Memorial Building (you may or may not recall a collection of images I shot there a year ago... ) before the flood. Read Rick Smith's story and see more photos here.

chlorinated pt 2

All too often I shoot for what space I know is available for prep sports -- usually inside, black and white. Swimming is no exception. It's pretty easy to just plant myself in front of lane 3 or 4 for the final heat. Unfortunately, high school pools are dark dark dark, and those center lanes have the worst light, with very little light on the swimmers' faces and ugly color in the water (as opposed to the vibrant blue in lane 1 or 2). I have no idea who the swimmer in the above photo is -- this was shot during warm-ups, and half the swimmers had shaved their heads (thus no distinguishing swim cap). I shot from the leaky underwater observation area, which had only one or two areas clean enough to shoot through. I did shoot some racing from beneath, but none of it really worked. I'll try again.

Standard racing stuff...

And some end of race features (these are the two we ended up running):

chlorinated

Whoops, forgot to adjust my exposure after shooting the scoreboard for part of the 100 yard backstroke at today's boys' district swim meet. Happy accidents + seeing what Photoshop would do with autolevels. I'll post the 'real' stuff later today or tomorrow -- it was a fun day, complete with a leaky underwater observation area.