I just got back to our room in the Springfield Hilton after my buddy Matt’s wedding and wanted to share a quick photo… what a great night catching up with old friends and making a couple new friends.
The king-size bed is calling my name, but I’ll post more photos sometime soon.
Congrats, guys…
This is another first… I went to pick up my credential for the Illinois football spring game at Memorial Stadium Saturday afternoon. I walked in the press gate, headed for the table with the credentials and told him I had a credential waiting for Stephen Haas, photographer with the Decatur Herald & Review. The worker searched through the box… searched again and finally pulled this out.
“Here you go,” he said.
I’ve written before about people spelling my name wrong, adding middle initials and various other mistakes, but this is the first time I’ve seen this.
So apparently, I am now Harold from Decatur Photo. Maybe Harold actually gets paid overtime… I’ll have to look into that.
I’ll have to yell at Harold, though. He sent a couple dozen photos to all of our papers from the game under my name and misspelled “Saturday” as “Saturay” - what a bastard.
Sorry for the lack of posting… my brain has not been in blog mode lately.
My email account was hacked this morning, so I apologize to all. It looks like I sent a message to everyone in my address book about buying electronics and living a better life. Ugh.
Days like this make me want to go back to telegrams instead of twitter and pen-pals instead of Facebook friends. And that just made me sound like a grumpy old man…
I have updates on the way, but I have to finish locking down my computer for a while.
You may remember that I started my photoblog, Memories in Megapixels, a while ago. Like most of my ADD-inspired projects I was really into it for about 37 seconds and then I let it sit and collect dust on the internet for almost a year.
Josh convinced me (and a few other people) to start posting a photo a day last month. I post random things that I see throughout the day while I’m out and about on assignment for work. I’ve been mentally bogged down for the past couple months and haven’t really felt like pouring my caffeine-laced thoughts into this blog, so it’s been fun to still post small things every night.
I’ve really enjoyed seeing what other people are photographing… check out the links below. If you read this and you take pictures (ahem - Danny, Eric, etc.), you should start doing this as well and send me a link.
Here are some of the people Josh or I have turned into daily bloggers.
Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.
For those that haven’t heard, the parent company of the Rocky Mountain News announced yesterday that today would be the final issue of the paper. The newspaper has been printing since before Colorado was even a state…
There were only a couple newspapers that I would consider moving my family for the chance to work there and the RMN was one of them. They had one of the best photo staffs in the country at a fantastic newspaper in a beautiful city.
My heart goes out to the staff there. Layoffs are one thing… but I can’t imagine what it feels like to watch the paper that you’ve been a part of be shut down. Some of the reporters and editors were posting their thoughts to the RMN_Newsroom twitter page throughout the day’s happenings.
Sad. I’d like to think that it couldn’t happen to me at the paper I work for, but I guess I can’t really be too sure.
The video above was put together by the staff at the RMN, I fought back tears through the whole thing… Please take the time to watch it.
I’ve posted some other RMN-related links below.
(Note to self: finish working on your newspaper escape plan.)
I shot a regional girls basketball tournament game down in Teutopolis, Ill., Wednesday night. The light was great… nice and bright, which is a relative term when talking about a gym. For the photo nerds, I was shooting ISO 2500, 1/500 @ f/2.8 for game action.
Nothing real special about the gym… standard fluorescent light banks. I am slightly confused by the configuration of the lights, though. I can honestly say I have never seen lights set up in such a random pattern.
Weird. I’ve been wanting to put a new light above our kitchen table… maybe I’ll just slap a few up like this.
10,000 Words, one of my favorite journalism blogs, has a nice collection of valentines made specifically for journalists. I think it’s safe to say these made my day.
This is my personal favorite, but there are some other good ones at the site.
If you are in the news biz or you love someone who is, go check it out and send some journalism love.
I was in Springfield yesterday to cover the impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. I showed up around 8:15 to get my stuff situated and get my credentials for the Senate gallery. For anyone who doesn’t know, the gallery is the second floor balcony… not a bad view, but it gets limiting with the amount of cameras and people up there. I was smashed in between a pair of tripods for network video cameras and the iron railing. Once I sat down I was stuck there until there was a break.
Apparently I could have had a press box credential so I could shoot stuff from the floor, but there is a dress code that requires tie and jacket. That would have been nice to know before I came in my standard work wear — jeans, dress shoes and a polo shirt. Oh well… now I know.
I took my spot in the gallery and waited.
The day started with closing arguments from the House prosecutor, David Ellis.
Several people sat in the gallery to watch the day’s events…
I liked watching some of the reactions on the Senate floor that I could see from my spot…
Gov. Blagojevich followed with his own closing remarks… an hour-long unprepared speech with a few notes scribbled out on plain paper. I realized in the middle of his speech that I haven’t photographed him at all during his time in office. Weird.
The Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice, Thomas Fitzgerald, listened from his seat during Blagojevich’s closing remarks.
I watched him as he left the room and smiled when he turned around to wave at someone over on the Democratic side of the Senate floor. I’m still curious if he waved at someone in particular or just to the democrats in general. Heck, for all I know he could have been waving at the lamp on the wall… Come on, would it really surprise you if it was true?
After closing remarks the Senate took a break. I hear they like to do that. Media crews swarmed any lawmaker that would talk on the way out…
I tried to transmit some photos during the lunch break but my computer wasn’t cooperating at all. Surprise surprise. I only got a few sent before things started back up. I quickly got back in my spot just in time for the senators to request another hour-long recess. Sweet. More editing time.
The big networks all had their stuff set up in various locations in and out of the Capitol Building. I liked the empty feeling in front of the governor’s office.
I sat in the Senate gallery for a little while after the recess and listened to some of the senators talk before casting their vote. Each senator was given five minutes, and if there’s one thing I learned yesterday — lawmakers will take every minute of speaking they are allowed. The view from the gallery is mostly the backs of the politician’s heads, so most of the photographers wer reading or playing games on their iphones. It looked kind of funny.
Word started to spread that people were setting up in the House gallery for the swearing-in ceremony for Lt. Gov. Quinn if Blagojevich was impeached. I went over to get credentials for that and was told I had to go to the Secretary of State Security office and fill out some paperwork and get a yellow card before I could get the House pass.
I thought it was interesting I could be in the same room as the Governor, Chief Justice and all the state senators without any forms but I couldn’t be in the House? Oh well. I learned there is a pretty big system of tunnels that go underneath the Capitol Building and take you to different buildings in the capitol complex. After walking down the longest tunnel known to man I got to the office I needed and realized I left my wallet in my computer bag back in the press room at the Capitol. Ugh. Hiked back and returned to find out my paperwork hadn’t come through yet… some problem with the fax machine.
I waited and waited and finally got the clearance I needed. Sweet.
I got back to the Capitol and saw that the senators were still talking and hadn’t voted. Picked up my House pass. Still no vote. Got a drink of water. Still no vote.
My time was running short… I still had to drive back to Decatur and shoot a couple basketball games. I was getting ready to call it a day when I heard there was some commotion over around the Lt. Governor’s office. I camped out there for a while. Saw the treasurer come in and out a few times…
I was one of two photographers that started the crowd in front of the office. The video crews scrambled over a few minutes later and made the crowd a little crazy. I kneeled down to try to be nice to them… the treasurer came out and I got pushed forward and ended up in a spot where my face was approximately four inches from his groin. He seems like a nice enough guy, but I hope that I never get any closer to him. No offense, Alexi.
One of Lt. Gov. Quinn’s nieces seemed to be pretty interested in all of the commotion outside of the office.
And then Jesse White, the Secretary of State, came out and answered some questions. And I’m pretty sure that the TV reporter on the right is not Sarah Palin. I heard her talk and there was no discussion of killing moose or drilling for oil.
We kept waiting and waiting for Patrick Quinn to come out and then were told he already left through a back hallway. Frustrating.
And that ended my day at the capitol. I barely made it for the fourth quarter of one of my games back in Decatur. The paper only used one photo from the whole day because all of the good stuff happened afterwards.
I’m still frustrated by the whole thing, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Oh well… I learned quite a bit about politics, working at the Capitol and that I need to get a suit jacket.
I usually don’t turn my camera off when I’m done shooting… just in case something would happen in front of me I like being able to just start working and not fumble with the power switch. The startup time, which is admittedly still pretty fast, takes longer than coming back from standby.
The other night I was driving back from a basketball game and went over a couple sets of tracks at a railroad crossing. I must have gone over a little harder or faster than normal, because it bumped my camera just enough to reposition itself and sit right on the shutter button. I now have 154 photos of the side of my camera bag… thought it was kind of funny.
Well, this is new.
I have had my name misspelled a few different ways in newspapers (yes, even my own). The usual Steven instead of Stephen, Hass instead of Haas, Steve and a few other variations. There have been photos of mine that run with somebody else’s name underneath.
I’m pretty sure I have never had my name merged with my boss, who captions his photos as Kelly J. Huff.
Hopefully Stephen J. Haas is as popular with the ladies as Stephen Haas.
I'm Stephen. I'm pretty awesome. I have ADD. I'm addicted to caffeine. I could live on chips and salsa. I have incredible friends. I am madly in love with my wife. That's about it...
