I’m actually listening to The Get Up Kids song named “Hannah Hold On” right now. I thought it was fitting as I was very excited to have Hanna’s might serve as a gateway to some nice moments, images, and maybe more, but alas she was but a fake as I suspected. Last night in the wake of a scurrying about by fellow photographers I thought to myself, “worrying about a hurricane…in New England?!” Everyone was prepared for the worst, but got the least, which in most terms is an acceptable outcome, but a bit disappointing on my end. My day was prepped to be pretty busy with 5 assignments starting with a 10am field hockey game in Columbia. I heard its hard to shoot, but I was up for the challenge since I have never shot it before. Rained out. My next assignment was a studio shoot with a cross-country runner. It went as decently as can be expected. cross-country is a hard sport to squeeze a portrait out of. My next two assignments; a car show and a parade, two events which could have yielded some nice images were of course rained out. With a record of 1/4 I was set up for my last assignment which was to capture the fury of tropical storm Hanna. I was prepared and posted up in the lowest lying areas in Maryland, and after a few hours of mild rain and mild snapping the rain gave way to the sun and I called it a bust. I got a few newspaper safe images and then there are these. I was excited to put together a short multimedia piece on the storm, but since it never materialized, neither did my piece. I did still put it together based on my earlier vision, but it’s incomplete since I only had a limited amount of small video clips. I dug the idea though, but curse Hanna for killing the follow-through. The short (what would have been) video and a small gallery of images I made while waiting the storm out in my car are below.

So yesterday was the magically Internet hook-up day for me at my new Baltimore City place. It was a long time coming as life is frustrating when you are in a new place, away from friends and family, without Internet. Ive been working at Patuxent Publishing Company for a week now and it has been a ride so far. Ive shot a variety of assignments all over the state of Maryland. There’s such a difference from the inner city, where I live in a turn of the century row home in a great area called Butcher’s Hill where there is so much diversity and a lot of the rural towns I have assignments in. Its pretty nice to be able to experience the fast-paced city life at home and be able to have assignments out in rural Maryland. Doing work like this really enables you to experience an area of the country more than say an engineer working temporarily working a 9-5 in a cubicle, as I’m pretty sure cubicles in New England look similar to ones in Texas. They’ve given me a bunch of great assignments and lots of sports as well. I shot a triathlon for the first time last Sunday too. These sample photos are a few that I dug from my first week. The frequency of my blogs will increase exponentially now that I have my Internet back up and running.

Cutline for above image: “Catonsville High School varsity quarterback Erick Foster takes a drink from the water fountain after a long practice. Foster, who spent most of the 2007 season as a defensive end, hopes to take the reigns and drive the Comets to another playoff berth.”