I just found out that a photo story I did when I was back at the Daily News-Record won second place in the NPPA National Clip Contest. SWEET!

The essay was a collection of photos of items that the local firefighters had recovered from fire scenes. I posted the essay on this site a few months back. (See BURNED)

I first thought about doing the essay a couple of years ago while shooting a fire safety display at the local mall. The Harrisonburg Fire Department was putting their yearly event and they always display items recovered from fires. I could not help but notice how much many of the items looked like modern art. It was weird to see items from tragic circumstances in this way. I thought that photographing them as art may entice people to spend more time looking at them and in turn think more about what happens when people are not careful and safety conscience.

Although it may have been my idea, my wife, Jenny, was kind enough to remind me that she was the one who motivated me to get off my ass and actually shoot the damn thing. As usual she was right.

The other winners from November 2009 can be found on the NPPA website (click here).

Images from my golf archive are available as gallery quality prints. These images are from the PGA Tour between 1986-1999. Golf legends such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Larry Mize, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods as well as many more are available. Search my archive for more famous players.

While walking around downtown looking for a feature photo today I came across this page from our paper with my photo on it laying in the street near the melting snow. So much about this scene seemed fitting for this post.

It may seem strange to voluntarily leave my job as director of photography at a newspaper for a freelance career, especially in this economy, but I feel the time has come to move on to be able to work on personal projects.

My wife, Jenny, and I have been talking about this for some time now and we had decided that the best course of action was for her to find a job that she liked and that would challenge her in the Washington D.C. area, and then I would be able to freelance. We would rely on her employment for our benefits.

Jenny was offered a job at the American Society of Civil Engineers in Reston, Va. and she accepted it on Friday. We will be relocated at the end of the month.

I will always have a special place in my heart for the days of working for a newspaper, but the way the industry is changing these days, it is just not what it was in the past. Budget cuts, cuts in the news hole, and what seems to me to be a general disconnect from what the reader wants in their paper has made the work environment much different from what it was not too long ago.

Probably ninety percent of what I know as a photojournalist I learned on the job while working as a newspaper photographer. I always loved that every day would bring something different. I have met hundreds of great and interesting people and have been witness to some very cool event as well as some very tragic ones.

Hopefully the move will be a fruitful one for both of us.