View Finders

Life In the Streets

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 16:53:00 +0000

Like so many photographers I’m always hoping for that personally-rewarding moment when I hit the shutter button knowing I captured a critical moment. Pure digital gold. So it’s not surprising that as a photographer I love taking photos. I love it so much I’ve made it my career. Still, even something as creative and individual as taking photos can become more humdrum as it becomes your day-in/day-out work. That’s why I was so excited last week when our Director of Photography, Todd Mizener, called me with an assignment to shoot a photo of a daily scene, a “slice of life,” from the Floreciente neighborhood - a largely Hispanic area of Moline that was being targeted for improvement. It’s the kind of assignment that seems basic, but is far from ordinary. The volume of images constantly demanded by a daily newspaper can leave photographers running from one assignment to the next with little time to explore a subject in depth. Todd didn’t want me falling into the habit of cruising the streets in my car looking for an eye-catching scene. We needed a personal moment that showed the residents in the context of their neighborhood. Todd made sure I knew that - telling me to park my car and walk the neighborhood in order to connect with people and find the kind of daily-life moments that become invisible when you’re looking at the world through your windshield.

My Top Take - John Deere Classic 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 03:34:00 +0000

I post my favorite photos from the John Deere Classic golf tournament each year. The annual PGA event brings the world’s best players to the Quad-Cities and even though we run a lot of golf photos throughout the week we never get to run all of our best or favorite images. These are my favorite photos that I took during the tournament - but the best images of the week came from the rest of the Dispatch/Argus photo staff. Hopefully they’ll share their top moments, too.

Pucker-up Zach Johnson. A good luck kiss and you just might win the British Open next week!

The day before playing in the JDC pro-am actor Bill Murray makes a friendly wager with PGA pro Jordan Spieth and the mayor of Rock Island. Mayor Pauly lost his $5

A surprise kiss from Bill Murray. She didn't complain.

Kid's Clinic high-fives. Always a good time.

Jordan Spieth not looking so good - shooing an opening-round even par 71. Here he helps the grounds crew cut the grass on the 8th fairway.

Loyal Zach Johnson fans follow the former Masters champ around the course. A week later he would win the British Open.

Our inter, Meg, was shooting this birdie putt on the 18th green from another angle and made a much better photo! I'm happy he turned my way while he was still smiling.

Defending John Deere Classic champion Brian Harman is overshadowed by current Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth. Spieth would end up winning the 2015 John Deere Classic.

Spieth in the rough on the 17th during the third round. He would end up making eagle on the hole (next photo).

Jordan Spieth celebrates with his caddie after his third shot rolled into the cup for an eagle on the 17th hole. Find the highlight online somewhere. Worth watching more than once.

Daniel Summerhayes has a light moment. It's easy to be happy when you're near the top of the leader board.

So Close!!! Danny Lee can't believe he missed his putt on the 8th green.

Quite the crowd. Spectators watch Spieth tee off on the 7th hole.

Zack does a good job coping with the near-miss.

Zach Johnson misses a close putt on 18. Again, my coworker Todd Welvaert has a much better shot from another angle.

Jordan Spieth, and a thousand of his closest friends, study his chip from the rough on the 9th green. Wait! Look at the size of that guy's cigar!!!!

It didn't mater that Spieth continued to find the rough. The 21-year-old won the playoff round to claim his second John Deere Classic trophy. (Sure am glad that guy had his arm up - made it easy to spot the ball leaving the frame)

Fireworks on the Fly

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 21:37:00 +0000

I’ve only taken photos of fireworks a handful of times. I’m guessing most photographers have limited opportunities to get great photos of fireworks given that displays usually only happen on July 4th and last about 30 minutes. That leaves very little time in a year to experiment with different set-ups, exposures and shutter speeds while trying to capture the perfect sequence of colorful bursts. Despite my limited opportunities to photograph fireworks I’ve always been happy with the photos I get as they explode over the Mississippi River in the Quad-Cities.


The same side of the Centennial Bridge between Rock Island and Davenport, but shot in consecutive years. I wasn't thrilled with the photo above, so the following year I tried for a more dynamic perspective (blow). Sometimes I hate having to wait a whole year to get a new shot, but it does make it exciting when you know you have only one chance to make the photo.

There is one basic “rule” of shooting fireworks that I’ve always followed: have a stationary object in the foreground to give the scene perspective and context. I’d been following that “rule” for several years and been happy with the results - but for the 2015 “Red, White & Boom” show I was coming up blank on a fresh scene. In my search for a new vantage point I settled on a telephoto shot from the bluff over the river. From this distance I wouldn’t have a prominent foreground subject, but I liked the idea of this year’s picture being a different style from my previous photos. I knew the telephoto shot would compress the foreground, but I didn’t know if the result of that compression would be a dramatic and striking scene, or end up looking like a tangled, indistinguishable mess. It was a risk worth taking, because, in a the worst-case scenario, I could fix it with a strategic crop.

The newly-constructed Schwiebert Riverfront Park was officially opened to the public over the July 4th weekend in 2010. The park's centerpiece is the band shell that is designed to look like the former armory building that used to stand at the same site. The band shell was the perfect feature to showcase both the independence day celebration and the new park.

In my search for a new shooting location I overlooked a major technical problem. Obviously, the long exposure used for photographing fireworks demands the use of a tripod. In previous years my close proximity to the fireworks made my tripod set-up easy: I was close to fireworks but needed to fill part of my frame with a well-know landmark - so naturally I used a wide angle lens. No issues in years past - no problems this year either, I thought. That’s when my problem presented itself: the long telephoto lens amplifies the camera’s movements. I took some test frames and noticed the lights on the bridge were “trailing.” As I pressed the shutter button my hand would move the camera a fraction of an inch, and as the shutter opened and the exposure began the camera was still shaking which resulted in a visible trail from each light bulb on the bridge. Well, I thought, I’ll just tighten up all my knobs and give the screws on each leg a nice firm twist to be sure the camera and lens won’t wobble around as I press the button. Another test shot, same result. As the fireworks show stated I was still trying to figure out where I was going wrong. I figured I could press the button very softly and remove my hand from the camera very slowly and delicately. Still, even with the most gentle button press the mirror flipping up was enough to shake the camera so that the bridge lights looked jittery. Cameras have mirror lock-up features to correct for this exact issue. Its a camera feature often utilized by celestial photographers who use long, night time exposures to shoot stars. I didn’t realize this issue was going to be a problem for me, and by the time I thought of using my mirror lock-up feature the fireworks were well underway, leaving me no time to fuss around in the camera menus trying to activate the mirror feature.

The shaky looking lights on the bridge.


I'm thinking "Hey, this looks good. Oh, wait. No, it doesn't." (see below)

I continued shooting with my steadiest hand for a few minutes until the solution dawned on me. I realized the camera was shaking as a result of the movement of my hand and the mirror flipping up. Since I was shooting an 8 second exposure and needed to remove the shaking I extended my exposure to 10 seconds, took off the newspaper credential I wear around my neck and held it in front of the lens. Then I pressed the shutter button. The camera shook. I waited 2 seconds for the camera to stop shaking. Then I removed the paper from in front of the lens and began the exposure.
BINGO!
My telephoto scene was sharp and wobble-free.

Subscribe via iTunes

noreply@blogger.com (Dispatch/Argus Photo Department) — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 02:29:00 +0000

Just a little ViewFinders reminder that you can subscribe to the Talking Pictures Podcast via iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/talking-pictures-podcast/id1000114875?mt=2

A conversation with the legend - John Greenwood

noreply@blogger.com (Dispatch/Argus Photo Department) — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 02:24:00 +0000

In this week's edition of The Talking Pictures Podcast we chat with veteran photojournalist John Greenwood on the eve of his retirement after over 31 years on the job. The conversation covers a wide variety of topics including rock 'n' roll photography, life after photojournalism, exotic dancers who make poor models and John's most memorable photo.

UPDATE: 'Talking Pictures Podcast'

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Mon, 11 May 2015 20:08:00 +0000

We may be a little late to the podcasting party but the Dispatch/Argus is proud to announce our Talking Pictures Podcast. Talking Pictures is a podcast produced by the photo staff of The Dispatch, The Rock Island Argus and QCOnline.com in Moline, Illinois. The three main contributors to the program are Todd Mizener (Dir. of Photography & Multimedia), Paul Colletti (Lead Staff Photographer) and Todd Welvaert (Staff Photographer).

Since I originally wrote the post we have grown the podcast to the point that we are now listed on iTunes. We are very excited about the opportunity to broadcast to the entire Podcast loving world. You can subscribe three ways: 1 - Go to iTunes and search 'Talking Pictures Podcast' and click on the SUBSCRIBE button. 2 - Or you can use the direct RSS feed in iTunes/File/Subscribe to Podcast and cut and paste our RSS feed into that field. http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:3568537/sounds.rss
And you can also keep listening to us on SoundCloud.
https://soundcloud.com/qconlineaudio

Our photography centric podcast hopes to entertain and maybe pull the curtain back a little on the job of a photojournalist at a mid-sized daily newspaper. To see some of our our work go to qconline.com/multimedia. We are always looking for good topics so email your suggestions to photos@qconline.com and don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE!!!!

Extreme Settings & Lifelong Lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 20:49:00 +0000

As a young photographer I coveted a professional DSLR camera - but the cost of a top-tier camera put owning one out of reach for me. My financial restrictions probably made me a little bitter - because even as I dreamed of shooting with a professional Canon or Nikon I wondered if the cameras were really worth high price tag (how can they justify charging $3000 for the camera body?!? How much better can it really be?!?)
I remember my dad telling me a story as a kid - about how the price of a tool does’t always matter. Rather, how you use a tool, and how well you utilize it, often has a bigger influence on your success than simply having a better tool. That certainly would have been the case if I were using a pro-level camera as an inexperienced, undisciplined teenage photographer. A better camera certainly would have been wasted on me at the time - only serving to expose my naiveté by showing everyone that I thought I could buy my way to better pictures.
Fast-forward to today. I’m lucky get to work at what it is I love to do and my gear is provided to me by my newspaper. I’m shooting with one of the best cameras on the market, but unlike my younger self, today I can actually use this camera, and regularly call on my Nikon to flex all its digital muscle. I push my camera to its extreme performance limits - a lot. I’m not abusing the camera, but I asking it to perform in demanding situations. And it’s built for it.

Two examples of what I mean:
During a memorial walk across the Centennial Bridge I pushed and pulled my settings to their furthest useable limits. It was for a story about a grieving family walking part of the route where their husband and father died while jogging earlier in the week. I didn’t want to use a flash and blind the family. Besides a direct flash would ruin the mood, make the dark scene look harsh, flat and have terrible color temperature mixture with the orange street lights. So I leaned on my camera - set my Kelvin white balance to its lowest setting, my ISO near 10,000, frame rate to highest burst and my vibration-reduction lens to its most stabilizing setting because I was still only getting a shutter speed of 1/25 of a second. The family was walking straight towards me - so that helped reduce motion blur - but if I wasn’t able to use all the available tools and bottom-out one camera setting while maxing-out another, this “simple” photo, a family at the scene of their loved one’s death, wouldn’t exist.
These thoughts about the camera only came to mind recently because of a couple of portraits I shot months after the bridge memorial walk.

The bridge was a dark situation where I needed to squeeze every drop of light out of the scene. The portraits, on the other hand, were very bright settings that I needed to darken considerably. The first portrait was on a cross country runner. The shot lacked a good location - and cross country doesn’t use any real equipment - so there was no prop (like a baseball bat, or football) to incorporate into the shot to make it more interesting. That meant I’d use lighting and a pose to spice up a photo of a kid who was essentially just standing there. I decide to shoot it from above, but needed to make him “pop.” I decided that an ultra-shallow depth of field combined with a spot light would really separate him from the background. But shooting wide open at f1.8 meant my photo was way too bright at 11 a.m. on a sunny day. So instead of having my ISO setting sky high (ISO 10,000) like it was on the bridge - I buried the sensitivity to it slowest setting (ISO 25). Still too bright to sync my flash at a 250th/sec. Thankfully Nikon flashes are able to be used at any shutter speed - so I set up an off-camera Speedlight, ran my sync cord and - Voila!
The same bright situation presented itself during another portrait of a tennis player in Rock Island. I needed the net to be super-soft focus, but still needed to use a pop of flash on a bright day. Again: drop ISO to its rock-bottom setting, run my cord and shoot at the maximum shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second.

Well, I still think my dad was right when he told me that I’d get better results by using a tool effectively rather than misusing, or under-utilizing, a better tool. That’s a long-winded way of saying that I’m finally able to have it both ways: effectively utilizing the best tool. Say “cheese!”

Dispatch/Argus green screen magic

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 15:40:00 +0000

It has only taken me a year but I am finally getting around to writing a blog entry about our green screen set-up here at the Dispatch/Argus.

When we started our weekly web-cast "The Press Box" we didn't want it to be visually static with just two guys sitting in front of a newspaper logo. We use the green screen to drop in game action photos, team logos and stats. The hardest part for us was to fine tune our lighting on the cheap. We tried to utilize the studio strobes' modeling lamps along with some odds and ends we had laying around. After awhile of fighting the good fight in post-production we switched to our current set-up inspired by this blog - http://wistia.com/blog/your-first-lighting-kit. The light needs to be even and consistent and our current set-up gives us just was we need without much hassle or expense.

iPhone panorama of sportswriters Daniel Makarewicz and Steve Tappa taping the Press Box. The panorama function looks to have caused Dan's ear to mutate a bit.

Our green screen studio-kit consists of the following items:

Impact IMBGCG1012 Chroma Sheet Background - 10 x 12' (Chroma Green) purchased from B&H = $58.95 (I would suggest considering buying a bigger screen than you think you might need because this one fits two full sides adults. If we wanted to add a third person for an interview things would get too tight.)
1 - 2x4 to help weigh down the bottom of the green screen and stretch it tight.
1 - 1.5" metal conduit pipe to hang the back-drop from. Our pipe is mounted to an old seemless paper backdrop rig.
Various spring clamps to help pull wrinkles out of the green screen and hold lights in place.
8 - Clamp lights from Home Depot.
4 - 60watt CFL Daylight balanced bulbs (for back-drop) from Home Depot.
4 - 100 watt CFL Daylight balanced bulbs (for subjects) from Home Depot.
Note: look for daylight balanced “High-CRI” or “Full Spectrum” bulbs
Each light is diffused with a sheet of Rosco Cinegel #3026 Filter - Tough White Diffusion - Purchased from B&H - http://tinyurl.com/kdsbmbh
Numerous clothespins to hold the diffuser sheets on the lights.
Lot's of extension cords
We edit in FCPX using the standard keying function to remove the green.

I shoot the Press Box every week with a Nikon D800 or a D300s. We mic the subjects with two ElecroVoice RE50B hand-held mics run through a Tascam D-60. There is an air vent in our studio which can be problematic for sound, so we have them use the ElecroVoice RE50B mics to cut-down on ambient background noise. The shot-gun mic you see in the photo above was for a test I ran to see if I could eliminate the hand-helds. The shot-gun sounded great when the AC wasn't running but when it was the background noise was too high for my tastes. Unfortunately, we haven't found a good way to dampen the vent noise but we are working on it.

The set-up has evolved over the last year as we have discovered what works for us and what doesn't. A simple set-up is key because we shoot in our photo studio is in regular use during the day. We need to move all the video lighting out of the way so the next person can use the seamless wall for still pictures.

iPhone panorama of our photo studio prior to a recent taping the Press Box. The studio can get a little cramped when we have all the video lights up and running. But this set-up allows us to just moved them out of the way once we finish shooting with the green screen.

Things we have learned:

1 - Green Screen must be flat and free of wrinkles. This makes the keying much easier in FCPX. We hang our green screen from a pipe we bought at Lowe's and stretched it tight with a 2 x 4 at the bottom to hold it in place. Various clamps are employed to pull wrinkles out.

2 - For some reason it took us for ever to master lighting the green screen. I think the problem was we were not throwing enough or the right resources at it. You don't want it too hot compared to your subject because because you will get green spill over on to your subject's skin tones. Photographer Paul Colletti figured out that if we used two old light stands and our location backdrop pole to hang four lights we could illuminate the backdrop very evenly. After one week of shooting using this set-up we took it one step further by abandoning the use of studio modeling lamps for the subject lights. We now use 60W CFL daylight balanced bulbs on the background and 100W CFL daylight balanced bulbs on the subjects. This totally eliminated the green spill and the subjects pop out from whatever I add as a background in post production.

3 - Make are your subjects DON'T WEAR GREEN!!!! It seems like a no-brainer but despite a regular shooting schedule one of our guys forgot and wore a green shirt one to a taping. This was the result before we made him go borrow a shirt.

Press Box Samples:

Press Box - With lighting set-up described in

this blog post.

Press Box - Before we switched to the 100W CFL

bulbs on the subjects.

If you have any questions about our green screen set-up don't hesitate

to email me at tmizener@qconline.com

John Deere Classic 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 14:45:00 +0000

Some of my favorite golf photos from this year’s John Deere Classic.

Zach Johnson always has a big gallery following him around the course. Always looking for new angles to show all the people surrounding him.

Brian Harman pulled a local high school basketball coach out of the crowd when is caddie suddenly got sick on the course. Harman won the tournament and says he'll share some of his winnings with his impromptu bag handler.

Three-time JDC champion Steve Stricker still commands attention whenever he's on the course. Being paired with reigning JDC champ Jordan Spieth, right, didn't dilute Stricker's gravitas.

After a lack-luster first round defending JDC champion Jordan Spieth ended in a strong position on the leader board. Here he approaches the 18th green on the tournament's final day.

Everyone loved the eyebrows.

Steve Stricker gets exasperated after missing a putt.

It's a simple moment but actually one of the most difficult things to find - a rare show of emotion for the normally stoic Steve Stricker.

Artist David Anderson works on his portrait of the 18th green at TPC Deere Run. Anderson sat next to the green all week adding details to the painting as the tournament progressed.

Replace your divot Jhonattan Vegas!

We actually had near-perfect weather for the 2014 JDC - but golfers worked up a sweat anyway.

All eyes on Stricker as he putts. No pressure...

Brian Harman celebrates after winning the John Deere Classic.

High-fives as he walks to sign his score card.

Harman and his fiancee embrace after he sank the winning putt.

In the Tornado's Wake

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 22:05:00 +0000

In the past two years I've watched the news coverage from Joplin, Missouri, and Moore, Oklahoma, after tornados struck those communities. On Monday I got to whiteness the kind of destruction that powerful tornados can have when they strike populated ares. Our reporter, Tyler, and I went to Washington, Illinois, the day after an F4 tornado destroyed nearly four hundred homes in the suburban neighborhoods northeast of Peoria.
The footage and photography from Joplin and Moore was astonishing, but after having been in the heart of a similar disaster zone - and worked to document the aftermath - I realize how inadequate any visual record is at capturing the scale and severity of the damage.
Amazingly, only one person in Washington died as a result of the storm. The residents of Washington were welcoming and friendly despite the circumstances. I didn't expect the victims of such a devastating tornado to be as willing to talk, but everyone we encountered was glad to see us there - anxious to tell us their survival story, show us how their community was pulling together and to hear how people from outside their city were working to help them.

Before & After

The Wild Life

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:40:00 +0000

I never worked with former Dispatch/Argus photo director Terry Herbig, but I'm sure some of his mojo is still hanging around the office. Terry, I'm told, was famous for loving wildlife and taking amazing photos of animals and nature. I've never thought of myself as a wildlife photographer, but the more opportunities I see the more exciting it is to shoot. Wild animals can be unpredictable so getting a good opportunity to make a great photograph can be rare.
Lucky for me though - in the last two days I've run across a hawk having squirrel for dinner and a fox in my back yard.
I spotted the rabbit around the corner from my house, too.
Maybe these kinds of shots aren't as rare as I used to think.


This fox looked healthier when I saw it about a month before. Still a cool sighting in a suburban neighborhood.

Saw this hawk on the shoulder of the road in Moline. Neighbors and police stopped to watch as it ate a squirrel.

Tried to fly away with it's kill, but couldn't get very far.

A Blue Jay started to dive-bomb the hawk. Didn't like the big bird near its nest.

Finally got eat in peace.

Despite the city ordinance violation, one good thing about my neighbor's tall grass is the habitat it gives to rabbits.

Drought. What Drought?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:01:00 +0000

I wasn't the only one who's heart sank when the National Weather Service said the Quad-Cities needed 9 inches of rain to recover form last summer's drought. A lower number, like 8, might have even given people some cautious optimism. It feels like yesterday that the Army Corps of Engineers was considering closing the Mississippi River to barge traffic because of low water levels. Saying we needed 9 inches of rain just to break even, to get the water table back to a normal level - that put the requirement in the same category as the 4-minute-mile: Impossible, but for a miracle.
Then April rolled around and we were soaked. The Quad-Cities got over 300% of normal rain fall and just like that - poof, the drought was over.

With the constant, wide-spread rainfall the rivers rose and we went from one natural disaster to another. Hello Spring flooding 2013. Out of the frying pan & into the fire.

I was talking with residents of North Shore Drive while shooting flood photos on the Rock River in Moline. The Rock River set a record for its highest crest ever, but people who live on its shore remarked how slowly the river came up. Every day another inch higher until they were forced to leave and let their houses fill with water. There was no huge storm that dumped so much water that people were scrambling to save their belongings or rushing to fill sandbags. Even with the slow rise some people couldn't get out of the way in time.

It's way too late for this car, but the rain keeps falling


Flood protection is installed around Modern Woodmen Park. They still play baseball inside the stadium even when it becomes an island in the Mississippi River

Flood walls are filled with sand on River Drive in downtown Davenport

I guess it's called River Drive for a reason


Volunteer firefighters in Barstow prepare sandbags as fears grow that the weakening levee will break

The Rock River floods

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn declares Rock Island County among the state's disaster areas due to flooding

Are You Ready for Some Football?!?!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:18:00 +0000

Coldest day of the season + Football = Bitter/Sweet

The guys playing for Illinois' state football championships got to run around the field and use adrenaline to keep their blood warm. On the sidelines we photographers channeled our fear of losing a foot to frostbite as our way to prevent succumbing to exposure.
It was really, really cold - and the wind chill made it worse (boo hoo) - but the excitement of a state championship game meant that none of it mattered when the action came our way. Videographer Aaron Facemire and I spent the day in Champaign covering Mercer County and Alleman playing in the Class 2A and Class 4A title games.
Head to the bottom of the page to check out the great footage Aaron shot on game day.

Images from Election Night

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:38:00 +0000

Election night coverage is a lot of fun. Granted you work late hours, don't eat, have tight deadlines and deal with the extra stress of hedging your bets on winners and losers - but a lot of fun photos come out of the excitement of a close election. Space inside the newspaper is always limited, so hard-copy election coverage is dedicated to results and reaction. On Tuesday night, November 7, 2012, Todd Mizener and I worked the Republican victory party in Rock Island. There was little for the GOP to celebrate on election night as many of the highly-contested races (locally, state-wide and nationally) went to the Democrats. That's not a bad thing photographically; someone always wins and someone always loses and often the images of the losing party are more compelling. As the night wore on it was obvious that local races were going to be won by the Democrats so I walked to the Democrat victory party (literally across the street) while Todd stayed on the Republican side.

Republican campaign staffers look glum as their election results are reported


Captain America and sidekick accompany State Rep. Rich Morthland as he rallies the troops

Bill Albracht gives an autograph to a young fan

Democrats react to their win

Republicans react to their loss

Cheri Bustos gives her acceptance speech in Rock Island

Honorable: Veterans Day in East Moline

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 06:44:00 +0000

They are in their 70's, 80's and maybe even their 90's but they still wear their uniforms well. They look sharp even if they don't stand quite as straight at attention anymore. In my eyes they stand straight as arrows, all in a crisp line, on a chilly November morning in downtown East Moline.

The American Legion Post 227 honor guard prepare to fire their salute during Veterans Day program at the 9th Street Commons Park, East Moline, Monday, Nov. 12, 2012.

Unfortunately with each passing year Veterans Day crowds are dwindling. If you have ever attended a Veterans Day event in a close knit town like East Moline you know what I am talking about. Our Greatest Generation is passing away at an alarming rate and as far as I can tell the contemporary veterans have yet to start coming out in mass to Veterans Day events like the one they hold every year at the corner of 9th Street and 15th Avenue. As time passes I hope this trend changes. My generation needs to step up veterans and citizens alike. Hopefully younger vets will follow the lead of my classmate Jeff Borland who served as the Commander of Moline's VFW Post 2153 back in 2004.

Excuse me but I digress, this isn't a blog post about the young guys, their time will come. This blog post is about the guys who went to high school with my late dad. It is about the men and women who fought on the battlefields of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. They need our support at events like the one they held in East Moline and all around the Quad-Cities this past week.
Personally, I have a soft spot in my heart for the WWII vets. My dad, who served stateside because of medical condition, always called them "real heroes". They were his classmates and friends. Those who came back were cherished and those who did not were revered.

So each time I have the opportunity to turn my cameras towards these men and women I cherish the opportunity to shine a light on them and their sacrifice.

I learned a long time ago that my dad didn't like to talk about the his service. Then I learned during the inaugural Honor Flight that none of the vets liked to talk about the war. They did their job and came home. Talking about it wasn't part of the deal they made when they signed up.

I have been lucky enough to have met and talked to WWII vets but the one that always stands out for me is Joe Colmer of East Moline. Joe doesn't like to admit it but he is a real life action hero. He was a platoon sergeant in Army's 82nd Airborne 325th Glider Infantry and landed behind enemy lines on D-Day. Trust me his entire life story is the stuff they make movies about.

The bottom line is that we are running out opportunities to personally thank our WWII and Korean War heroes. So next time you have an opportunity to pay your respects to a veteran, any veteran, take a minute and do it. There were maybe 40 people on that corner in East Moline on Monday, let's try for 60 next year.

PHOTO STUFF

The photos on this page were shot with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone in-between taking photos for the paper with my Nikon DSLR. I like the square format of the Hipstamatic app because it force me to compose each image very carefully before I fire the shutter. In this case I think the B&W helps to focus the viewer on the subject eliminating any possible distractions caused by color. As a general rule I always try and find a way to employ the Hipstamatic app while on assignment for the Dispatch/Argus especially on assignments like Veterans Day which are ripe with interesting subjects.

Thanks Joe

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:27:00 +0000

Joe Payne - Photo by Todd Mizener

Today we bid farewell to our fearless leader, associate managing editor, Joe Payne.

Despite Joe's youthful appearance he is 'retiring' from the newspaper business after 27-years on the job. He is moving on to a new career with a local engineering firm.

Joe was born into the newspaper business following in his father's footsteps at the Rock Island Argus. His achievements with this company are too numerous to list here but needless to say he is a born leader.

He may target his biggest achievement as being the 'father' of our very successful niche magazine The Radish.

I believe Joe's greatest contribution has been his rock steady stewardship of every position he has held within the organization. For the last 5-years he has managed our newsroom through the rocky waters of a bad economy, shrinking newsroom staffing and challenges of a 24-hour news-cycle for our online product. Despite all the challenges we are not only surviving but we are still producing at a high level.

Personally it dawned on me this morning that my relationship with Joe is probably best described as brotherly. His patience with me, as I grew into my position as Director of Photography, has been inspiring. He trusted my news judgement and gave my staff a lot of room to succeed. And on that odd occasion when things went awry he was always understanding and encouraging. Joe never led by fear and that goes a long way when your newsroom staffing is stretched to the limit.

Without Joe's unwavering support of my vision for the D/A photo department we would have never become a force in multimedia. As a photographer it is a rare gift to work for an editor with a sharp visual acuity. Fortunately for my staff Joe's successor Laura Fraembs is equally adept visually, so we will be in good shape for the coming years.

My staff and I owe a lot to Joe and we just wanted to use this blog to say - 'Thank You'.

Hipstamatic: United Way Day of Caring

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:41:00 +0000

Today's assignment was to cover the United Way's annual Day of Caring Mobile Foodbank in Moline. As part of my normal work for the newspaper I also covered the event with my iPhone and the Hipstamatic app. For Hispamatic users the 'film' is Blackeys Super Grain with the Helga Viking lens. These kinds of events are always an eye opener when you see nearly 100 people show up on a Wednesday morning for free food. Hats off to the United Way for providing some assistance to those people who really need a leg up. The couple in the wheel chairs, William and Mary Ripley, who are both on Social Security disability, said that the food they received on Wednesday came at a critical time late in the month since their pantry was nearly empty.

Lincoln School: Photographs and Memories

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 13:48:00 +0000

I can’t count how many times in 23-years at the Dispatch/Argus that I have been assigned to take an updated “building mug” of the old Lincoln School in Rock Island. Since it closed in the 80′s the building has been on a slow and steady descent into hell. Its demise has been so slow that it never seemed to look any different. The beautiful red bricks and striking arches are an architectural mirage. According to the demolition crew the reality is the 119-year-old building is long past saving.

Since the final decision was made to demolish the structure there has been a steady stream of people stopping by to say goodbye to their old friend. Everyone I spoke to at the site said the same thing “I wish they could have saved it.” “They should have turned it into a … fill in the blank.”

When the school was closed back in the 80′s the Quad-Cities’ economy was being ripped to shreds by the farm crises. I am not a historian but my best guess is that Lincoln School is an unfortunate victim of circumstance. When the factories which employed so many of the neighborhood’s residents started to struggle, the resulting socio-economic changes left very little money to rehab a money pit built in 1893. Ralph Walters, the school’s retired physical education teacher, told me that the building was a maintenance nightmare during its final 20-years. 2012 is a brand new world when it comes to rehabbing old buildings but we need to remember what was going on economically in the area when the building was shuttered. It will be sad to see those wonderful arches fall to the wrecking ball on Monday. Hopefully something useful will spring from the roots of the beloved old school.

Over the years of photographing old Lincoln School I have never taken the time to walk around it and study it with my camera. On Monday, during the process of shooting photos for the D/A with my Nikon D300s DSLR, I started to make some some photos with my trusty iPhone. I utilized my favorite photo app on the iPhone Hipstamatic. After I had what I needed for the paper I spent 30-minutes trying to capture the character of the building using Hipstamatic. If you follow me on Instagram (@tmizener) you know I am an iPhone photography addict and this project is taylor-made for a Hipstamatic essay. I love the dramatic black & white 1:1 format, especially for portraits.

On Thursday we got the word that the demolition of the school’s gymnasium addition was going to start so I headed back to the site. The distance of the demolition action from where I had to stand behind the safety fence isn’t conducive to taking images with an iPhone. As a result I concentrated my Hipstamatic photos on the people who showed up to watch. During the 2-hours I was on the scene I had to toggle between my responsibilities to the newspaper and the Hipstamatic project.

Lincoln School Alumni John Baxter with his class photo circa 1964-65.

Once I was back in the office and finished my newspaper edit I was finally able to look over the Hipstamatic images. I was pretty pleased with the results. I have picked 14 of the better images from both days to a slideshow posted below. I especially like the photo of John Baxter (above) holding his class photo with the school in the background. I hope to capture more of these ‘alumni portraits’ on Monday during the demolition of the main building. With any luck lots of Lincoln alumni will take the time to stop by the site. Fingers crossed.

*Notes: The majority of this post was originally posted on my personal blog - toddmizener.wordpress.com . The only non-Hipstmatic photo in the slideshow is the one of the cat living under the school steps. That image was taken with a Nikon D300s and a 70-200mm lens. I cropped it to the 1:1 format and toned it in Photoshop to give it a Hipstamatic feel.
LINCOLN COVERAGE UPDATE: On Monday morning we will publish a story previewing the demolition of the school. Here is the accompanying video that I produced from interviews done on Thursday.

River Roots and Ribs

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 03:25:00 +0000

Only got to run 1 photo in the paper from River Roots Live/Rib Fest. I think they work well together and wanted to give them life beyond "file" usage.

Softball, Softball and more Softball!!

noreply@blogger.com (Todd Mizener) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 03:16:00 +0000

The players for the Thunder Elite '00 from Vienna, Ohio, sport optic green socks during their game on Wednesday. Standing in the on-deck circle is Sunshine Armstrong. (Todd Mizener/Dispatch & Argus)

One of the net results of the Dispatch/Argus producing a wrap around section for the ASA 12U National Championship Tournament at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline is everyday is we have to shoot a boat load of photos every day. It has been hot and dusty out there but my staff, especially our intrepid photo intern Mike Bradley, has been producing some excellent images everyday.

I originally posted three embedded slideshows in this post but the code seems to keep failing so I have replace the code with a few choice shots from the week long tournament.

Ashley Talaga, 11, rallies her Crown Point Bulldog teammates as they participate in the ASA 12U opening ceremony in Moline on Sunday, July 29, 2012. The Bulldogs, from Crown Point, Indiana, are one of more than eighty teams playing for the ASA 12U national title. (Paul Colletti/Dispatch & Argus)

Members of the Georgia Impact warm up before a game at the ASA National Championships at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Saturday, August 4, 2012. (Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

Edge Chaos coach Amy Daly speaks with Brooklyn Daly during an ASA softball game at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Wednesday, August 1, 2012. (Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

Katy Groceman, right, and Sinda Warren of Blue Springs, Mo., cheer for their daughters' team, the KC Elite, during the ASA 12U National Championship Tournament at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Tuesday July 31, 2012. The two women were finally able to let out a big cheer after a particularly stressful half-inning which was full of ups and downs while the KC Elite were in the field. (Todd Mizener/Dispatch & Argus)

Dozens of Umpires for the ASA 12U national championship tournament receive high-fives from players as they enter the i wireless Center in Moline on Sunday, July 29, 2012. The officials will call the games all week that are played between the more than eighty teams in Moline for the tournament. (Paul Colletti/Dispatch & Argus)

Erika Silva of the Power Surge slides into home, but is tagged out by Quakes catcher Bianca Gonzalez during the ASA 12U National Championships at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Friday, August 3, 2012.
(Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

Georgia Impact players pose for the camera after defeating the Twist at the ASA 12U National Championships at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Friday, August 3, 2012. (Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

Worth Cobras infielders Gabby Moreno, left, and Emma Bell get tangled up while fielding a pop-up during the ASA 12U National Championships at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Friday, August 3, 2012. Bell successfully caught the ball for an out. (Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

The Edge Chaos empty the bench after defeating the Lasers Purple at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Wednesday, August 1, 2012. (Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

Instagram photo of the day: QC Firebirds 99 Blue player Madison Banks is silhouetted against the infield dirt while watching a teammate bat during their 2012 ASA 12U National Championship tournament game at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Friday August 3, 2012. (Todd Mizener/Dispatch & Argus)

A Worth Cobras player cries near the end of a loss at the ASA 12U National Championships at Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline on Friday, August 3, 2012. (Mike Bradley/Dispatch & Argus)

30,800 frames and counting

noreply@blogger.com (Dispatch/Argus Photo Department) — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 04:01:00 +0000

Before the start of every John Deere Classic PGA tournament we have a meeting to discuss what multimedia projects we want to pursue during the grueling week of golf coverage. This year we decided to keep it pretty simple by concentrating on producing strong slideshows. Our multimedia ace in the hole was a 4-day time-lapse of the 18th green shot with a GoPro HD camera.

To pull this prolonged project off a few things had to go just right. We had to convince the JDC folks our camera wouldn't get in the way, we needed to keep the camera powered, we had to mount it someplace no one would mess with it, no one had to mess with it and despite the need for rain locally we really needed it not to rain. Instead of mounting the camera in its normal water tight housing we had to mount it in a skeleton housing which allows us to keep power to the camera 24/7. Heavy rain ran the risk of shorting out the camera, etc. We got luck on all counts everything went perfectly.

Paul Colletti and I set up the camera on Wednesday (3 p.m.) and it ran constantly until Sunday at about 6 p.m. when the tournament ended. It shot over 30,800 frames at a rate of 1-frame every 10-seconds. Paul was kind enough to switch out our 32 GB SD cards every other day so we never came very close to filling a card and interrupting the process. Brian Ray, of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, lent a helping hand one day when a little extra GoPro expertise was needed to format a card.

In the end I decided that a 4-day long time-lapse was much too much to burden out viewers with. It would have run about 17-minutes (with the overnight portions shortened up) and that's too long to ask someone to watch a putting green. I made the decision to cut the project down to just Sunday. I did it for two reasons. The first reason was strictly time and secondly Sunday's clouds reflected in the pond were so much more dramatic on Sunday than any of the other days during the JDC. It would have been a shame for a viewer to timeout before they got to Sunday portion of the time-lapse.

I have posted here two videos. The first is the time-lapse fro Sunday and the second is the outtakes set to some fun music. I hope you take the time to watch both of them. The music in both videos is by Kevin MacLeod - http://incompetech.com/

Todd Mizener - Director of Photography

Stills from the JDC

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 04:20:00 +0000

We shoot thousands of golf photos during the week of the John Deere Classic so most of them never get seen. They can be fun, artistic shots that don't display well in newspaper format or action photos of golfers who fail to do well in the tournament. Lots of my photos did make it to print - but I thought I'd chose a few of my favorites.

Lights, Camera, . . . . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Sat, 26 May 2012 23:19:00 +0000

a 6-light shoot - my new personal best

The cool tech that goes into making remote strobes work has always impressed me:
Radio transmissions
Potential energy released from the battery
Gases sparked into luminous plasma

Say, "cheese!"

Realizing that it works at all - despite the complicated little parts and the physics that have
to happen so mind-boggling fast - is enlightening.

All Politics Is Local

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:04:00 +0000

Perspective changes the way we see things. Of course, literally, that's true, but earlier this year I was reminded how a shift in someone's vantage point can give them a much different "view" of the world.

Thumbs-up Rick! Right back at ya - I like Diet A&W too!

Two of the pancake cooks look to see what all the hubbub is about

Iowa's caucus kicks off the crusade for the Presidency so candidates descend on the Quad-Cities with national media outlets in-tow. Being at the start of the race means Quad-Citians get multiple visits by every candidate - all of them trying to stand out and be considered a frontrunner. Newspapers, TV networks, international reporters and magazines are all looking for in-depth coverage of the race while trying to figure out which candidate has the Cinderella story, who is the flash-in-the-pan and who has staying power.

By and large it's anybody's race during the early stages and national media coverage is mostly dedicated to getting to know the candidates - their positions on issues, what distinguishes them from their competitors and a lot of digging to find the deeply buried dirty laundry. This year the Republican race dragged on long enough that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum made a second round of campaign stops in the Quad-Cities as the Illinois primary neared.

Despite it's length the Presidential race was still a major news story. Media attention remained as intensive as it had been in January - maybe even more so since there were only two candidates remaining, giving the race a better head-to-head battle narrative than the musical chairs/flavor of the week theme it had previously. By the time Romney and Santorum were back in Moline the race was months-old. Political positions had been established, differences stated, then reiterated a thousand times. The novelty of the candidates was long gone and the politics of the race wasn't the news anymore. For those of us in the Quad-Cities it was a big deal to have the Presidential candidates back - once again drawing the world's eye to our small corner. For Quad-City residents the candidates' presence here, the opportunity it gave them to see the person who would be nominated for President and hear him speak, was a rare opportunity. Not so for those journalists who had been on the campaign trail for months.


A New York Times photographer asked me if the old Fannie May candy store on the corner was "For Real?" He had only ever heard of the Fannie Mae mortgage company and thought the storefront was a practical joke.

I'm not speaking bad about fellow journalists - locally, we know our audience and nationally, they know theirs. That's where I noticed our divergence. I watched reporters and photographers form The New York Times, Associated Press and every cable news station comb through the American Legion post in Moline covering the weekly pancake breakfast like it was a news event - interviewing people about their food and chronicling the nicknacks that sat on shelves. For locals the big news was Mitt Romney's campaign stop, of course. But for everyone else the quaint, quintessentially Midwestern scene was too much to resist. It was news to them. It wasn't news to us - it was ordinary life.

It was interesting to see the national media's perspective change. The race wasn't unique or interesting; the story wasn't changing - there were no new developments. Politics wasn't the news anymore. The Quad-Cities was unique and interesting. We were different. We had something new to offer. We were the news.

Trial Run - Cameras in Court

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Colletti) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:23:00 +0000

My career as a professional photojournalist has been spent working in Illinois but I haven't been in the industry long enough to remember when photographers were allowed inside Illinois courtrooms. So, for me, the ban on cameras in courtrooms fit with other reporting procedures for criminal justice stories: no photos of dead bodies, of sexual assault victims or inside courtrooms. It was the status-quo.

Except for two brief instances covering stories in Davenport the most time I've ever spent in a courtroom was when I talked my way out of a parking ticket 10 years ago. It was far from "Law & Order" but it was intimidating to stand in front of a gallery of people, in front of a judge, and defend myself. Had there been a TV camera trained on the back of my head, or a photographer snapping away as I shifted on my feet, I don't know how I would have felt about it. Of course, nobody is questioning the validity of allowing news coverage inside courtrooms. Maybe that's because we really only want, and need, to be present for newsworthy stories. Distinctions have always been made between routine legal hearings and special cases that have an impact on the community. During the years of the Illinois camera ban newspaper and TV reporters were still sitting in on court proceedings of important cases. The argument for allowing cameras back into courtrooms is really to argue for the value of photojournalism.

But just as newspapers won't print photos of dead bodies and sexual assault victims, they won't insist on no-holds-bared camera coverage when it's clear that someone's safety or rights will be in jeopardy. The Constitutional rights of a free press don't always supersede other rights and the Quad-Cities' news organizations have worked closely with the 14th Circuit Chief Judge to establish a protocol for camera coverage that won't infringe on the rights of whitenesses, defendants or jurors.

All the specifics would eventually have been ironed out, but the entire process was fast-tracked. An ongoing, expanding legal saga with far-reaching public impact was scheduled to have its next chapter written only weeks after the camera ban was lifted.

Even for those who can recall the last time cameras were present for court proceedings today's technology and norms required us to adopt a new approach to courtroom coverage. It's been impressive to see the way local media outlets have collaborated with each other to get this right. The process hasn't been competitive or even cliquey. The radio stations, newspapers and TV affiliates have been working collectively as The Media rather than as independent organizations looking for a way to scoop the competition.

The result of that team effort hasn't just been the well-organized and timely sharing of content, it's strengthened our profile, our mandate and defined our rights as working media inside the courtroom. In the past I and many of my media peers have run into the upset friends and family members of someone we're covering as they walk into the courthouse. Most times they let us know they don't like us being there by telling us so - but altercations have gotten physical. Shooting photos while standing over the shoulders of family members and victims inside the courtroom is a totally different animal. I had concerns that emotions that before would have subsided at the front door of the courthouse might now move inside. That concern and so many other legitimate questions about media rights and procedures inside the courtroom were solved as a result of us working as a collective toward our shared goal.

The nuts & bolts of the work are the same - focus, exposure, moment - but the work is different. I don't want to overstate the matter but getting the first Illinois newspaper images inside a courtroom after decades of being shut out really did put us on the front lines of history. This trial run in the 14th District is certainly an experiment. So far, it's a successful one. This is where and when it happened and if it all falls apart it effects everyone. The procedures developed with the court system here could end up being disregarded or they could become the blueprint for state-wide implementation. So far our efforts and approach are paying off. We have to make this work because we know how important this is.

Me in court on Feb. 2nd. Using a sound-deadening cover is a little awkward, but does help quiet the camera's shutter noise. (Bill Mayeroff photo)