Wake up call

When the phone rings at 2:40 am it is never going to be good news. I got word that seven people were shot at a nightclub near the Tracy Press. I threw on some warm clothes and headed out to yet another crime scene in Tracy.

Amore’s Italian Restaurant on 11th Street was ringed with crime scene tape as I arrived at 3:00 am. The parking lot was bathed in the floodlights of the mobile command center as Tracy Police officers sifted through the evidence. Shell casings in the parking lot were numbered as were the blood stains on the hardwood floor. Shivering in the early-morning cold I began to realize how different Tracy has become.

We have always had crime here in Tracy and we always will, it’s just a fact of life. But it is the sheer brutality that has emerged this year that has me stunned. Just a day or so ago working at my desk I listened to the police scanner for a call of shots fired at a local park. It seems so ordinary now I just waited to see if anyone had been hit.

Covering the crimes in Tracy I am tired now of standing behind the yellow crime scene tape. I have enough of the candlelight vigils and the despair in the eyes of mourning family members. I am tired of the parade of criminals and their orange jumpsuits in the courthouses as they make their way through the legal system. And most of all I am sickened by the outpouring of hate and racism on the web comments. As if there was not enough problems in our community were are subjected to the diatribes of those anonymous readers who seem to have almost as much hate and anger as those who commit the crimes.

I am not “grizzled veteran” as someone once accused me of being. I am just a reporter who has seen too much of the ugliness in our town. It sickens me. I think if I had somewhere to go I would, but with family here I try to stick it out and hope things will improve. Just when I think things can’t get much worse I get another early morning call.

It could be a wake up call for a lot of us. For those who think our town is still too small for big city crimes they know different now. For those who would put public safety behind other comfort issues ranging from sports fields to swim parks maybe they will reconsider. And for those who can only lash out at someone’s ethnicity with hatred maybe they will rethink their words. It was a wake up call for more than just me that night; I just wonder how many people got the message.

Old School

This is when a camera looked like a camera. Big hunks of metal clad in a thin layer of leatherette trim. You could strike a match on one of the babies, pound nails or use it as a bowling ball on your days off. It came in two colors, chrome trim or for a few bucks extra you could get overall basic black. Everyone wanted the black model because that meant you were a pro. Yeah those were the good old days.

Stop the insanity

This technicolor yawn version of the Pentax camera is only available in South Korea, thank God for small miracles. That's just one more country I can scratch off the list of places I would like to visit.

Disgusting

If God had wanted us to take pictures with pink cameras he would have made us all color blind. I stumbled across this picture of a camera display in Japan marketing Pentax cameras toward women and youngsters.

Mission Impossible

Just when you think film is dead and buried it seems to be rising from the grave. A group working out of the Netherlands has persuaded the Polaroid to relaunch a limited run cameras as they develop prduction of the black and white and color instant camera films.
The Impossible Project group is expecting film to reach the public in mid-2010, plenty of time to dust of those Polaroid cameras and put them back into working shape if you haven't sold them off at a garage sale.

I don't know what I found more weird, the fact that someone fought to bring film back (and instant film to boot) or that film now is called "analog photography."

Catatonic

We have ways of making uncooperative cats sit still for a photo. It's not pretty but it does work.

Storm chaser

The remnants of a typhoon blew into California today and slammed into Tracy leaving a trail of broken branches, fallen power lines and soggy streets in its wake.




I spent the better part of the day going from hot spot to hot spot as the storm system battered the town. The Tracy Press office was without power for the morning as we felt the wrath of the winds and rain.



And what did I get for my troubles? A canvas camera bag that smells like a wet duck and a gash on top of my head when the wind slammed my hatchback down as I leaned into to get my camera gear.

Kick start

There is nothing spectacular about this shot but I still like it. A tae kwon doe group giving a performance at the Grand Theatre gave this flying board kick as their finale. To make it even more daring the guy jumped over a group of kids on the way to the board. Kind of reminded me of an Evil Knievel motorcycle jump, sort of.

Rollover

This was one of the assignments where the end result could have been much worse. The call across the scanner was for a single car rollover on Highway 33 south of town.

Highway 33 can be a bad stretch of road for accident. Speeds can be high, one lane of traffic each direction means not a lot of room for error. I have covered my fair share of fatal accidents on the stretch so I headed out on the first dispatch.


About halfway there the call came back that the car had rolled multiple times but the driver was standing outside of the car. I kept going to see how bad the damage had been. Arriving on scene the car, a Toyota Camray was sitting upright well off the roadway facing north on the opposite side of a railroad track running along the highway.

Skid marks showed the path where the car travelling south abruptly made a hard right turn from the roadway into the dirt shoulder where the soft dirt grabbed it and sent it tumbling. At some pointy it struck the railroad tracks and continued bouncing where it finally wound upright facing the opposite direction it had been travelling. The only occupant of the car the driver had a cut on his head and was transported to the hospital for the minor injury.

Car parts and glass were strewn on and around the road shoulder and railroad tracks marking thee cars flight of the roadway. The car was severely damaged, a wheel was ripped off in the tumble but for the driver to be for the most part uninjured is a sign why seatbelts should be used. It was a lucky break for this driver to have escaped serious injury in such a crash and reminder to be careful on those country roads.

Marching orders

For years the Tracy High marching band practiced their parade route with a quick march down Franklin Street, a quiet stretch of roadway that usually was safe enough for the students to practice their musical footwork.

A night worker changed all that when he complained of the band's music interupting his slumber in the late afternoon. The band was banished form the street and the nearby Fine Park. With the campus construction putting space at a premium on campus the band was forced to a narrow parking lot behind the campus next to the old Heinz factory.

The band needs an asphalt surface to practice their street marching as they prepare for events from the homecoming parade to band reviews. The parking lot works but the narrow space keeps their formation out of shape and they are forced to dodge the drivers in a hurry to leave the campus. Not a good situation at all for the band. It would be nice if the district could find them some space where they can safely march and keep area residents happy.

Think pink

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month and if you watched an NFL football game last weekend you noticed a number of players sporting pink attire in honor of the event.

Covering a crosstown football game last week I found the officiating crew with their pink hats and whistles as they showed their support for those fighting the disease and those seeking a cure. Junior varsity West High volleyball players were decked out in pink socks and towles for their game as well.

If you feel brave and want to make a statement of support show your spirit and wear pink. Remember, "Think Pink". It's for a good cause.

Football fever

Four weeks into the prep football season and I already have had my fill of football photos.


This past week I covered four games in three days. I have already lost count of the number of quarters of action I have covered. The games sort of blur into one long half.


The challenge is making one game's action shots look different than the next. Add onto that the poor lighting quality at one field, tight deadlines and getting an average shot seems a chore.


I can't remember how many weeks the prep regular season runs, I think it is 10, then there is the possibility of playoffs and shooting well into the cold and rain of the winter months. Maybe I'll take some of the two months of vacation I have squirrelled away, I could use a break.

Cheerios Test-Part V

We were just having a discussion in the newsroom the other day about one of the foulest assignments I have ever covered, students bobbing for potatoes in bowls of spaghetti. Pretty nasty indeed. Things had been pretty good until this weekend when the gross factor reappeared.



Students at Banta School celebrated a rise in test scores with the chance to pummel their principal with whipped cream pies while the Jefferson School principal took a turn in the school carnival game booth as the target for chocolate syrup covered marshmallows. It made for nice pictures but ewwwwwww!

Jagged pieces

Shooting an assignment at the Lincoln Park gazebo I stopped by the sculpture in the park's rose garden for a few quick frames. Made of pieces of broken china and mirror it has lots of opportunity for macro photography. I shot these with my 70-200mm zoom but will have to try some close-up work in the near future.

Coming soon