Snapshots

Sunday, July 22, 2012

The middle roads less traveled

I had grand plans for Saturday's hike. I was going to take a hard trip through the Las Trampas Wilderness with a climb to their version of Eagle Peak. I was all set, ready to rock and roll right up to the point where I drove up to a police roadblock on Bollinger Canyon Road, the only way to reach the Bollinger Canyon Staging area where I would start from. Some mild (ok a lot an not so mild) profanity later I was back on the freeway heading toward Livermore and a hike at Morgan Territory Regional Preserve.

Truth be told Morgan Territory is probably my favorite place to hike. When I need to get away for some alone time the solitude and quiet the miles of trails winding through the hills and grasslands call. I have made lots of hikes there and had covered just about all the trails in the park, except for one swath in the middle of the park. So with three liters of water and some Gatorade I headed out for a loop to capture the middle trails of the park.

Hike is great, you can make it your trek as long or as short as you want by adding connecting trails or taking shortcuts through them. I decided I would make as big a loop as I could through the middle of the park that I had not explored yet. I started out on the familiar Coyote Trail taking the Stone Corral Trail connector. At the point where I would normally turn east onto Volvon Trail I made a left heading west onto Eagle trail near the parks top boundary.

I would then hook Bay Creek trail, cross Morgan Territory Road, swing west again onto Raven Trail, and then south climbing up along the hills to the Highland Ridge Trail. This would lead me to a backpackers camp where I would pick up Clyma Trail for the return decent to the parking lot. Roughly it is just under 10 miles with about 2,500 feet of climbing along ridge lines.

If you describe the popular trails at Morgan Territory as remote then the path I took would be desolate. Not even the cows graze along these trails. A few trees springs up along the trail side but mostly it is miles of grasslands and hills. Steep hills. I trudge along with the only sounds my feet crunching in the loose rock and dirt and the wind whipping across the hills. I'm not sure what they were but tiny bugs looking like crickets hopped across the trail. Every now and then I would a hit as the crickets hopped frantically on my path, there must have been hundreds of them if not thousands. I could hear as they hit the dead leaves laying on the trail, a continuous rustle of leaves around me.

The weather was warm and the breeze had a hot tinge as it swept across the trail. I stopped a few times under the sparse tree shade and admire the view. The one good thing about ridge line hikes is they afford magnificent views. Nearby Mount Diablo dominated the landscape and the sky was clear enough where I could easily make out the summit building I hiked to a few weeks ago.

I did have one brief companion on the trail, another coyote paid me a visit. He entered the trail ahead of me and trotted along glancing back at me occasionally as he made his way along up the hill. I lost sight of him at a cattle gate as i think he headed down the hill for relief from the midday sun in the shade. Maybe he was the smart one. I was on the verge of getting a little overheated but sipping water and the Gatorade along with a couple of breaks kept me from getting sick on the sun-baked trail.

Finally after about 4 1/2 hours I could see the parking lot below me. I had the only car there, a good sign that maybe the smarter hikers were waiting for cooler weather. All things considered it was a good hike. I had to climb a few locked fire trail gates, a few missteps in the navigation but for a day that began with a failed hike attempt it ended with me polishing off the last section of my favorite place to hike. it feels good to know I have explored almost all of Morgan Territory's rugged beauty. I will shelve my hike at Las Trampas, I have so many trails nearby to explore. What comes next, now that is a good question.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

First aid fail

What a crap-tacular day. I knew this day was going to go right down the toilet when I was turned away from my first assignment at 9:30 in the morning because we did get prior approval to talk to citizens at the Larch-Clover Center. That bode well for the dung heap day in store for me. From felony stops to learning of the death of Tracy education leader to fighting our website's content management system I learned quickly I should have stayed in bed today. But every dark cloud has even darker core ready to spew a shit storm down upon the weary and unsuspecting. Cue Racquet Drive.

All morning long I had heard something about the San Joaquin County Sheriff's bomb squad being called to Tracy over the police scanner. We made calls to everyone we could think of including the police but no one would talk about. But as I sat down a little after to 2 p.m. to have a corned beef sandwich after a photo assignment scheduled for the same time fell through I heard the police announce the bomb squad was on scene and they were closing down streets off Tracy Boulevard.

One of the things I hate about my job is the pure panic mode you have to be able to switch into at a moment's notice. One second I'm eating a corned beef with smokey cheddar sandwich the next I am trying to get to Centre Court Drive as fast as I can to catch a glimpse of the bomb squad. I pulled behind a pickup truck as the police cordon off a 60-yard perimeter around a house at the corner of Center Court Drive and Racquet Drive. The bomb squad was already on scene with their trailer and I have to figure out what is going on quickly so I can send the info back to the office so they can tweet it. Hating life already. So what brings the bomb squad and a small force of tracy Police officers to this street? A first-aid kit.

No lie, a 1930's era vintage Girl's Scout First-Aid kit was the culprit. The Racquet Court homeowner had the first-aid kit listed on E-Bay. Somehow they were told of a potential hazard with one of the kit's items, a bandage impregnated with a chemical used to treat burns. Over the years the chemicals can crystalize and become unstable leading to the possibility of fire or explosion. Cue the bomb squad.

So this became a full sheriff's office bomb squad event complete with the dude in the green bomb proof suit. It's photo ops like this that we look for, like the fire department guys in the blue rubber suits at a hazmat call. So I get the standard shots, bomb squad guys putting on their gear, getting the equipment ready, roadblocks on the street and even manage to capture my car sitting near the ambulance blocking the street. Nice, I'm probably in the blast zone but today who cares? A bomb blast could probably be a good thing.

Then it just becomes a waiting game for the money shot, the bomb squad guy in his puffy green suit carrying the would-be deadly Girl Scout kit to the bomb trailer. I fire off a sequence off as he walks to the trailer and shoves the box in the trailer and then its all over. I wait for the roadblocks to lift so I can drive back to the office and finish the now cold remains of my corned beef and smokey cheddar sandwich while I process the bomb scene photos.

Run and gun, that what this whole week has been. I need a hike to clear my mind. Too much of this crap lately. One of the last calls I heard on the scanner before I headed home was a call for police to go to the Sonic restaurant at the mall where two men are tossing cats around. Cat juggling in the late afternoon. Fitting end to a crappy day and week. Later I got to thinking it might have a better call if the bomb squad had been called to remove a box of Girls Scout cookies. Hell I might have even tried to go in there myself get them out.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Ground view

I hate groundbreakings. I would rather wear bacon underwear in the middle of a pack of hungry, rabid pit bulls that cover a groundbreaking ceremony. We try to avoid them like the plague but every now and then one slips into the shooting schedule. I try to make the best of things and I wonder what to do.

Tuesday was a great example of the groundbreaking dilemma. Mountain House was scheduled to have a groundbreaking ceremony for the communities first ever high school. It was a bog event for the small community and the editors decided to cover it and probably make it the cover for the Mountain House Press edition. No pressure on me, I have to come up with cover quality art from an assignment we hate to cover.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not that I have anything against Mountain House or their new high school project. It’s we don’t cover groundbreaking, or check passing assignments for that matter. The reason is simple; they are staged events.

As soon as I saw the assignment I knew what it would look like. Sometime in the ceremony, most likely at the end dignitaries lined up in a row would don hardhats and holding gold shovels would turn over a shovelful of ceremonial dirt. It’s a pure photo op, cheesy as can be and in modern photojournalism or news coverage as well we tend to shy away from events like that. We would rather talk about the project being started, its benefits to the community and how it got to this point. We had a short conversation in the newsroom and we decided the historical importance of the event outweighed the reluctance of covering a groundbreaking. But it is up to me to come up with art that isn’t of the groundbreaking at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Huh? Say what you ask? Yes no matter how significant the event we won’t put a picture of someone shoveling dirt no matter what. Time to turn up the creative juices at the assignment and think fast for a way to illustrate the story without showing a shovel full of dirt flung into the air.

So the first thing you do is cover the event normally. If it’s like any other groundbreaking they are going to have a host of speakers. So my first thought is trying to tie a speaker into the scene. Can I incorporate the background, does that tell part of the story? Fortunately for me it did as they construction company was hot and heavy into grading the land. They were told not to stop for the ceremony. I selected a shooting position where I could use a long telephoto lens and compress the background distance to the speaker at the podium. I was able to get a shot of the school district superintendent speaking while earth-moving equipment rumbled by on both sides of him.

This was key-having a good storytelling shot early in the ceremony took the pressure off me. Now I’m not panicking trying to get a cover-worthy shot that isn’t the shovel. So now I can cover the rest of the ceremony normally, walk around the scene; look for a variety of shots including crowd, speakers and equipment. I even tried to get creative with a row of hardhats for the dignitaries framed to lead the reader to speaker at the podium.

But soon or later is going to come the dreaded moment where I have to decide what to do with the shovel ceremony. At Mountain House the construction workers had built a small mound of dirt that serve as the ceremonial patch of land. So do I shoot it or not?

As a general rule just because I take photo does not guarantee that it will make it to the paper. I can certainly take the shot and not use it. Maybe it will be a Remember When photo a hundred years from now long after I am dead and buried. So I get ready to shoot the shovel ceremony. But nothing says that is all I can shoot.

As they gather their gear I snap away at dignitaries donning their hardhats. Some jokes are shared, some people laugh and that makes for a different photo. I pick a low angle as they gather near the dirt pile and figure out who is going where. I have the shovels and the dirt and technically it is not the dreaded shovel dirt fling so that shot may work too.

But eventually they line up in formation and with their golden shovels dip and into the soil in unison. Reluctantly I fire the shutter and realize that the photo isn’t going anywhere. The ceremony ends the shovels are thrust into the dirt pile and the participants turn and congratulate each other on the start of the new high school. Holy crap! This is the moment! I pick an extremely low angle and shooting with the wide-angle lens framing a shovel in the foreground with the people talking in the background. This is has all the elements that tell the story; shovels, dirt dignitaries and a few hearty handshakes. And no one posing for the camera with a cheesy smile plastered to their faces.

Sometimes the best moments for an event happen after it’s over. It always pays to stick around and work the scene looking for a different shot than the standard humdrum event images. I’m glad we covered the event, it is a big moment in Mountain House’s history and I was able to get a shot that told a little bit more of the story that seven people standing in a row. It pays to never give up on an assignment and always try to think different on the same old scene.