There was Jello in the Fingerprints…

Bill Stevens of Springfield climbs out of a dunk tank along with his “chick on a stick” on Saturday during the annual Redneck Fishing Tournament in Bath, Ill.

An outtake from shooting the amazing Redneck Fishing Tournament last weekend. Check out my blog post on the Journal Star photo blog for more:

Cheers,

Pat

Ronnia Simmons of Peoria stands in the intersection of Western and Kettelle at the scene of a police standoff with a reportedly suicidal man allegedly armed with a rifle on Monday night, July 12. “It’s a mess,” said Simmons of the wave of violence this summer. “I’ve got two years left of nursing school and then I’m leaving Peoria.”

While waiting in front of the police tape at the scene of a standoff a couple weeks ago, I saw this woman standing in the street watching everything unfold, perfectly lit by a street light. There was a large group of people on the street corner as well, but Ronnia stood out under the light. I knew that we wouldn’t need this picture for the next day’s story but to me, her body language seemed to sum up the mood in Peoria after an unsettling few weeks of violent crime. Fed up, tired- exasperated. After making the picture I talked with her about the violence in recent weeks and what she had to say entirely matched the look on her face, which was the same look I saw on a lot of faces that night. Hopefully things will start to quiet down and all those tired faces will start getting a little brighter in the next few weeks.

In front of cloudy skies, part of the “Tomahawk” ride towers above the East Peoria Carnival on Friday afternoon in East Peoria’s RiverFront Park.

An outtake from today.

Cheers,

Pat

An outtake from today’s “Google parade” here in Peoria. Woodruff High School cheerleaders practice an impromptu Google cheer before marching in a parade supporting Peoria’s bid to become a Google high-speed Internet test city on Monday afternoon on Water St. in Peoria.

Cheers,

Pat

A few weeks ago I went along on a bus tour of Ronald Reagan related sites around Illinois to commemorate the 99th anniversary of Reagan’s birth. The tour was led by President Reagan’s eldest son Michael Reagan. We started out at Eureka College, President Reagan’s college home, and then visited his birthplace in Tampico, Ill. and boyhood home in Dixon before ending with a luncheon at Sauk Valley Community College in Dixon. Although at times it felt like following around a politician on the campaign trail, it was a really interesting day and I had a good time making pictures. The story ran this last Sunday so I’m just now getting around to this post. These are a few images from what ran in the paper as well as a few outtakes.

Cheers,

Pat

The Peoria Housing Authority held a kickoff celebration for it’s new ARRO program (Access to Resources and Referrals Opportunities) on Thursday night at the Frank Campbell Community Center, 312 S. Merriman in Peoria. My favorite shots came when Pastor Spencer Gibson Jr. and the Integrity Gospel Singers performed.

Best,

Pat

An outtake from the other day.

Matthew Creed gets attention from two of Pat Tharp’s dogs while his older sister Julia (the focus of my assignment) meets the Tharp boys- Carlos, 10, and Marcos, 9, at their grandmother Pat Tharp’s home in Hutchinson on Thursday afternoon, October 29. After learning about the boys’ condition, Distrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa, Matthew’s sister organized a spaghetti dinner benefit to raise money to help the boys. The benefit will take place on Sunday, November 8 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Ave. F and Maple in South Hutchinson.

Cheers,

Pat

This photo was probably my favorite from in an assignment last week, but for a couple different reasons, it clearly falls into the category of an outtake, a photo that would normally never reach the eyes of our readers.

Last Saturday night, October 17, reporters Amy Bickel and Kristen Roderick and I went to do a story on the new Halloween attraction, The Forest of Horrors, near the small town of Elyria in McPherson County. Amy had arrived separately about a half an hour before us, and after getting lost and turning around several times, it was about 10:30 p.m. before Kristen and I arrived at the ticket stand. From there we met up with a group of fright-seekers and were taken on a hayrack out to the forest where we were told unspeakable terror awaited us.

I knew this would be a challenging environment to shoot in due to the fact that horror filled woods at 10:30 p.m. don’t usually contain a lot of light. I wanted to use my time sitting on the hayrack ride to experiment with different exposures so that by the time we were dropped off, I’d be ready to shoot and could keep the fumbling with buttons on the back of my camera to a minimum. After getting some spooky, blurry images of the tractor pulling us along, I turned around to try capturing some faces of the people on the hayrack. During this one-second exposure, the red taillight of the tractor pulling us along lit up part of one face with a ghostly red color. I still have no idea where the lights forming lines behind her came from, but they create a surreal sense of motion in an otherwise black frame.

I love this picture because it is completely unexpected from the context and plays with light, lines and color within an otherwise utter blackness. What makes this picture cool, however, is precisely why it is inappropriate for publication with the story. As a photojournalist, the photos I’m looking for are not only visually pleasing, but help tell the story of the subject I’m covering. Although this image does portray a somewhat eerie mood, it does not easily identify the Forest of Horrors experience. Secondly, the face in this picture is that of Hutchinson News reporter Amy Bickel, a fact that makes this photo unsuitable for publication with the story even if it did happen to accurately represent the scene.

This photograph is a great example of an outtake, a kind of picture that we photojournalists are thrilled to have made, but have to leave out of the paper in order to tell the story clearly and objectively. I was very pleased to be able to share and discuss this outtake in today’s Ad Astra section. It is one out of many that will never take shape in newsprint.

Here are a few photos from my adventures in the Forest of Horrors near the small town of Elyria, Kansas last Saturday night. It was challenging to make pictures with pretty much no light. Anyway, it was an interesting time as always.

You might notice that the post has been ammended since I first posted it yesterday- I’ll post the photo I previously had featured as the first one in this post again on Sunday when the Ad Astra comes out. I’ll be writing a short essay about outtakes for the Sunday Ad Astra photo page to go along with that photo. More to come on that soon.

Cheers,

Pat

Here’s an outtake from a portrait shoot with Pastor Andy Addis of Westbrook Baptist Church in Hutchinson with his son Noah, 10, in the church sanctuary. Having dealt with painful headaches for years, Pastor Andy Addis of Westbrook Baptist Church in Hutchinson recently had brain surgery to correct Chiari 1 Malformation, a rare congenital deformity of the lower compartment of the cranium. “I believe in miracles,” said Addis.

-Pat