A few weeks ago, I came in contact with Linda Meloche, the host of Around Town With Linda, a show on Chelsea’s local cable channel. For her show, Linda interviews interesting people in and around Chelsea; however, since it seems she couldn’t find an interesting person in or around Chelsea for this slot, she asked me to appear on her show. We taped the interview a couple weeks ago, and the finished product should start airing today.
For those of you who don’t remember my previous post about my public speaking abilities … well, here’s a refresher:
Just keep that in mind as you watch the interview. But I know they did their best to edit it to make me sound good, so maybe they cut out the duhhhs and bwahs. Guh bah dhay gwah! Coo coo ca choo.
Also, I think I need to expand on two of my answers that I am assuming will be in the final cut:
- We were talking about my sports photography, and then we started talking about my work for the newspaper; that was an easy transition because my sports work frequently appears in the paper. As I recall, Linda asked me if my work for the paper is paid work; though I now think she was asking about all my newspaper work, I was still thinking sports, so I told her that my newspaper work is unpaid. This is only half true. I provide my sports photos to the newspaper for no charge (which is why, if you read the photo credit, you’ll find that it says “Photos courtesy of Burrill Strong”) and make money only when someone makes a purchase; however, the other work I do for the paper is actually paid freelance work (which is why, if you read the photo credit, you’ll find that it says “Photos by Burrill Strong”).
- Linda asked me if the advent of affordable digital cameras is a problem for professionals like me; in response, I talked about how there is now a bit more of a misconception that it’s Not That Hard for Anyone to Take Great Photos (a misconception that’s most unhelpfully advanced by camera manufacturers’ advertisements), but that when people get into more difficult situations like ice arenas or football games under the lights, they find out their consumer kit equipment isn’t really up to the task. This is true, but it’s only half the answer I should have given. Equipment matters, but there is a more important element to photography: the photographer. Modern cameras can get the settings right more often, but if people don’t have the basic knowledge required to use cameras’ capabilities, they’re going to hit a wall a lot sooner (”Why is my picture blurry?” “Well, your shutter speed was half a second.” “My what?”). And on the more nebulous creative side, if people don’t have the eye to see and compose a good photograph, all the nice cameras in the world won’t produce compelling photographs. So, in summary: yes, it’s easier to take pictures, but no, it’s still not easy to be a photographer.
If you watch the interview and have questions about anything else I said, feel free to post them here.
On Saturday, the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association held its annual all-star football game at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. Aside from being a shining beacon of Actual Football Action in the vast wasteland of the Arid Lifeless Offseason, the game is a lot of fun for me because I get to shoot football on the sidelines of a Big Ten stadium, and that’s halfway to fulfilling a dream of mine. (Yeah, it’s Spartan Stadium, but … well, they can’t all be Michigan Stadium.) This year, thanks to my connection to Heritage Newspapers, the West team gave me four athletes and two coaches to photograph:
- DT Dean Roberts (Chelsea)
- LB Chris Marsh (Dexter)
- WR Sam Burchyett (Saline)
- WR Marvon Sanders (Ypsilanti)
- Brad Bush (Head coach, Chelsea)
- Grant Fanning (Assistant coach, Chelsea)
Last year’s game featured bright sunlight and brilliant blue skies, and let me tell you, it was hot; this year’s game was cooler thanks to cloudy skies with a chance not of meatballs, but of thunderstorms. The thunderstorms never happened, but it did start to rain midway through the second half; the rain continued through the end of the game, and it managed to soak everyone on the field, including me (but not my camera, thanks to my outstanding Storm Jacket camera cover).
The game itself was largely defensive; neither team reached the end zone, but on the strength of three field goals, the East (Detroit and a few nearby counties) defeated the West (the rest of the state), 9-0.
Dexter’s Chris Marsh
Chelsea’s Dean Roberts
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For me, Photoshop is one of the strongest forms of digital punishment known to man; I admire those who adeptly wield its myriad tools, because when I open up Photoshop, I typically find that it makes me feel at least thirty percent less intelligent than I really am. But I feel that way about pretty much anything that’s complicated — which may be why I’m still single — so take that with a grain of salt.
Anyway, despite my pride-based aversion to Photoshop, sometimes I do find reasons to dip my feet into its treacherous waters; those reasons are usually centered around my website or a photo book, but occasionally some other project pushes me in that direction. One such project came up just the other day.
During a trip that will be covered in another post, I visited Lehigh University last week. Lehigh’s current mascot is the Mountain Hawk, a useful but fairly unremarkable mascot; however, the Mountain Hawk was not always the common nickname for Lehigh’s athletic teams. They don’t publicize the prior nickname much (or, from my outside perspective, at all) anymore, and that’s sad, because that nickname and its accompanying logo were remarkably unique and appealing: before they were the Mountain Hawks, they were the Engineers.
Since the Engineer logo is almost nonexistent on campus (aside from two old banners in the athletic hall of fame) and is completely nonexistent in the range of available Lehigh merchandise, I decided I wanted to try to capture the logo so I could have my own copy of that wonderful piece of Lehigh’s history. This proved to be a challenge, as the two banners in the hall of fame are under glass; with the limited opportunity and light I had, I got these pictures:
After I spent some time stumbling around in Photoshop, I ended up with a finished product I actually liked:
So, despite Lehigh’s decision to cast aside the grizzled, determined Engineer (and his grizzled, determined stubble) and become the Mountain Hawks, the Engineer will persist … on this blog, anyway.
While in South Bend on Sunday, my nephew Malachi asked me how old I am. When I told him my age, my three-year-old niece Marina joined the conversation:
Marina: You’re 26?
Me: Yes, I’m 26.
Marina: You’re a big man!
Brian & Emily (28 June 2008)
A severe thunderstorm rolled through Chelsea Wednesday night, snapping trees and cutting power to thousands in the area; naturally, I took a drive Thursday morning to photograph the damage.
They call it stormy Wednesday (2 July 2008)
The owner of this home was actually on the porch when the tree fell; fortunately, he moved before the roof collapsed.
(Full gallery.)
As a permit-carrying member of the Blue Wheelchair Man Group (BWMG) — I get to park in handicapped parking spots — I have an interest in the parking efforts of other members of that group. There are times those efforts aren’t exactly stellar; recently, I came across two such efforts. (License plates have been removed to protect the careless.)
The first was during the Future Bulldog Camp. Since the target group of the camp can’t drive, the stadium parking lot was only sparsely populated during the sessions, which meant one particular parking job was hard to miss:
I neglected to check the rear-view mirror for a permit, so I don’t know if that was done by a member of the BWMG. If that was an able-bodied person’s parking job … well, come on. If you’re going to park illegally, put some effort into it. (At least stay off the sidewalk!)
If that wasn’t enough, just the other day, I went to Showcase Cinema to see Wall-E (by the way: GO SEE IT NOW!), and in the parking spot next to mine, I saw this:
The van did have the necessary license plate to park in a handicapped parking spot, but I’m not sure that counts as being “in a handicapped parking spot”; I think it’s more “in the general area of a handicapped parking spot.” What made it more amusing was the “How’s my driving?” bumper sticker below the license plate.
If I see more of these sorts of parking jobs in the BWMG spots, I’ll continue to post them; if you see any, feel free to send a picture to me. I’m always up for a good laugh.
A while ago, my father — who typically doesn’t have facial hair on purpose — agreed to grow a beard when my brother graduated from law school. (Leave it to an aspiring lawyer to negotiate that deal…) He kept the beard a few days past the graduation, but its demise was inevitable; however, I did manage to convince him to keep it until I got the chance to shoot a few pictures of his bearded self.
Beard-B-Gone (23 May 2008).
All Week: WOOOO (youth) FOOTBALL!
Chelsea football held its annual Future Bulldog Camp for kids from third through seventh grade; the camp featured five days of instruction in the fundamentals of football by Chelsea coaches and varsity players, as well as an Air Force Football tournament. (Air Force Football is a variation that allows any number of passes in any direction.) This year’s camp set a record with over 200 kids in attendance.
Varsity head coach Brad Bush started the Future Bulldog Camp when he came to Chelsea ten years ago; the camp has been going long enough that most — if not all — of the varsity players helping with the camp this year attended the camp when they were younger.
Monday:
Morning
Afternoon
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Wednesday: WOOOO FOOTBALL!
Chelsea held its varsity football camp Wednesday through Friday. If you couldn’t tell from the above text, I was a little excited to be around football again. And by “a little excited” I mean “WHOA CRAZY HAPPY.”
