Kids with cameras

Catch up day! I'll try not to overwhelm you. From March, kids photographing small Iowa towns, with photographer Bob Campagna . Gotta love this girl's search for the best vantage point -- on a truck one minute, on the sidewalk the next.

...and more sports

It was almost refreshing to cover hockey after the week of basketball. Three RoughRiders goals in the first period gave me plenty of opportunity to get good jube (middle), and a few missed goals (top). They drop the lights pretty quickly after a goal, so I'm always excited to get any kind of reaction after a goal.

Rally

In the middle of the sports-filled week, I went to the state capitol to cover a pro-union rally and public hearing on a bill limiting the collective bargaining rights of public workers' unions.

Six days

...of pretty much nothing but sports. After 11 games of the girls and boys state basketball tournaments, these stuck out to me. Quite a few of the teams in our coverage area lost, so quite a bit of time was spent with my camera trained on the bench, waiting for moments that showed defeat.







Above, the mascot from a school nowhere near our coverage area. Below, new sport reflectors on our lights made a HUGE difference this year. The boys played a tighter game under the basket than the girls, generally, so I parked next to the net with a wider lens.

eyes on Don

Sometimes things just go in my favor. Donald Marshall was in the chair when I walked into Big J's Barbershop in Iowa City a couple weeks ago. Not only was Don quite a character, but John Day was giving him a pretty cool cut that Don was only too happy to show off. Below, a detail at Capri College for the same story on salon citations.

found frames

On the way back from a beer run to Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago, I shot this then forgot it until downloading the card a week later.

Melt

Friendship, Formally

This weekend a group of extremely attractive people took over Gatherings and had a second shot at prom. I set up a photo booth to help capture the sheer classiness of the event. It was so much fun to edit photos today, after leaving the photo booth in the hands of the guests most of the night... so I pretty much uploaded everything to my my freshly-minted flickr.

Blizzard: Wednesday : air intake

While filing sledding photos back on campus at the Carver Biomedical Research Building, a group of UI employees started bringing down garbage cans filled with snow. Intros, questions, and finally, a snow feature I've never seen before. Steve Denneny, an electrician at the University of Iowa, removes snow from an air supply intake in the Carver Biomedical Research Building on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011, in Iowa City.

Blizzard: Wednesday : sledding

On foot again, this time toward Lincoln Elementary, which was rumored to have a great sledding hill. We weren't disappointed, as a group of kids showed up right behind us, followed by a group of UI students with cookie sheets, a laundry basket and garbage bags.

Blizzard: Wednesday morning

Since I stayed near downtown overnight, I (rather smartly) left my car in the office garage to avoid digging out in the morning. Striking out on foot and wandering only roughly in the direction of the office, I found this guy helping free a friend's car on a side street, in addition to the obvious-but-necessary (shoveling and snowblowing), which don't really need to be shared. The photo above was in a gallery on Denver Post's Captured blog, along with a few photos by fellow Mizzou'er and brand new photo editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune, Parker Eshelman.

Our Iowa City office has a balcony overlooking a usually-busy downtown intersection. Only an occasional car passed through.. and then a snowshoer (brought to my attention by Getty Images photog Chip Somodevilla, along for a day of feature-hunting adventures). Coffee, adjust layers, research sledding hills, and onto the afternoon session..

Blizzard: Tuesday

You might have heard about a little storm that blew through the Midwest this week. I didn't make it far on Tuesday, venturing out onto the Iowa campus in search of 'impending doom' features, finding mostly people trying to keep out the cold. As snow stung my eyes and filled my viewfinder, I reminded myself that the real fun would start Wednesday. After venturing out for drinks (yep, I'm a real Midwesterner now), I grabbed my camera and shot this stranded car near my overnight hideout.

Alliant in fog

Ventured onto the KCRG roof on a slow, foggy afternoon a few weeks ago.

Riddle Inc.

Insulation, pipes and debris cover the floor of a room in the former Riddle Inc. facility in Monticello on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010. The building was cleaned out by the Environmental Protection Agency in July to remove improperly stored hazardous waste. Gene Riddle, the former owner of Riddle Inc., has pled guilty to a felony charge for storing hazardous waste without a permit.

Hazardous waste was improperly stored at the former Riddle Inc. facility in Monticello and dumped into Kitty Creek.

Christmas in February

Still catching up: Christmas, Santa, Children's Hospital and a fist bump. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.