Err 99
Archives: Kansas City Zoo
In a few weeks I’m headed up to Omaha, Neb. to take some engagement pictures for a friend from high school. My friend, Hope, can be pretty silly and Tater (Mark) only added to the silly possibilities of this engagement shoot by proposing to her at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo.
I can’t wait to get up there and do some portraits in the zoo. On top of that I’m going back to the zoo with my sister and nephews the next day just for fun. I’m so psyched up that I dove into my archives and pulled some photos from the class trip I went on to the Kansas City Zoo my last semester of college.
Taking flight
After finding out about the Columbia Aeronautics and Space Association’s Aeronautics Extravaganza on Wednesday (see previous post), I decided to wake up early and head over to get a few pictures.
Thanks to the near shutdown of the government the Apache was a no show, however. I was kind of bummed about that, but there was plenty of other things to shoot.
Sometimes, you just gotta look up
As I was leaving work today, I heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter flying overhead. In Columbia, this usually isn’t anything special. A Life Flight crew works out of University Hospital and is always coming and going, saving lives and such.
Still I couldn’t help but look up. Instead of the usual rounded outline of the Life Flight helicopter, I saw the unmistakable, more boxy, outline of an Apache attack helicopter. The Apache flew circles over Columbia for about 30 minutes or so, moving from the south on north. It was likely out there long, but that’s how long it was in the air, while I was outside, until it made a b-line south.
I snapped a few frames of it then headed back inside to mention it to one of the editors at the Tribune to see if they’d heard anything about it. By the time I’d gotten home around 4, Justin had found the reason. The Columbia Aeronautics and Space Association is holding a little shin dig on Saturday which the Apache will be apart of.
Hello, photo op!
From the Archives
Dug up a few photos while going through my archives for the rebuild of the site. Some of these go way back to before I had any real idea of what I was doing with a camera.
Omaha, NE
Camden, ME
Columbia, MO
Columbia, MO
Thank you, Grandpa.
Last night Veteran’s Day actually hit home with me for once.
I’d always known that my Grandfather, Harold Simmons, had served in the armed forces at one point in his life. Beyond that I wasn’t sure of many of the details. My family never talked about it because my Grandfather never talked about. I didn’t know when he served, what he did, where he went, any of it. I think because so much of this information was unknown to me, it never really sunk in that Grandpa was a veteran. I never thought of him on this day. And I’m ashamed that I have to admit that.
My Grandfather passed away in 1999.
I always got to see my Grandparents at least once a year. Either my family would go visit them in St. Louis or they’d come visit us, always for the holidays. They were the only Grandparents I ever knew, my paternal Grandparents having passed away before I was born, and I wish I had appreciated them more when they were around.
Then last night happened.
After a long day at work where my workload was doubled by an error in our system and a dinner and movie date, I started to get ready for bed, but decided I should check my email before I did so, since I hadn’t looked at any of my personal accounts all day.
In the middle of about ten emails was one from my Aunt Cheri with some photos attached. She had been going through some of my Grandparents things and came across my Grandfather’s separation papers from the Army. These documents, shown below, shed a lot of light on what my Grandfather did during his time in the service. A lot of the information was new even to my Mom and my Aunt.
When I read that letter, Veteran’s Day meant a whole lot more to me.
I don’t know what the words would mean for him if he were still around. But thank you Grandpa. I’m so proud of you.
And thank you to all others who have answered that call, just as my Grandfather did.
Update
After some more collaboration with my Aunt, I got some photos of Grandpa from when he was in the service. I’m simply in love with these.
New Caledonia
Russell Islands
Russell Islands
My Grandpa and my Grandma, LaVerne. The photo was likely taken a few years after the wedding. My understanding is that Grandpa was sent overseas not too long after they were married.
A telegram from Grandpa to his parents after he returned stateside. Grandpa was in Japan when peace was declared.
Its okay, the zombies are safe…
This fall Fear Fest, a local haunted house/Halloween attraction, debuted a new feature called the “Zombie Safari Hayride.” The attraction lets visitors ride in a tractor drawn trailer equipped with paintball guns ride through a cornfield and live out every zombie movie aficionado’s dream – “shoot the friggin’ zombies.”
When I first heard about this I figured they had set up some kind of automated systems that popped up cardboard cutouts for people t shoot at. I learned later that Fear Fest was in fact using live people, dressed up as zombies, as targets.
When Halloween was just around the corner, Tribune reporter T.J. Greaney started to receive reports that the actors who played these zombies were poorly treated and not offered adequate protection. So T.J. and I went out before a Friday night to check things out.
Turns out the operators of Fear Fest provided plenty of protective clothing and padding to their employees and made certain safety precautions with the paintball guns. We got to watch an employee suit up and check out what I would call Fear Fest’s “armory” of costumes and padding for the zombies.
So don’t worry. The zombies are safe.
Set to Cute Factor 10. Engage!
I covered a few shifts for a sick coworker about a week ago and headed out to the Central Missouri Humane Society to shoot the employees moving animals back into their newly renovated shelter on Big Bear Blvd. They didn’t actually add any square footage to the shelter, but with new animal enclosures and specialized airflow systems it is a whole heck of a lot healthier for the animals.
I had actually done a bit of volunteering for CMHS over the summer, but didn’t really stick with it. So it was nice to actually get to see these people finally get what they had worked so hard for.
Gettin’ Wet
I’ve been working at MizzouRec for the last two and a half years and I’ve made a name for myself around there for my enthusiasm to get wet and take some pictures. I mean, hey, who wouldn’t want to take some pictures of little kids having a ton of fun in a pool? On top of that, they Rec purchased some new equipment, including a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8. The only other lens we had up until now that fit into our underwater housing was a Caon 17-85 f/4-5.6. Having those extra stops has paid off big time with the new lens. And I don’t have to worry about the corners getting cut off by the housing anymore. Here’s a shot from my shoot tonight.
Half an hour, one light, a ladder, and 60 women (and 4 guys)
I shot a group photo of all the Tiger X instructors at the Rec Center (well the ones that showed up anyway, there are more than 70). I had some advance notice on this, but still had a bit of a last minute rush to come up with things. I didn’t find out until the day before the shoot that there would be 70+ people in the photo, which threw my plans for the shoot out the window. Plus one of the Rec’s Alien Bee 800s burnt out while I was doing a yoga shoot the day before (look for some of those to come tomorrow). So when I got to work, I basically had half an hour to find a new location and figure out how to light it for about 60 people using only one light and a softbox. No problem.
I grabbed a small ladder (about 5 ft) and cranked my light stand up as high as it could go, angled down about 35 degrees. I turned the softbox horizontal and gaff taped a 20×30″ piece of foam core board to the top to act as a bounce card to push the light back a bit. Little bit of guess and check on the exposure and viola!
Copyright: To blog or not to blog
I found out not one hour before I started writing this post that one of my photos, the photo of Ricky Kreklow hanging out playing video games with his friends before a game
was taken, from this site, reprinted in mass, and used as a way to taunt Ricky during a game tonight against his high school’s long time rival. Now, I spent enough time with Ricky to know that the action of these kids didn’t really phase him during the game. He is a very smart kid, a talented player, and knows what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
Obviously, the actions anyone involved in this ‘stunt’, do bother me. The photos included the file name of the photo, which includes a coding of my name, mcav. It goes into the file name of every single photo I take as a way to identify myself. Never did I think it would backfire on me. See, I haven’t given Ricky any of the photos I took of him last December. I haven’t even shown them to him because I was waiting until a time where I could afford to make him some high quality prints as my way of saying “Thanks for letting me invade your life.” But like I said, Ricky is smart. He can easily put two and two together and know that the photo was the one I took.
Almost immediately after I found out about this, I texted him to let him know that I did not give permission to anyone to use the photo and that I was going to start looking into who did use the photo. Now here comes the sticky.
While the notice “All Content © Matthew P. Cavanah” appears on the bottom of every page of this blog, and sometimes in individual posts or even photos, depending on how likely I think they are to be stolen, (Let’s face it, I don’t think anyone besides me and my family really care to have photos of my nephew.) there isn’t a whole lot within the realm of Blogger that I can do to prevent people from taking my photos. It’s a chance a lot of up and coming photographers take. We can’t afford fancy websites that have built in right click protection or other methods that would have prevented this from happening. And I need a refresher course before I start tinkering with Bloggers html to attempt to put an invisible box or something to protect my photos.
But like I said, this is a risk that a lot of photographers take. Make a blog on a free website in hopes of getting noticed, and eventually gainfully employed, which is at the forefront of my “To Do” list, at the risk of people coming and taking our photos for our own use.
I’m curious as to what other people think about this and where do they draw the line with their blog. I’m not talking about putting in watermarks or sizing down photos to make it so hard copies are tiny (a tactic I obviously don’t subscribe to here…I like big photos). I mean at what point do you say, this is too valuable to blog, I need to save this from the millions of people out there that think taking a photo without permission is ok?
*Also-I’m aware that the color of the photo in this post, and the original post it came from (“Ricky Kreklow: No Looking Back”) may be very…scrambled…on some browsers. As far as I can tell, this has to do with how the photos were processed. I shot them using a 5DmkII but I do not have CS4 and could not process the .cr2 files from the camera properly. Using PhotoMechanic, I extracted jpg previews so that I could open them in Photoshop. I think at that point is where the problem happened, but at this stage, short of taking the whole lot of photos through a computer with CS4 and reprocessing them, there’s not a whole lot I can do. Sorry for the inconvenience
"Rec"less Randomness
After a stint as an Assistant Director of Photography at the Missourian for four weeks I’m back at the Rec until I land myself a more permanent job elsewhere. I got asked to go out and shoot some bike racks for a proposal the facility manager was putting together and I found this lil’ guy.
He just wants to ride!
No Looking Back: Ricky Kreklow
While on the road to Troy Buchanan High School in Troy, Mo., Rock Bridge senior Ricky Kreklow settles in for the hour and a half long bus ride by finding a song on his iPhone. “Nobody around Columbia wants to play a school our size.” Rock Bridge’s schedule involves numerous road games against Kansas City and St. Louis opponents. Being on the road has become something of a metaphor for Kreklow in his final year at Rock Bridge. Both recovery from numerous injuries sustained in his junior year and having verbally committed to play at the University of Missouri next year have Kreklow looking at what lies ahead.
During a physical therapy session, Physical Therapist Cynthia Komes works over Kreklow’s leg joints. Towards the end of the 2008-2009 season Kreklow suffered from a number of injuries included a stress fracture in his right ankle and a ruptured disk in his back, which led to surgery in August. Not to be put down by the injuries, Kreklow made a steady recovery and was able to start his final season at Rock Bridge without trouble. “You almost don’t need me anymore, Ricky,” Komes commented during the therapy session.
Kreklow listens as Rock Bridge head coach Jim Scanlon instructs the team on things the need to remember when they play defense in an upcoming game.
Before setting off for a road game in Troy, Mo Kreklow spends some time playing video games with childhood friends and teammates Trey Millard (left), and Justin Miller (right) at Kreklow’s home in Columbia, Mo.
Kreklow prepares for a game against McCleur North on Dec. 11, 2009 in the Troy Buchanan High School locker room during the Troy People’s Bank Tournament. “I always get nervous I’m going to forget something,” Kreklow said. “I have to check and make sure I have everything three or four times.”
Kreklow attempts to drive to the basket early in the second half of the Troy People’s Bank Tournament championship game against McCleur North. Rock Bridge would lose 67-78. Following the game Rock Bridge head coach Jim Scanlon said, “Ricky looked like the only one out there that wanted it all.”
While Kreklow’s teammates wait in silence for head coach Scanlon to enter the locker room following the team’s loss to McCleur North, Kreklow examines a bleeding rash on his hip from diving after a loose ball. “Its not like you can play the game over,” Kreklow said. “You just have to move on to the next game.”
Thanksgiving Shenanigans
Can I have a CPOY award now?
Gettin’ Dirty
I shot a lot of stuff this last weekend and my favorite has to be the stuff I did on Sunday. I shot the Mizzou Cycling club, who were hosting a midwest collegiate regional meet. I used my first remote camera set-up and was pretty stoked with what came back. Here’s a few shots. 
All images ©Matthew Cavanah, 2009
The Great Escape
The Problem: The black part inside the “box” contains six CDs. I’m not exactly sure what CDs are in there, but I know that the box will no longer accept any commands from the controller or the reset buttons meaning those CDs are trapped inside. Good thing I liked taking things apart as a kid.
Step 1: The actual unit was suspended on shock absorbers within the main shell to prevent skipping while the car was in motion. Good for listening to my music (when the thing worked) bad for stability when removing the necessary screws to get to the CD carriage.
Step 2: The actual playing unit is fully exposed. I’d hoped to have been able to simply get to this step and just pull the CD carriage right out, no problem. Unfortunately…
…a CD was being held in the play position and didn’t want to leave it. This led to…
Step 3: Break out the precision screw drivers to begin dismantling the casing around the play head.
Step 4: A few screws later and we have sucessful seperation of the CD carriage and the play head. Thankfully the CD that was lodged in the play position was a worthless burn I made in high school. This CD is now classified as a POW.
Step 5: After extricating the five remaining CDs I’m left with a giant heap of trash. All this and it only took two screwdrivers and a wire cutter to take it all apart.
The liberated CDs (from left to right): Pseudopod, Lostprophets “Start Something”, Linkin Park and Jay-Z “Collision Course”, Freebird The Movie Soundtrack, Linkin Park “Reanimation”.
ADFPF National Championships
The American Drug Free Powerlifting Federation held their national championships, dubbed “Mayhem in the Midwest”, at the Rec Complex this last weekend.
