Ahhh Valentine’s Day. I usually don’t look forward to this day even though I should since I am in a wonderful relationship and not sad and alone, however it just means I have to find something to get my lovely lady, usually at the last minute. In the end, they usually turn out OK, but this year’s was grand.

I had another early Chron assignment in the AM downtown, covering Eleanor Tinsley’s memorial service. The media access was restrictive and it forced me to dress up, but the church was gorgeous. On the way home I stopped and got Libs some awesome looking pink roses to satisfy the traditional.

Libs was in Chicago all week on business so I had ample time to think about what to get her, however the idea didn’t come to me until midday Thursday.

I had been wanting to play with some stop motion video for some time so I decided it was time. The idea I had was to create a stop motion movie based on a regular day for us at our current apartment. Sure we go out, travel and do a lot, but we also work from home a great deal so I wanted to illustrate that. Since we are moving to a new place soon I also wanted to emphasize our space, here, and create something that would hold captive those small memories of home that we have shared in this apartment.

Influenced by all of the awesome stop motion I used to watch on Sesame Street as a kid (Teeny Little Super Guy), I started to capture the frames. I wanted to use the song “Diagnosis” by the amazing dudes in The Weakerthans as the soundtrack so based on rough calculations I knew I needed between 500-600 still frames.

I took a photo of the two of us in Brooklyn over last Thanksgiving and cut it in half. I used her side to illustrate a few of her daily activities; waking up, showering, eating breakfast, watching family feud (lol) and working. I used my side to illustrate a few other things like getting dressed, playing with my awesome cat TT, and of course, working.

It was pretty tough, especially by yourself and being pressed for time. I winged most of the scenes and shot most of it in about 6 hours or so.

Today, after exchanging traditional gifts, Libs went to visit her mom as it was her birthday. It gave her a chance to do the finishing touches on her non-traditional gift to me and more importantly gave me a chance to throw my stills into final cut and see what I could come up with.

After some cutting, mixing, adding, subtracting and rendering I came out with a short little piece that I am happy with. The color is off, sometimes the focus was off, etc, but I love it even more for those little idiosyncrasies.

The folder that held the stills was hastily named STOP LOVE, so for the title, I went with that. I kinda dig it now that I think about it.

Libby finally got back home and with her came my gift. I was in awe! She never ceases to amaze with with her ridiculous craftiness. She bought a sleek lamp and replaced the lampshade with a custom sewn one made from slides of images of us together and other random images from our past. She used old slides, make custom slides from digital files and even planned ahead and shot slides with our old AE-1p while exploring the East Coast last fall. When it lights up it looks awesome! There are images below, but they don’t do it justice. It rules.

One of the images she used in the lamp was the same one I used in mine. See images below.

Afterwards I showed Libby my video. She cried. I think she liked it.

l’ll admit here that I know OF the sport of cross country, but really have not shot it until coming up here to PPC. I shot one quick race for the first time a few weeks ago that was a little hairy as I did not know how everything was set up. Its also pretty tough for PPC in that we publish 20 different papers in a HUGE coverage area so you have to know every school and all of the all-stars to really get what the editors are looking for. Cross-country meets are always huge deals with several different high schools so it’s always a challenge. I have a cousin out in California who is all about it, but running to a point where you’re almost near-death is pretty ridiculous to me, but props to these kids.

I had an assignment to cover the Maryland State Cross Country Championships on Saturday and it was a challenge, but I think I came out pretty good. I pushed myself, shot a lot of variety, and even tried out some odd remotes that I would usually not have the time to set up. I was getting pretty close to some of the racers after they ran and a few high school kids pleaded for me to “give them privacy” etc, but I knew I was doing my job and that was confirmed when I felt a pat on my back and a “don’t worry about those kids, you’re just doing your job” from an older, wiser shooter. Besides having to park on a sketchy flattened corn field, it was a good day.

**UPDATE**

The series of images shot at the cross-country meet won 1st place in the multiple category during Region 8′s National Press Photographer’s Association monthly clip contest. Click HERE for details.

Since the lady leaves tomorrow for Houston, we decided to pick up a few pumpkins at the Fells Point Safeway. I feel guilty buying them from Safeway given the fact that I’ve covered countless events at local farms that feature fresh pumpkin patches, but I like to think I just bought them from the retailer instead of the wholesaler. They are (hopefully) local, farm-fresh pumpkins! Either way we drug them up here to my temporary 3rd floor room and carved away. We had visions of elaborate designs, but in the end decided on a simpler theme. She usually beats me as far as speed and overall design goes, but I may have her this year (don’t tell her that) We had a grand old time. I slapped the trusty G9 on the 1 second time-lapse setting and let it fly during the process. The following video is the result. Nothing too crazy, just a little view into the event, complete with a cameo by my old Persian cat, TT, who awoke from his perpetual slumber and dawned his curiosity cap.